ROBERT Aitken Letters, October 19) does a great disservice to tenants in Scotland's private rented sector by claiming that so many of them are "bad tenants". Govan Law Centre's experience suggests otherwise.
It's important to recognise that most tenants who fall into financial difficulties do so for reasons which are not their fault. The inadequacies of the housing benefit system and shortfalls with over priced private rent sector rents; tenants on zero hours contracts and poverty wages; those who are injured or unable to work and experience a drop in income; and those experiencing mental health illnesses or unable to cope due to a life event crisis.
The reality is the private rented sector is incapable and ill-suited to providing accommodation to those in difficulty or need. There is no support, no help, and yet it receives hundreds of millions of pounds of public money each year in Scotland, with over-priced rents being subsidised by housing benefit and human misery. While lending criteria in the residential mortgage market has become tougher through affordability checks, the buy-to-let market isn't subject to these rules. While it may serve a small elite in Scotland to profit from this arrangement it does not serve the Scottish public interest.
Dan Cookson of Lettingweb for PRS 4 Scotland (Letters, October 19) claims Scotland's private rented sector is the "most highly regulated in the UK". That is a curious claim because there is no regulation in this sector. What we have are a set of laws providing minimum standards and rights which are routinely breached and ignored by many private landlords. We have local authority private rented registration schemes which have no resources or effective powers. And there is nothing in the Scottish Government's Private Rented (Housing) Bill that will help tackle any of these deeply rooted systemic flaws.
Mike Dailly
Solicitor Advocate and Principal Solicitor,
Govan Law Centre, Orkney Street Enterprise Centre, 18-20 Orkney Street, Glasgow.
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