Landlords Suffer Double Rental Arrears In 2010

It does not come as a big shock to anyone to find that landlords are suffering through a terrible period of rental arrears at the moment. With unemployment on the rise and people having real financial difficulties rental arrears have more than doubled over the past 12 months.

As I think I have said before, landlords in the UK have a real image problem. I would like to use an example to illustrate. Say there was a huge car company that ceased paying its employers their wages. Where do you think all the sympathy would be directed? Towards the poor people being robbed of their income I would hazard a guess. And yet when a landlord’s income, on which they rely, is suddenly stopped the sympathy is usually directed at the person who has stopped paying.

I am not saying I have no understanding for the tenants who are good payers who have something go wrong in their lives I am just making the point that landlords do it tough when their living is stopped too. The reason I choose to make this point now is because I think a lot of the things that are happening to landlords can be traced back to this image problem.

Things such as a huge hike in CGT is seen by the public as mainly affecting professional property investors and why should they care about them. The politicians have a free pass to do as they please as public perception is that landlords are a group of rich fat cats.

If only it were true.