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Hardening eviction rules is economic suicide. The problem with unsuitable housing is a side-effect of lack of supply. If you make it harder to evict, you make

Hardening eviction rules is economic suicide. The problem with unsuitable housing is a side-effect of lack of supply. If you make it harder to evict, you make it harder to foreclose, make it harder to buy houses (because landlords can only sell to other landlords)...it is very bad news. This happened almost immediately after Scotland brought in their rules...because politicians there have been blocking new builds for decades (and favouring social housing so people are more dependent on the state). What is amazing is that this stuff happens, you see the complete failure of a set of economic ideas, and then the next day you have people suggesting the exact same thing...and people wonder why Britain is in the state it is in? The country's elite have vigorous support for ideas that are economically damaging, the voters love it, the journos love it, the lobbyists love it...not surprising.

mmarq 4y ago
> Hardening eviction rules is economic suicide. No, it isn’t. The current state of affairs in England (even Scotland and Wales have different regulations) only causes misery and an immense waste of resources on housing. Or do you think Germans or Frenchmen spend 3 months a year doing house viewings? Nowhere in the civilised world you can evict a family that doesn’t have rent arrears and nowhere in the civilised world you have a homelessness problem comparable to the English (maybe San Francisco being the exception).
- skippyboxedhero 4y ago
  The reason you spend that time is because of the rules. Actually, the homeless rate in Edinburgh (which actually has an eviction ban and, even, rent controls now) is 3x the rate of SF...the reason why is that most of the rental market disappeared because eviction control meant that landlords could only sell properties at the end of rental periods (and when these came up in September, they all just removed properties from the market because house prices are going to be lower next September). The law of unintended consequences. The govt tried to take control, and it has made the problem significantly worse. This is the economic problem that the UK faces in a nutshell: voters want things that are economically damaging (the situation with housing is probably 10x Brexit), they don't understand why they are damaging, and when the damage comes they blame someone else (and btw, the most amazing thing is that if you look at a city like Edinburgh...the people are VOTING for the people who are promising not to build any housing WHILST they are complaining about a lack of housing...it is the kind of thing that makes you realise that people are getting what they are asked for).
  - sega_sai 4y ago
    "is 3x the rate of SF" -- citation needed. I live in Edinburgh and have been in SF and very much struggle to believe it.
    - skippyboxedhero 4y ago
      You need to find the data yourself. There is no public source that makes this comparison. I have lived in Edinburgh for two decades btw. Most people who work here have absolutely no idea how many homeless people live there (it has been in the thousands for years) because almost none of these people live on the street or have substance abuse problems (and Edinburgh has very effective segregation so the wealthy don't have to see the poor or their problems). They are just normal people who have been evicted for whatever reason, and have nowhere to live because the city doesn't have enough housing. So they get put into hotels or B&Bs (but, because of the refugee situation, these have largely been exhausted now too...I remember a few years ago when they were trying to house Syrians, the council said...literally no room, we are overloaded beyond belief...since then refugees worth about 2-4% of the population came...the council has been telling poor people they have to leave now, go to England, go to the Highlands, they don't care, just leave...people who have been paying rates for decades). Last year (i.e. before the latest crisis got very severe) there were 20 thousand people on the council's waiting list...this is in a city of 400k people (and, obviously, significantly less households). The numbers are absolutely staggering and, again, people who live in Edinburgh have no idea because most people who work there have no contact whatsoever with "locals". They vote for brownfield-only building, they love the Cockburn Association intervening on every planning decision, they vote for the green belt, etc.
      - sega_sai 4y ago
        I'm sorry but I call BS on this. You claimed a specific figure 3x. I'm not claiming things are particularly great in Edinburgh, but people on the council's waiting list are not necessarily homeless.
        skippyboxedhero 4y ago
- mytailorisrich 4y ago
  No-one evicts a good, rent paying tenant in England. Issue #1 is that the supply does not keep up with demand so rents keep going up. Issue #2 is that tenants don't know the law.
  - mmarq 4y ago
    If somebody can be evicted with a 2 month notice, are they going to complain about the lack of repairs? The answer is in the abysmal quality of the English housing stock. I mean, would you risk making your child homeless when the law says you are right but there’s nothing you can do to enforce it? I’ve rented in London for 12 years and I wouldn’t wish that experience on a serial killer. In Italy or Germany, not even people on the dole live as bad as a private tenant in the UK, regardless of their income. (Thankfully the company I used to work for completed its IPO 3 years ago and now I can live like a normal person).
  - Jochim 4y ago
    Knowing the law is useless when the law doesn't protect you. As a student my landlord wanted to do electrical work that required me and my partner to vacate the property. The law states that he has a duty to provide alternative accommodation. We brought this up and the response was simply that we'd be evicted instead. Fuck private landlords. They can go do actual work for a living instead of leeching off of society.

mmarq 4y ago

> Hardening eviction rules is economic suicide. No, it isn’t. The current state of affairs in England (even Scotland and Wales have different regulations) only causes misery and an immense waste of resources on housing. Or do you think Germans or Frenchmen spend 3 months a year doing house viewings? Nowhere in the civilised world you can evict a family that doesn’t have rent arrears and nowhere in the civilised world you have a homelessness problem comparable to the English (maybe San Francisco being the exception).

skippyboxedhero 4y ago
The reason you spend that time is because of the rules. Actually, the homeless rate in Edinburgh (which actually has an eviction ban and, even, rent controls now) is 3x the rate of SF...the reason why is that most of the rental market disappeared because eviction control meant that landlords could only sell properties at the end of rental periods (and when these came up in September, they all just removed properties from the market because house prices are going to be lower next September). The law of unintended consequences. The govt tried to take control, and it has made the problem significantly worse. This is the economic problem that the UK faces in a nutshell: voters want things that are economically damaging (the situation with housing is probably 10x Brexit), they don't understand why they are damaging, and when the damage comes they blame someone else (and btw, the most amazing thing is that if you look at a city like Edinburgh...the people are VOTING for the people who are promising not to build any housing WHILST they are complaining about a lack of housing...it is the kind of thing that makes you realise that people are getting what they are asked for).
- sega_sai 4y ago
  "is 3x the rate of SF" -- citation needed. I live in Edinburgh and have been in SF and very much struggle to believe it.
  - skippyboxedhero 4y ago
    You need to find the data yourself. There is no public source that makes this comparison. I have lived in Edinburgh for two decades btw. Most people who work here have absolutely no idea how many homeless people live there (it has been in the thousands for years) because almost none of these people live on the street or have substance abuse problems (and Edinburgh has very effective segregation so the wealthy don't have to see the poor or their problems). They are just normal people who have been evicted for whatever reason, and have nowhere to live because the city doesn't have enough housing. So they get put into hotels or B&Bs (but, because of the refugee situation, these have largely been exhausted now too...I remember a few years ago when they were trying to house Syrians, the council said...literally no room, we are overloaded beyond belief...since then refugees worth about 2-4% of the population came...the council has been telling poor people they have to leave now, go to England, go to the Highlands, they don't care, just leave...people who have been paying rates for decades). Last year (i.e. before the latest crisis got very severe) there were 20 thousand people on the council's waiting list...this is in a city of 400k people (and, obviously, significantly less households). The numbers are absolutely staggering and, again, people who live in Edinburgh have no idea because most people who work there have no contact whatsoever with "locals". They vote for brownfield-only building, they love the Cockburn Association intervening on every planning decision, they vote for the green belt, etc.
    - sega_sai 4y ago
      I'm sorry but I call BS on this. You claimed a specific figure 3x. I'm not claiming things are particularly great in Edinburgh, but people on the council's waiting list are not necessarily homeless.
      - skippyboxedhero 4y ago
mytailorisrich 4y ago
No-one evicts a good, rent paying tenant in England. Issue #1 is that the supply does not keep up with demand so rents keep going up. Issue #2 is that tenants don't know the law.
- mmarq 4y ago
  If somebody can be evicted with a 2 month notice, are they going to complain about the lack of repairs? The answer is in the abysmal quality of the English housing stock. I mean, would you risk making your child homeless when the law says you are right but there’s nothing you can do to enforce it? I’ve rented in London for 12 years and I wouldn’t wish that experience on a serial killer. In Italy or Germany, not even people on the dole live as bad as a private tenant in the UK, regardless of their income. (Thankfully the company I used to work for completed its IPO 3 years ago and now I can live like a normal person).
- Jochim 4y ago
  Knowing the law is useless when the law doesn't protect you. As a student my landlord wanted to do electrical work that required me and my partner to vacate the property. The law states that he has a duty to provide alternative accommodation. We brought this up and the response was simply that we'd be evicted instead. Fuck private landlords. They can go do actual work for a living instead of leeching off of society.