Landlords will have to ‘pay for Government to look good’ with rent freeze

A rent freeze for all tenants in Scotland is a “headline-grabbing statement” that will see landlords forced to “pay for the Government to look good”, the boss of a letting agency has claimed.

Brian Gilmour, of independent letting agent Indigo Square, hit out after Nicola Sturgeon promised emergency legislation to freeze rents as part of a measures deal with the “humanitarian emergency” resulting from the cost-of-living crisis.

The First Minister said that, while the Scottish Government cannot act on energy bills, ministers north of the border can step in to stop people’s rent going up in both the private and social rental sectors.

But the Scottish Property Federation has warned the move could “derail efforts to improve the supply of new, purpose-built homes for rent”, while housing associations fear it will make it harder for Scotland to meet its affordable housebuilding targets.

Speaking about the rent freeze – which will be in place until March next year – Mr Gilmour said: “For me it is just a headline-grabbing statement that is getting private landlords and social landlords to pay for the Government to look good.

Speaking on BBC Radio Scotland’s Good Morning Scotland programme, he claimed the policy is “reflective of people who make a decision that grabs the headline who don’t understand the marketplace they are talking about”.

He argued that landlords are also having to deal with rising costs, with increases in interest rates affecting mortgages, along with higher costs for buildings insurance.

Landlords will not now be able to pass such cost increases on, he argued, adding that some who rent out properties are private individuals, rather than large companies.

“What about the private landlord who is a retiree and this is part of their pension planning?” he asked.

“What is happening to them about their increasing costs they can’t pass on? They’re not some international conglomerate who can absorb the costs.”

Mr Gilmour insisted the “nub of the issue” is the failure of governments to sufficiently fund the building of affordable homes.

“This is the consequence of multiple political parties not appropriately funding the creation of affordable housing,” he said.

“We have 150,000 people roughly on affordable housing waiting lists, averaging over the last five years we have built 5,133 affordable/social houses in Scotland a year.

“The issue here for private rents, they have only gone up for one reason and that is supply and demand. We have a lack of supply and if we have not been building the affordable housing then the private rental sector becomes an essential part of that supply mechanism.”

However he added: “If you put obstacles in the way of private landlords you reduce that supply.

“All you are doing if you put obstacles in the way is compounding that problem because, unless you are going to put billions – and I mean multiple billions – into the social rented sector to massively increase the supply on that side, you are always going to need a private rented sector.”

Housing Secretary Shona Robison said the Government has adopted “exceptional measures” to try to deal with the “exceptional pressures” people are facing.

She told BBC Radio Scotland: “We’re asking landlords to play their part, given the emergency situation, by containing rents at existing levels.

“I don’t think that is an unreasonable thing to ask.”

Other measures announced in Ms Sturgeon’s programme for government for the coming year include an increase in the Scottish Child Payment, which goes to low-income families, and a freeze on ScotRail fares until March.

Ms Robison said: “We are pulling out all of the stops here to look at what we can do to help hard-pressed families, whether it is the Scottish Child Payment, increasing that to £25 per child from November 14, putting money into the pockets of families when they need it most… We are doing absolutely everything we can.

“If there is more we can do going forward over the next few months, we will absolutely look at that.”