Madam, – I feel very little sympathy for landlords. Essentially (houses) homes should be for living in and not for making money from. Even if landlords own only one or two extra houses they are among those culpable for what went wrong with the banks in our greedy decade, 1997-2007. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – I read your report on the predicament of small landlords with growing incredulity (“Landlords in the lurch as dream goes sour”, Property supplement, January 27th). The solipsism on display was depressing and sobering. The plight of Section 23 beneficiaries needs to be placed in the context of mass unemployment, mass emigration, deep cuts to public service provision and social welfare and the prospect of more of the same for the rest of the decade.
It is depressing, therefore, that our political discourse is so responsive on this issue, to the extent that the provisions in the Finance Bill are summarily deferred; while there remains a resolute insistence that no relief for others can even be contemplated, never mind deferred to 2012, lest the IMF guillotine fall. To even claim “justice”, in this context and under current economic circumstances, is to invite well-deserved ridicule.
It’s worth reflecting that many small landlords were creditworthy individuals who could avail of second, third or fourth mortgages at reasonable interest rates during the property boom. Contrast that with the tens of thousands of low- income families and individuals, many desperate to escape private rented accommodation, who were suckered into 100 per cent mortgages by both sub-prime and mainstream lenders at extortionate rates (often for properties of dubious quality, many of which are in what are now “ghost” estates). These individuals and families, too, are also at risk of ruin if they can’t keep up their payments, or if interest rates begin to rise. I haven’t read the Finance Bill, but I would be astounded if there were measures in it to bring any relief to the latter.
Over the past few years we have seen the steady degradation of the terms “justice” and “equality” in our political discourse. The race-to-the-bottom egalitarianism which has been used to justify cuts in public sector pay, with the final objective of rendering it statistically “equal” to average pay in the private sector, is just one among many consequences of this process. Another is the present instance, where we see “justice” invoked (successfully, it would appear) for a tiny group of ostensibly astute investors who took a big financial gamble, incentivised and underwritten by a reckless State. Investing and speculating always carry risks – “the value of your investment can fall as well as rise”. Deferring the Section 23 changes demonstrates that a bankrupt State looks like it will remain in thrall to the principal cause of its ruin: the property “market”. – Yours, etc,