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Comment by gtsteve | Hacker News Reader

I live in the UK. It's cheaper to buy than rent almost everywhere but I never minded that. The main thing that moved me to buy was because the protection for renters is nowhere near as good. I moved on average every 18 months for 10 years because the landlord decided they wanted to sell the place or just wanted me out so they could increase the rent. One landlord didn't even bother with that and just asked if I'd be willing to pay 2x the current rent. If you complain about something being broken, they might fix it or just evict you with 2 months notice.

Now I own my own place and I finally actually have rights and I will choose when I move on.

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I live in Germany. We have crazy-strong renter protection.

You cannot evict people because you want to sell (the new owner is your new landlord) or because you want to increase the rent. Unless you do something really wrong (like break things on purpose) you cannot be evicted.

About the only time to get rid of tenants is when you want to move in yourself, and then there is a longer protection time (3-9 months depending on the time you lived there). (Or I guess you can pay the renters to move out which I've seen sometimes.)

The rent can only be increased up to 15-20% in 3 years (without amenities), and can only be increased every 15 months. If you do renovations that improve the place you can demand 8% of the costs per year, but only up to 3€/sqm (or 2€/sqm if the place was cheap).

Still, prices in the cities have been going up a lot in the last few years (you can increase the rent when new tenants move in), but the prices to buy have gone up even more.

> If you complain about something being broken, they might fix it or just evict you with 2 months notice.

This is why you shouldn't agree to a rolling tenancy. When the initial tenancy period is over, negotiate for a year or two. Most landlords, in my experience, don't want their houses sitting empty so they're happy to have you on the hook for a year. Although, it depends where you live: I work remotely so I tend to rent in less expensive parts of the country like Devon where there isn't so much volatility in the market.

Yes but often you have no choice but to agree. When I've tried to negotiate in the past the response was for them to say "thanks but no thanks" and wait for someone else. Given this is London it moves very quickly and another tenant will be along soon.

Yes, that's why I was enthusiastic about the Government's plans to introduce three-year minimum tenancies, but the idea was unfortunately scrapped.

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/longer-tenancy-plans-to-g...

Unless rents are going up (and in London they are not) I don't see how longer tenancies help you. It certainly doesn't give the landlord an incentive to fix.

They already have an incentive to fix. In the UK they're legally obligated to and tenants can take them to Small Claims Court if they don't.

Periodic (rolling) tenancies can be ended with two-month's notice, so the landlord might decide to evict rather than repair. With longer tenancy agreements, the landlord can't evict until the tenancy expires, and so tenants can use their legal rights to compel the landlord to make repairs.

In short, the landlord can't kick people out as an alternative to spending money on repairs.

... in theory

>They already have an incentive to fix. In the UK they're legally obligated to and tenants can take them to Small Claims Court if they don't.

Yes, they're technically "obligated" but only real recourse is to pay somebody to fix it yourself and deduct that from the rent. While doing that you have to be 100% reasonable though (no overcharging, get multiple quotes and landlord must be kept informed).

If you stop paying rent because repairs aren't made you can be evicted.

To spell it out, places a large burden on you.

And then you get evicted after the negotiated period ends anyway.

Yes, ultimately you don’t own the property you rent. The landlord has rights over the property too, and you have to factor that in when choosing whether to rent or buy.

In many ways I'd prefer to rent (in the UK as well) but won't because the rental market is so poor. We have been in the same location for over 20 years, I would have moved twice in that time if it weren't for the upheaval of buying and selling.

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