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{"id":72664,"date":"2023-05-19T06:10:40","date_gmt":"2023-05-19T06:10:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.announcement.news\/?p=72664"},"modified":"2023-05-19T06:10:40","modified_gmt":"2023-05-19T06:10:40","slug":"liz-jones-on-the-terrifying-insecurity-of-having-to-rent-in-your-60s-18","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.announcement.news\/liz-jones-on-the-terrifying-insecurity-of-having-to-rent-in-your-60s-18\/","title":{"rendered":"LIZ JONES on the terrifying insecurity of having to rent in your 60s"},"content":{"rendered":"

The call came on a Saturday morning last month.I always knew it would. It had been lurking in the background as I tried to carry on, make plans. I knew that it would all end, swiftly. Not with a whimper but with a bang.<\/p>\n

I’d been told there was a viewing planned at the cottage I’ve rented since 2018.It’s been up for sale since April. I learned it was going to be put on the market in February, when the landlady turned up with little warning, an estate agent in tow.<\/p>\n

The agent started taking photographs of every room and my courtyard garden. Without asking first.Or EVdeN eVE naKliyAT<\/a> even talking to me. Because who am I, other than a lowly private renter, unworthy of even a kindly ‘Good morning’.<\/p>\n

The viewing was scheduled for 11.30 am (there had been a few). I walked my dogs early, then raced up a steep hill to make sure I was back in time to tidy.<\/p>\n

At 11.45, my mobile rang.It was the landlady. ‘The viewing is cancelled but there is another one at half past one.’<\/p>\n

I dared to express my dismay, my upset at the constant intrusions. Yet another no-show; another day when I was unable to do as I pleased.<\/p>\n

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Liz Jones, 64, (pictured) opens up about being given two months’ notice to leave her rented cottage<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

‘Right!’ the landlady snapped.’I’m serving you with a Section 21. You have two months’ notice to move out as of Monday.’ I crumpled. Yet again, my life \u2014 that I had tried so desperately to rebuild \u2014 was in tatters.<\/p>\n

No-fault evictions, evdeN EVE nakLiYaT<\/a> known as Section 21 notices, enable landlords to evict tenants without giving a reason or establishing ‘fault’ on the part of the tenant.<\/p>\n

No matter how long you’ve lived there (for me, four years) or how much you’ve spent on the place (in my case \u00a359,000 \u2014 I cashed in my pension and got a loan to pay for everything from a new kitchen to underfloor heating, new bathroom and white goods) you can be summarily dismissed.<\/p>\n

How is this allowed?We are protected at work if we are sick or lose our jobs, but when we rent a home \u2014 and surely a home is integral to our health, productivity and sense of belonging \u2014 we can be thrown to the sharks.<\/p>\n

Surely, there is more to being a landlord than having me pay your mortgage when I have paid the rent on time and looked after your property?<\/p>\n

A lifeline was dangled in front of our poor, cold noses last month when Michael Gove \u2014 since appointed Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities under Rishi Sunak \u2014 voiced his support for Boris Johnson’s commitment to ending no-fault evictions.<\/p>\n

Mr Gove knows as well as anyone that it isn’t the workshy who end up renting.After all, divorce is a common factor. The Government won’t get growth from a workforce that wonders if getting out of bed is worth the bother.<\/p>\n

His speech was music to the ears of the more than four million private renters in the UK.<\/p>\n

The misery, the uncertainty.Goodness only knows how families with school-age children cope with the disruption, the endless reading of meters and changing of suppliers, the redirection of post, the changing of council tax and on and on and on \u2026 It’s all so unbelievably stressful.<\/p>\n

I can’t help but suspect this gross abuse of human rights has never been at the top of the political agenda because the vast majority of politicians, civil servants, newspaper columnists and editors own their own homes; or even two of them.<\/p>\n

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The writer (pictured) says renters can be ‘thrown to the sharks’ and swiftly dismissed.Liz says\u00a0 she has rented nine properties in her adult life, and has been evicted<\/a> four times<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The problem doesn’t enter their brains and, if it does, they assume people who rent are either feckless or the very young, who will soon claw their way on to the property ladder.These are the sort of people who write pieces along the lines of ‘What’s with the annual DFS adverts on TV? Why do people buy a new sofa every Christmas? I inherited mine!’ (That was an actual column.)<\/p>\n

I have rented nine properties in my adult life and been evicted four times \u2014 and the older you get, the harder it is to bounce back.<\/p>\n

Times are bad for Generation Rent \u2014 the poor 20 and 30-somethings who are unable to scrape together a deposit, or afford a mortgage.But to be in your 60s and to be renting, as I am, after a lifetime of hard work, is infinitely worse.<\/p>\n

Why? Because, at 64, I am perilously close to retirement.<\/p>\n

I did manage to get a mortgage offer before the current crisis but, even then, the rate I was offered was nearly 5 per cent and the maximum term I was allowed was 12 years.There is no hope of a partner on the horizon to split bills with.<\/p>\n

I have sympathy for homeowners whose rates have just gone up, but renters aren’t immune, as there are no caps on what we pay. Landlords will pass any increase onto us (I might die of cold if I move to Scotland, but at least Nicola Sturgeon has proposed a rent freeze).<\/p>\n

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