Letter: Something Deeply Wrong When Minimum Wage Earners Line Multi-millionaires’ Pockets

Published on: 3 Jun, 2020
Updated on: 2 Jun, 2020

From George Potter

Lib Dem borough councillor for Burpham

In response to comment on: Guildford’s Rental Sector Booms as Lockdown Eases

I think Jules Cranwell will find that it is the Rightmove spokesperson who made the generalisation that landlords will be exploiting the situation (by increasing rents even though their costs have not risen) and discriminating (by refusing to let to those who don’t have the best references and the best credit scores).

If Mr Cranwell thinks it’s unfair to generalise the behaviour of landlords in such a way then I suggest he takes it up with Rightmove.

Although I will point out that, whilst being a landlord is a “legitimate business”, in the sense that it is legal, hoarding capital so that you can buy a house and then charge people a large share of the income they’ve actually earned in order to cover costs and make a hefty profit on top, is hardly what I’d call a moral business.

There will always be people who need to rent because they need flexibility or don’t want to buy a house, but the vast majority of people renting would much rather buy a home but are unable to afford to do so thanks to the actions of buy-to-let landlords inflating house prices.

There is something deeply wrong and immoral with a system where someone earning a minimum wage pays 40 per cent of it, or more, to line the pockets of a multi-millionaire landlord who has long ago covered the costs of buying the property in the first place. The landlord in that situation is adding no value whatsoever and is being entirely parasitical. Such Landlords generate no value in the economy themselves, they do not create wealth, they merely subsist off the hard work of others.

Everyone is entitled to their own views on what should be expected from elected representatives but in my book elected representatives should be aware of, and ideally try to address, the fundamental economic issues in society rather than simply preserve the most egregious aspects of the status quo, purely for the benefit of a minority who profit from it, at the expense of a majority, who pay for it.

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