Why not just heavily regulate the industry, at the end of the day landlords are providing a service which is as vital as most statutory services so they should be regulated as such?
Cap rents
- Properly legislate, police, and enforce laws relating to the requirements around the state of housing provided by landlords. Enforce strong penalties including jail time for the worst offenders
- Get rid of no fault evictions
- Create a whistleblowing system for tenants to call out bad landlords, ensure that they are protected from retaliation.
- Heavily tax profits on sales of btl homes and inheritance of btl homes.
I'd say privatisation of housing is as important to social wellbeing as privatised health care so it should be policed strictly.
That would certainly be a good start. It would, at the very least, cleanse the market of the worst offenders, who let sub-standard accommodation and are not prepared to fix it.
I'm not sure about "cap rents" tho, at least to begin with. In your analogy, we don't cap the fees that vets or private healthcare providers can charge.
We could see what effect those other regulations have on the market before thinking about capping rents. It may still be necessary.
I'd also add long-term guaranteed tenancies (10 years, etc) as per other EU countries (the tenant has the right to cancel but the landlord does not).
But listen, how likely is any of that? Almost 0 probability.
We in this country have fully embraced the dog-eat-dog, climb up the pile mentality. I don't see even Labour wanting to tighten rental regulation. It's not on anyone's agenda.