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TODAY'S OTHER NEWS

Labour calls for rent payments to be scrapped for three months

Labour is urging the government to permit private tenants who are struggling to pay their rent due to the coronavirus epidemic to be exempt from paying their landlord for three months.

Many renters are being “driven to destitution” by the existing situation, according to outgoing shadow chancellor John McDonnell. 

Plans announced earlier this month by the government mean landlords cannot start proceedings to evict tenants for at least a three-month period in a bid to ensure renters do not worry about the threat of losing their home.

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However, McDonnell is urging the government to step in to help tenants who are struggling by completely exempting them from paying rent over the next three months.

A report compiled by the Labour MP states: “Where necessary rent payments should be suspended for a three-month period to enable people to feed themselves and their loved ones, and to avoid driving people into destitution,” the report says.

“At a time of widespread job losses and wage cuts of at least 20%, it is not unreasonable for landlords, many benefiting from a mortgage holiday, to prepare for small declines in their regular income."

Shadow housing minister John Healey is also urging the government to do more to help renters across the country. 

He said: “Coronavirus is a public health emergency. It need not become a crisis of housing and homelessness too. But this will happen if the government continues to refuse to take the most basic steps to keep people in their homes.”

 

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  • jeremy clarke

    Usual crap from the red corner. Gov has gone out of it's way to ensure that incomes are replaced wherever possible. Everyone is at home which must be reducing outgoings such as petrol, meals out, internet shopping and travel costs. Just because takeaways are available doesn't mean you have to keep having them. We just need to budget better and carry on.

  • David Lester

    It is idiots like him that make Labour unelectable!

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    Correct

    The next one in the door will likely follow a similar model

    Unelectable

     
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    As I rely on rental income (to supplement my basic state pension) this would mean that a 75-year old pensioner could not afford food or heating. Red idiots!

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    So solicitors and accountants will be offering their services for free for 3 months ?? What ever the loony left comes out with is nothing other than a joke, laugh at them, totally unelectable there will not be another labour government in my life time, and what happens when I'm gone is no concern of mine.

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    They might dig you up and go through your pockets! Nothing would surprise me with that loony party just now and as a miner's son it pains me to say that.

     
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    Yet again the idiotic red party leave me speechless!!! If the employed are getting 80% of normal salary and the lucky peeps on benefits getting what they usually get, sorry it is the self-employed landlord who need the most help. We are NOT all multi-millionaires unlike labour politicians with their double standards. Most landlords will be reasonable with their tenants BUT some tenants will milk the system and when all us small landlords sell up where will everyone live? The councils are still not interested in building homes for most people to live in and with more and more ludicrous laws and regulations invented daily most of us are only just hanging in there. Treat everyone fairly as we are ALL hurting!

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    Labour's proposal is perfectly fine - as long as they include proposals to compensate landlords for the potentially crippling loss of income.

    Otherwise they are saying that we should essentially act as an ersatz welfare state at our own expense through no fault of our own, purely because we happen to have one or more tenants who have lost their job and income.

    But surely that is precisely what the welfare state is there for in the first place!!!

    So essentially they are saying that the welfare state has failed and a certain group of private citizens should be forced to pay instead, regardless of whether or not they can afford to do so.

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    This term "mortgage holiday" is a real misnomer and fails to explain the reality if one chooses to take it. The comment above about people not spending as much as they are not travelling, socialising, non-food shopping, etc. is a good one. It means that people are in effect forced to not spend as much of their "disposable income". Notwithstanding those self-employed/those who have endured pay cuts such as my tenant who I've agreed a rent reduction for 3 months which he will make up.

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    Mr John McDonnell the red tie looks very well on you, please advise what Properties you own and it would be nice to know how many you supply to Tenants for free ?, if you don't provide any property not alone even rent property to house anyone, then you are a disgrace just another one sitting on the fence knocking LL's who devoted their lives to house people. Why not resign, you are not fit for Parliament, it would be better than stepping aside as Shadow to made way for Mr John Healey although I don't expect him to to be any better maybe he can supply some free property of his own back.

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    When MP's stop taking their salary and expenses for 3 months, then this option would be up for debate!!

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    Agreed, lead by example, or is it a case, as always, do as I say not as I do.

     
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    And bankrupt the majority of Landlords who are small 'accidental landlords'.
    The perfect way to crash the market and put the economy further in the red.

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    National debt Clock ticking going up at an alarming rate, take a look £5'170. per second. National debt £2.3 Trillion,
    The Chancellor is asleep at the wheel.

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    • 30 March 2020 23:46 PM

    More than ever before Govt needs to ensure that private LL remain invested in the PRS.
    It needs the capital of private citizens to be utilised to invest in rental property.

    It is only such private capital that has housed the millions of people that Govt should be housing.
    LL would do better to deleverage and have far fewer rental properties to become more resilient.

    LL will become even more a tax cow.

    Govt haven't finished with taxing LL.
    The pips have yet to squeak.
    There will be a lot more taxing to come.


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    This is ridiculous.

    The government are paying people 80% of their salaries so why should they be exempt from paying rent? What are we supposed to live off?

    Is this a free society or not? How the hell can government have the right to tell a private property owner whether he can or cannot have the income from his asset? Is this a joke?

    Do these labour MPs have brains? If so, do they function properly? It makes me so annoyed when I think about it. What this John Mc-Stalin is saying is, 'we as a government are totally incompetent, we've wasted money on useless projects during our time in power, and now we're in huge debt because we cannot manage things properly. As a consequence, we're going to dictate to you and force our will that you must subsidize our mess because we'd didn't plan for any contingency''.

    These kind of politics lead to the destruction of a free society. What incentive is there for us to invest, renovate, do things 1000 times more efficiently than councils (to the benefit of this country) only to be told, we're going to be repossessed whenever, even if you put your life savings into the house, they will tell us what we can or cannot charge.

    I'm personally not a greedy man. I'll go out of my way to give my tenants the best living conditions, however I cannot do that for free. Still, I'm all for pulling together in these tough times and I will compromise with those that are struggling. However, in a country where housing benefit exists and governments bail out the people in times of need, there's absolutely no reason rent shouldn't be paid. Please go after the ones that destroy this economy, fat cat bankers, tax exile guys, ultra rich parasites that destroyed manufacturing in this country to get access to cheap products from one of the worst regimes on planet earth. Go after them, they created all these messes, not the landlords trying to provide your people with precious housing which is already low in stock!!

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    Well said Dani.
    You have hit it dead right and said exactly how it is.
    I fear a lot of us good fair LL will not continue after the coronavirus crisis and the government for decades will not have money to build social housing for people so where exactly will people live? Yep with the rogue landlords of which there are still plenty in existence even with new strict regulations that come out almost daily.
    Luckily though the loony red labour party yet again are showing how useless they are and demonstrating how they should NEVER be in charge of the country.

     
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