'Home is where one starts from' T.S Elliot

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By: Madalena Penny,
“Legal 4 Landlords”

T.S. Elliot may not have been a landlord, a government housing minister or a property investor, but he understood the fundamental value of the security a home provides to its occupants.

Combining philosophy with the lettings industry may seem an odd mix, but as the current trends evidently express, the private rented sector has taken up the slack, providing house and home to those who have been let down by social housing and home-ownership.

The industrial and consumer world we now live in is based on a method of demand and supply.  In no other industry is the importance greater, than supplying home and shelter.  Without it we cannot class ourselves as a civilised nation.  Our aspirations as Brits has always been an overwhelming progression to home-ownership, seen as a rite of passage into independent adult-hood coupled with a sense of identity and achievement.  For many first time buyers now, home-ownership is a distant hope.  As a result of this shift, more and more people are turning to the private rented sector in search of affordable available housing.

What data and statistics sometimes fails to express, is that landlords don’t simply let properties to tenants, they offer people a home, a place of security, when other housing avenues have been closed to them.  An amazing two thirds of households established in 2009 were able to because of the PRS. Unlike its social sector cousins, the private rented sector does not receive on-going grants for repairs and maintenance and private landlords are responsible for their own investments, tenants and mortgage lending.  Like many other business’s, letting a property has its negative points and landlords can face rent arrears, damage and even abuse.  Control is driven by government legislation.

For a sector that has created a further 1.1 million households in the last ten years and offers security to 14.2% of all households in England alone, standing above other British industries with a value of £500bn, some reflection and reconsideration of current and impending legislation from the government would offer the PRS and the tenants it provides for, a little more respect and recognition.