18th
Feb 2022
A leading Welsh politician demands rent controls must be introduced across Wales and says rent controls will “make landlordism less financially attractive.”
The Welsh nationalist party Plaid Cymru is pressuring the Welsh government by bringing in a motion to introduce rent controls on private landlords throughout Wales as soon as possible.
Rent control is already tabled to be implemented as in a policy agreement between Welsh Labour and Plaid Cymru.
The member of the Welsh Parliament responsible for the motion, Carolyn Thomas, has written a piece in The National newspaper: “I have long supported rent controls and I will back any move which seeks to address the poverty caused by unreasonable rent increases.”
She continues: “in my view, rent controls are essential. They help to protect tenants from poverty by capping housing costs, and they make landlordism less financially attractive - which helps to take some of the heat off the housing market.
“Rent controls also cuts the benefit bill in the huge amount of housing benefit and Universal Credit which is handed out to landlords each week.”
Thomas strongly criticises the Welsh government as she cites the SNP’s (along with help from the Greens) implementing its own version of rent controls in Scotland and says that lessons can be learnt and adapted in the country.
She outlines the four key lessons:
“Only a national system will work. That system may allow for regional variations in levels, but trying to establish whether some areas need controls more than others against an arbitrary standard serves only to thwart the intention of the controls;
"Bureaucratic hurdles must be minimised. Procedural hoops required to implement controls will only delay action and therefore increase costs to the taxpayer;
"Restricting the impact of controls to existing tenants simply incentivises landlords to increase turnover by refusing to renew tenancies or increasing evictions. Controls must be placed on the property, not on the contract with each tenant;
"Basing controls on the rate of inflation is a mistake – there is no meaningful link between inflation and either house prices or rent levels. Setting controls on this basis allows the largest rent hike when people can least afford it, during a time when the cost of living rises.”
Thomas ends the article by saying:: “Rent controls should be designed to protect tenants first and foremost, and as a longer term aim, it should discourage landlordism.
“This will reduce the number of landlords looking to buy houses to let, increasing the number who are looking to sell.
“This will in turn deflate the housing market, allowing former tenants to buy their own homes, and the expansion of social house building will continue to ensure a home for those who do not wish to buy or who remain unable to.
“A system of rent controls should also not shy away from mandatory rent decreases where necessary. Rent controls are a sensible and necessary step for Wales to take in our fight to fix the housing system.”
Richard Merrick of PIMS, says: “If only politicians would ‘wake up and smell the coffee’ when it comes to the rent controls, the UK is in one of its worst housing crisis that can be remembered and this will only further exacerbate this calamitous issue brought about by successive governments’ failure in providing sufficient housing developments.
“ As her aim is to drastically ‘encourage’ landlords to sell up thereby increasing availability of housing stock for ‘general public consumption’ which with inflation, ridiculously high energy and ever upward cost of living and rising house prices, means a large majority of tenants will not be able to afford to get on the housing ladder.
“One thing she must be congratulated on is highlighting the term ‘landlordism’ which is almost feudal in nature and so far from the truth.”
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