Great article

So is this the “Tescoisation” of the private rented sector?

Landlords in the UK ought to be very worried about this turn of events.

It’s clear to me that the government would like to dole out tax breaks to the commercial property firms - think REITS and Stamp Duty - to get them investing in the private rented sector.

My view is that the state does not like small private landlords and would like to see their pals in big business move into the sector to give it “more stability” and I would guess, to develop a long term lettings market.
Private landlords ought to be concerned at the risk of being squeezed out by the big boys.

It’s already happening in many parts of the student market where the likes of Unite already have a foothold. This new review could be a major threat to the private landlord.

It astounds me that this government is so willing to listen unquestioningly to their friends in big business.

Landlords and their professional organisations should be fighting against this very hard. There are problems with private landlords – not least tenants getting evicted when their landlords have failed to pay the mortgage rent – but these problems have work arounds without having to get big business involved in things.

David Lawrenson

I have to say I agree to some extent and I'm not suprised that the government is keen to get large corporates involved - but having spent many years working for FTSE firms, they more often or not act in the best interests of the share holders and not the company.

The key thing here is that we clean up the industry and stamp out the unscruppleous and tax dodging landlords - and create a culture of excellence, this way the governement won't have a leg to stand on or need to involve the private sector.

In some ways we have been a victim of our own success and times are changing !

Yes, both comments above hit the nail on the head. Unfortunately, small private landlords are victims of their isolation. Changing the regulations these days largely depends how good you are at lobbying MPs. It's why organisations like the British Property Federation have been so successful for so many years. Small landlords have never been properly organised into a single force, thus their voice rarely gets heard. There may be a huge volume of landlords - but who speaks for them? A national landlord association is probably the way forward, but until there is a single agency representing small landlords (rather than several as now), government will continue to listen to the big commercial and institutional landlords. The other problem is that small landlords are a very diverse group, often with conflicting viewpoints, and bringing these different opinions together (so everyone is sending the same message to government) may be extremely problematic.

Tony Booth