Btl Scum Regrouping And On The Offensive. -- Merged

[BorrowToLeech]

9 hours ago, Bland Unsight said:

The truth is that my main purpose is not to convince them of anything, I've no illusion about that.

My main purpose is just to ensure that a well-evidenced counter-argument is mixed into the comments section, alongside the perspective that they present. The intended audience is the passer-by, who is just glancing over a couple of comments. That said I believe that a good argument which is well made can work like a splinter in your mind. These chaps don't have much else to do all day so giving them a hobby (managing their cognitive dissonance) seems like the least I can do to help them pass the idle hours of their landlording day.

Now on the side issue of them getting enraged, well, that would be extremely regrettable, and in future I'll be careful not to offer the reasoning and evidence with the now customary side salad of references to muppets, idiocy and bankruptcy. Honestly, if any of them were enraged, I feel terrible about it.

Yeah, you're never going to convince the people you're arguing with, the idea is to convince people who are reading the argument.

[Bland Unsight]

Just now, DrBuyToLeech said:

Yeah, you're never going to convince the people you're arguing with, the idea is to convince people who are reading the argument.

I think you can put the wind up them.

I get the sense that a lot of them are very ignorant. I had some muppet on twitter trying to tell me that the L&G UK Property Fund is leveraged (it sort of is, at 0.17%; not a typo, the leverage is less than a fifth of one percent). Once we'd cleared that up he switched to arguing that the investments made by the ordinary shareholders in the fund represented leverage, at which point I reckoned that there were more useful things I could be doing with my time than talking to somebody willing to propose that as an argument - and when the subject is arguing pointlessly on the internet about BTL and I think that about you, you really must be drowning in the shallow end.).

[Bland Unsight]

OK, part of the agreed strategy for Tenant Tax Unawareness Week is to stick with tactics which we've already proven over the last two years are totally pointless.

It's sometimes difficult to work out what is and what is not a complete and utter waste of time and energy. If in doubt as to how best to be certain that you are completely wasting your time and that your efforts will lead to absolutely no increase in awareness whatsoever I always say that you should just ask yourself on simple question, "What would Ros do?"

Quote

Dr Rosalind Beck says:

04/04/2017 at 08:40
 

I think one way to make a difference is to write to politicians and journalists and anyone else you can think of. There are all kinds of ways of getting the message across. If we all said we would do one thing each day this week – even if it’s an email, then that could make a difference.

To get the ball rolling, I wrote the following on the Shelter FB page yesterday:

‘On the news this morning, Kate Webb of Shelter, was talking about the increase in temporary accommodation in London. Apparently it’s because landlords are increasing rents. Well, I and many others have been telling Shelter since July 2015 that rents will rise because of Section 24. Personally, in South Wales I have increased rents on tenants in situ in two increments so far by about 5% on average each time. I never did this before. I am doing it because my effective tax rate on my profit/salary from my business (I have no other income) of between £40,000-£50,000 each year (it varies depending on voids, arrears, damages, cannabis farms etc) is now increasing each year so that by 2021 I will pay 44% of this to the Exchequer rather than the 24% I pay now. Obviously I will have to ‘absorb’ some of this; but I will also need to maximise my return by increasing rents or I could go bust and have to evict all my tenants. I house many tenants in houses for between £300 and £400 a month – similar to Housing Association rents; in fact, it’s often cheaper because I pay tax on any profit, so this goes to the Government. I would like to know what the highly-paid staff at Shelter would do if their income tax rose from 24% to 44%. Also, because the new tax is not related to the profit of the business but rather tied to interest rates (it is, bizarrely, a tax on finance costs AS THOUGH THEY WERE PROFIT AND STILL IN OUR BANK ACCOUNTS WHEN IN FACT THEY HAVE BEEN PAID TO THE LENDER), some landlords are facing increases in their tax rates from 20-30% to 80-90% by 2021. I ask again, would Shelter staff be happy to pay this? Patrick Collinson at the Guardian accused landlords last week of having a ‘victim mentality.’ Well, if he were asked to pay 80% of his salary in tax, I think he might feel he was being victimised. Shelter’s position on this is not only crazy; it is immoral. Any business which faces costs like this will obviously increase the charges for their services as a first or last resort. It is simple economics. Professor David Miles, formerly of the MPC, is just one economist who has pointed this out and urged that Section 24 be reversed. I suggest Shelter listen to economists or maybe even employ one, given the vast sums at its disposal, and actually listen to some common sense on this and make a public statement that it is opposed to this lunatic tax.’

I think it would be good if others go on that page and put the pressure on for them to reverse their stance. There may be a chance of this now that the vehemently anti-landlord Chief Executive, Campbell Robb has gone. Trying to sway Crisis would also be useful. But having a go at these is only one idea… Just thought I’d share it as it may get others to thinking about what they want to do for the campaign.

(Emphasis added)

Now, this is a masterclass, "write to.. anyone else you can think of". Sound advice. I've just knocked out awareness raising letters to Freddie Mercury, Skeletor and The Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe and I guarantee that none of those letters are going to raise any further awareness whatsoever.

Also remember to patronise your intended audience. The best way to get people to ignore your message is to annoy them and make them think that you sound like a bit of a ****, for example I started one of my letters with the opener "What kind of tw@t lives in a shoe? And you're old too? What's all that about?"

Go Ros!

[jfk]

Great work Bland , fascinating and hilarious exchange.  the cognitive dissonance on show is amazing

[Bland Unsight]

2 hours ago, jfk said:

Great work Bland , fascinating and hilarious exchange.  the cognitive dissonance on show is amazing

Ta. Us HPC goons love a cup tie at a neutral ground with the PovertyLaters. I only wish it happened more often.

Edited April 5, 2017 by Bland Unsight

[Bland Unsight]

Bosher's thoughts on Henry Pryor (emphasis added)

Quote

Dr Rosalind Beck says:

05/04/2017 at 10:33

It never ceases to amaze me the arrogance of people who don’t know what they’re talking about. Why do they insist on discussing things they don’t understand? What are these man’s credentials, other than liking the sound of his own voice?

Are we going to listen to him or will we listen to:

Paul Johnson of the IFS?
The Institute of Chartered Accountants of England and Wales?
Professor Philip Booth of the Institute of Economic Affairs?
Professor David Miles, ex-member of the MPC?
Dame Kate Barker, ex-member of the MPC?
The Council of Mortgage Lenders?
The Policy Exchange?
Anyone care to add to the list of expert opinion opposed to this?

[hi5lo5]

https://www.property118.com/henry-prior-dismisses-landlord-concerns-section-24-complete-pants/97207/#comment-89241

The word “troll” springs to mind… Unless of course we are under estimating him and he is after all a serious journalist/property expert/writer and the following is correct:

(1) Most landlords do not have mortgages
(2) The Residential Landlords Association is an obscure outfit that knows next to nothing about the PRS and landlords and tenants

I’m a member of the RLA but I work for the NLA and while they uphold the rights of landlords, this is NEVER at the expense of tenants, and while the RLA has slightly different policies and does things differently, in their objectives the two organisations are similar if not identical.

Someone is going to be banned from poverty later.

[hi5lo5]

3 hours ago, Bland Unsight said:

The last Muppet Commader to mock us and make out that he knew what he was doing is now in Malta praying that the taxman sees matters the same way as he does and that his lenders overlook or remain unaware of all the BICT jiggery-pokery.

At least Busta had the sense to do something other than pretend he could single-handedly buck the rental market (though the £2,000 book idea never really worked out).

Sell now, sell everything.

 

The YouTube video is hilarious. True representation of BTLers today. Full credit to Bland and other HPCers campaigned rigrously against the 118 crew in Twitter and other forums.

[Lavalas]

1 hour ago, Bland Unsight said:

Ta. Us HPC goons love cup tie at a neutral ground with the PovertyLaters. I only wish it happened more often.

Granted!

http://www.independent.co.uk/money/renters-braced-for-25-cost-hikes-amid-tax-changes-a7667566.html

[Si1]

5 hours ago, Lavalas said:

Granted!

http://www.independent.co.uk/money/renters-braced-for-25-cost-hikes-amid-tax-changes-a7667566.html

That journo is called Felicity Hannah. They do have such jolly-hockeysticks names these young ambitious trust fund writers.

[rantnrave]

Henry and Vanessa cross swords over changes to tax treatment of landlords

Be sure to check the comments too!

http://www.propertyindustryeye.com/henry-and-vanessa-cross-swords-over-changes-to-tax-treatment-of-landlords/

[jfk]

1 hour ago, rantnrave said:

Henry and Vanessa cross swords over changes to tax treatment of landlords

Be sure to check the comments too!

http://www.propertyindustryeye.com/henry-and-vanessa-cross-swords-over-changes-to-tax-treatment-of-landlords/

More shouting into an echo chamber by those LLs  over there.  just wait for them to be farmed lol

[hi5lo5]

Our good old Rachel on facebook

He did! Not much, admittedly. This incident is a pity as he talked a lot of sense.

Of course the label "Tenant Tax" is a publicity stunt. And a very good one to convey to the public and tenants that this tax WILL cause rents to rise. 

All rents currently below market rates for affected LLs with decent long term tenants will rise. It's called capitalism. We all know that those of us with decent long term tenants deliberately chose, as good business decisions, not to raise rents as costs hadn't significantly increased. Now they have!

For those LLs unable to raise rents, who're highly geared, most likely within deprived areas, tenants will be evicted as houses are sold and repossessed. So, Mr. Pryor, this tax will affect highly geared LLs *and* tenants at the bottom end of the market. The poorest tenants.

I'm very disappointed at his over reaction, which seems only to be based on the campaign name. I thought he was quite impartial and intelligent!

What an utter toss, if All rates are below market rates then that is the market rate for f**k sake.

[Bland Unsight]

13 hours ago, Lavalas said:

Granted!

http://www.independent.co.uk/money/renters-braced-for-25-cost-hikes-amid-tax-changes-a7667566.html

As best as I can see you have to register just to read the comments (which if course I immediately did, as I'd registered I thought I might as well comment). Not much doing last time I stopped in, just four comments, but two of those are absolutely sterling work by Oatbake, a name not unknown on these boards. 

[Bland Unsight]

There's also this on the FT piece from Kraken:

Quote

Subs, please use the proper collective noun, e.g., a clown car of highly-leveraged landlords is about to go bankrupt.

[crazypabs]

29 minutes ago, Bland Unsight said:

As best as I can see you have to register just to read the comments (which if course I immediately did, as I'd registered I thought I might as well comment). Not much doing last time I stopped in, just four comments, but two of those are absolutely sterling work by Oatbake, a name not unknown on these boards. 

would you be kind enough to quote them pls as I can't get onto the paper due to firewall restrictions ? ty

[Bland Unsight]

3 minutes ago, crazypabs said:

would you be kind enough to quote them pls as I can't get onto the paper due to firewall restrictions ? ty

No problem:

Quote

Oatbake:

More scaremongering from the usual suspects.

The very fact landlords are attempting to hold tenants to ransom like this, on an effort to avoid paying a bit more tax, is exactly why the government are absolutely right to be clamping down on and disincentivising Buy to Let. 

As a tenant, I welcome the tax changes. I don't doubt that some of the more reckless landlords will go bankrupt, but that is a risk for anyone who gambles with large amounts of borrowed money...

 

Quote

Soso:

So you don't understand? Just see renting as a rakeoff? Good luck in the future with renting.

 

Quote

Oatbake

People who think that tenants will be the victims here are missing two important points: 

- Rents are set by how much tenants can afford ("the market"), not how much landlords need to make a profit: and
- BTLs that are sold are bought either by other landlords or by people who would otherwise be renting. i.e. there is no net loss of housing. For each rental home "lost" there is one less family needing to rent...

Landlords know that if they put rents up, their tenants may well decide to move out and they run the risk of eating prolonged void periods. With tenant fees being banned soon, this will be even easier for tenants to do. This is why, with the tax taking effect today, having been announced a couple of *years* ago, very few landlords have been dumb enough to try it. In fact, rents have been falling recently.

The fact that many landlords have got themselves into a position where they are literally unable to sell up shows how reckless some of these people are, playing roulette not only with their own finances, but with the lives of their tenants. The sooner this type of landlord is bankrupted (something that was inevitable sooner or later), the better it will be for everybody, especially tenants.

 

[Lavalas]

3 hours ago, Bland Unsight said:

As best as I can see you have to register just to read the comments (which if course I immediately did, as I'd registered I thought I might as well comment). Not much doing last time I stopped in, just four comments, but two of those are absolutely sterling work by Oatbake, a name not unknown on these boards. 

Yeah, when I posted that link the story had been plugged on the goons Facebook page so thought it would be ripe for commenting but they just don't seem interested.

To be honest I don't think Awareness week hasn't gone right well has it.

[Exiled Canadian]

10 minutes ago, Lavalas said:

Yeah, when I posted that link the story had been plugged on the goons Facebook page so thought it would be ripe for commenting but they just don't seem interested.

To be honest I don't think Awareness week hasn't gone right well has it.

In bankruptcy no one hears you scream.......

[Lavalas]

Well at least good old Gary is taking it all in his stride. He's responding to someone saying they'll be selling up at the end of their fixed terms...

Reply to the comment left by “CazT ” at “06/04/2017 – 13:30“: 

I am in a similar position, to be honest with you, Landlords have become the bloodsport of the media.

Now we can be fined £30,000 without a court hearing, its a bloody joke!

If you treated a Jew, Gay or Muslim like this there would be a Public Outcry.

AXA are only reporting the tip of the iceberg.

How the hell did we get into a situation in the UK, where you are discriminated against because of your chosen occupation?

Do you realise that you now have a worse tax position than a necrophiliac paying interest on a mortgage for their funeral parlour?

That’s right! – if you pay for a funeral parlour and you are a corpse fiddler, you don’t pay as much tax as a BTL Landlord, that provides houses for the living.

So that’s 0% of necrophiliacs affected by Section 24.

The same applies to
Taxi Driver Rapists
Bank Robbing LIBOR fraudsters
1970’s TV Presenters in Prison
The Moors Murderers
Jeffery Archer
Salman Rushdie
Gary Barlow
and Sooty

#Vote UKIP

[\quote]

[Exiled Canadian]

2 minutes ago, Lavalas said:

Well at least good old Gary is taking it all in his stride. He's responding to someone saying they'll be selling up at the end of their fixed terms...

 

The man is either a comic genius, having a complete breakdown, or both.

[london_thirtythree]

5 minutes ago, Lavalas said:

Well at least good old Gary is taking it all in his stride. He's responding to someone saying they'll be selling up at the end of their fixed terms...

 

That is an.. interesting.. response.

I think he needs another piece of fruitcake

[crazypabs]

23 minutes ago, Exiled Canadian said:

In bankruptcy no one hears you scream.......

 

[Tapori]

This is glorious.

Long may it continue.

 

[Bland Unsight]

27 minutes ago, Lavalas said:

Well at least good old Gary is taking it all in his stride. He's responding to someone saying they'll be selling up at the end of their fixed terms...

That's Dully Gold, that is.

Mind you, I also think that the tax burden on "corpse fiddlers" is too light. Everyone needs to pay their share.