Image of UK Buy to Let Landlords Improves

An article recently published by The Times suggests that more and more British landlords become socially aware and, thus, improve their own image among tenants. Let us remind that the image of landlords was first blackened by landlord Peter Rachman in 1950’s. Mr. Rachman was known as a property investor who violently treated those of his tenants, who complained about landlord’s London properties. His actions led to emergence of a new term – Rachmanism – meaning “being a bad landlord”. Later, Rachmanism among UK landlords was replaced by greed of buy to let investors who purchased a lot of properties, thus contributing to house price rises, and setting up high rent rates. Moreover, such greedy landlords were characterised by absolute reluctance to maintain and/or repair buy to let properties that they owned. During the 10 years of greedy landlords’ reign, tenants oftentimes faced retention of deposits despite the introduction of the Deposit Protection Scheme by the UK Government. The economic downturn, however, had its bright side as these greedy landlords left the UK buy to let market when the value of their buy to let properties fell by as much as 30%. The exit of bad landlords from the UK rental market made way for socially aware landlords. As institutional property funds made investments into high-quality residential properties that tenants are willing to rent, UK landlords realised that in order to compete they need to provide tenants with even better conditions for rent. Competition from institutional funds also made new landlords arriving on the UK rental property market offer exceptional service. All these factors contributed to improvements in the image of UK landlords, who are now considered to be socially aware, meaning that they provide their tenants with affordable accommodation and high-quality customer service.