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Ensuring We Are Heard

Ensuring We Are Heard

On one side, we have the  press, most politicians and much of the general public who perceive landlords as greedy, unscrupulous rogues who have single handedly created the housing crisis, made thousands homeless and only houses in the PRS suffer from damp, mould or condensation.

On the other, the average landlord has struggled to build enough of a pension pot upon which to retire so has taken matters into his or her own hands and created a small business providing a needed service within the local community, which helps keep many other local trades and services in business while regenerating many of our older properties and bringing them up to modern standards.

How can these two views have diverged so completely?  Part of the problem is that our voice is not heard so in this new newsletter item  each month, we will highlight those areas where you can help to close the gap and correct some of the misconceptions we struggle with. This month we start with the Section 24 debate, a request from Havant and a request from a student at Portsmouth University - do please get involved and help us close the gap / cross the chasm...

At the AGM, Dave Heard talked about the billboard campaign he is running with Proprty118 across the country - he aims to raise £10,000 and have billboards

Bournemouth Board 2

nationwide. So far he has raised enough for billboards in Portsmouth, Southampton, Coventry, Bournemouth, Wareham and Poole and the PDPLA has so far donated £500 towards this. 

If you are affected and want to know how to get involved, go to section24.info and find out how.  If you don't know whether or how you are affected by the Section 24 change, do read the previous link or use the PDPLA calculator to understand what impact it will have on you - find it here

Sharon Oakey from Havant District Council has asked us if there is anything they can do to persuade landlords to take tenants form their list, usually on benefits. We have already told her that various aspects of Government policy are the main issues, along with Local Authorities encouraging undesirable tenants to sit it out when we want repossession. However as we know they are desperate and have proposed some incentives. She would like to know which might work. If any of these ideas would encourage you to offer a vacant property to their clients in the future please let us know. We would be interested to hear from any Landlord not just those with property in Havant.
• financial incentives i.e. a sign up bonus at start and each time a tenancy is renewed
• covering a landlords insurance etc
• offering professional house cleaning, decorating, gardening on a tenants exit
• tenants working with professional tenancy support etc.
• Any other form of incentive, please make suggestions but they should be restricted to actions it is within the power of the LOCAL Authority to carry out.

As an organisation, we are answering this one on behalf of our members but don't let that stop you from either going direct or providing input - the fact that local authorities can be hard to deal with and national policies sometimes make it unappealing to do so cannot be stated too often, so feel free to get involved.  

And finally, just a reminder to student landlords that if you want a better interface with the University than you have today, you need to contact Jackson and let him know. If you missed the earlier email with his details or have input or suggestions on any of these items, let us know at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.