dia de muertos and the unmourned death of the small buy-to-let landlord

it’s a misty blue morning - horsemouth stayed in last night - the spirits of the departed besieged the building (and let off the odd firework). horsemouth (with his blinds drawn) missed the visits of the ghost children. later (perhaps) a visit to a cemetery.

lord eccles’ on collecting goes well, he gives good advice on book collecting, or indeed of starting and maintaining a collection of any sort, he advises a one-in-one-out strategy, of setting out a fixed sum to fund acquisitions that must be replenished by selling some lesser valued items in the collection. lord eccles is in spain in the 30ies - ecclesiastics, with an eye on the troubles endured and the troubles coming, are selling off their treasures. madonnas are smuggled out of convents in the coffins that accompany the sick to the hospital.

horsemouth has said he wished the government would inflict the 1 % rent cut for the next four years equally as they do on social landlords as they do on private landlords. but they may have in fact done something harsher by removing large chunks of the tax relief on mortgage interest payments for buy-to-let landlords (and removing the 10% wear and tear write down they are allowed on rental incomes whether or not they do any repairs or not).

of course the most likely result of this will be rent rises for the existing tenants, or owners ‘improving’ properties and then letting them out at higher rents, or smaller buy-to-let landlords selling up (to bigger buy to let landlords most likely). outside of london (where there is still plenty of housing stock) charging tenants more will be difficult as tenants can move to such cheaper property as still exists. in london it will further drive out the poor and have a disproportionate effect because fully 1/4 of the lending is for buy to let properties and fully 1/3rd of private rental properties are on buy-to-let mortgages. the national landlords association thinks tenants will pay an extra 2.6 billion in rent - about 70 pounds a month more on average rents (so more again in london).

it may (however) bring more properties to market and in classic government fashion there may be more rule changes to come round ‘incidental’ buy to let landlords - of course none of this bites fully until 2020. but the ‘direction of travel’ is clear. 

2020 - this seems to be becoming a bit of a crunch date.