The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors has urged the Scottish Government to apply caution to its proposed rent reforms.
The Government has already made it clear that it will go ahead with abolishing the ‘no fault’ ground for repossession in new legislation this autumn. It is currently consulting on rent controls.
The portal Citylets released figures showing that around a third of landlords would quit the industry or reduce their portfolios if they cannot get their properties back at the end of a tenancy, and about 40% would take similar action if rent controls come in.
Sarah Speirs, director at RICS Scotland, said both moves should be “approached with caution”.
She said: “Rents must be free to follow the market. Removing the automatic right of landlords to end tenancies at their end date is likely to prove a barrier to new investment in the sector and could result in smaller landlords leaving the market, at a time when supply is critically low.”
Comments (2)
If we don’t stand up to this SNP/Shelter lead anti landlord agenda there won’t be a future for the honest and responsible landlord, they’ll simple sell up and invest in a less regulated market … England!
Ed Milibands resignation obviously puts pay to the somewhat confident and excessive lobbying of parliament in England by Shelter so one has to suspect we will see a more active lobbying of SNP in Scotland. It seems to me now would be a very good time to have a root to leaves look at the PRS, clear out the dead wood and work out a cohesive system that works for both landlords and tenants.
The industry has suffered at the hands of manipulated statistics, political agendas and poor understanding of the economics and practical issues of the sector, that has to stop and there is less than 4 years to apply meaningful long term change so that it can be seen to be working ahead of the next election.
Rent controls won’t work but they are a fix to a problem caused by an ill informed change in legislation to ban tenant fees, A cycle of knock on legislation has started and that is just madness. White sheet the actual problems, work out the causes, the stakeholder sand their respective interests and motivations and build a cohesive solution. Piecemeal messing about isn’t really an option.