A landlord has told i that Sir Keir Starmer needs to “wake up and smell the coffee” after he suggested that they do not count as “working people”.
The Government promised it would not raise tax on working people, however, Labour Party members have since been asked repeatedly to define the term in a bid to establish which taxes Rachel Reeves could increase in the Budget – and who they could impact.
Last week, the Prime Minister suggested those with assets are not “working people”, something that has frustrated many landlords.
Dipti Tait, 51, said she never wanted to be a landlord but after her parents died and she inherited their two-bedroom flat – her childhood home – in west London in 2011, she couldn’t bear to sell it.
But becoming a landlord, which she does on top of her full-time position as a hypnotherapist at The Cotswold Practice, has been far from easy for her.
Speaking to i, she said: “When my parents died, I had to decide whether to sell or keep and rent out my childhood flat in Heston near Hounslow.
“I just couldn’t part with it for sentimental reasons, so in 2011 I found an estate agent and decided to look for some tenants to move in.
“It has been a steep learning curve. I never wanted to be a landlord, and it hasn’t been easy.”
Ms Tait has had a number of issues with tenants over the past 13 years and has been left out of pocket as a result.
She explained: “The rent I get from the flat doesn’t even cover my own living costs, so I have to work full-time as well so I can pay my own mortgage. Being a landlord can be tough and I have to be on call at all times in case something needs sorting at the flat.
“I’m lucky with the tenants I have now but previous tenants have been a nightmare.
“When the last lot lived there, I told them with plenty of notice that I was putting the rent up because the rising cost of living and mortgage rates meant that paying my own bills was becoming tougher and they outright refused to pay it.
“In the end, I had to serve them an eviction notice, and it took two whole years to get them out.
“And the tenants before that made a number of changes to the property and the garden without asking permission and I had to pay to put them back to how they were before.”
What angered Ms Tait the most about Sir Keir’s comments last week was him “tarring all landlords with the same brush”.
She added: “Being a landlord can range from the stereotypical rich old man sat twiddling his thumbs while making loads of money to people like me – genuine working people who rent out properties on the side, as well as their day job, and earn some extra cash from it.
“I work weekends, evenings and late at night if I need to sort something out with my property – would you not call that work?
“I make £200 a month after all the deductions have gone out which I have to save for any extra work that may need doing. So, nothing as extra ‘spending’ money at all.”
“I think Keir Starmer needs to wake up and smell the coffee and take a walk in my shoes for just one day to see what it’s really like to be an amateur landlord.”
Speaking at the Commonwealth summit in Samoa last week, the Prime Minister said a “working person” is somebody who “goes out and earns their living, usually paid in a sort of monthly cheque”.
When asked if this would include people who get all or part of their income from assets, he told Sky News: “Well, they wouldn’t come within my definition.”
Although Downing Street then tried to clarify that people with small savings did count as working people, the comments caused fury among landlords like Ms Tait.
She now lives in the Cotswolds with her partner in a house they bought in 2017.
When looking to take a mortgage out for this property, they decided to remortgage the flat in west London to give them a chunk of money to put down for the housing deposit on the new one.
The mortgage on the flat has jumped from £468 to £1,300 a month in seven years.
She continued: “My outgoings are so high every month – the mortgage on my new house, the mortgage on the flat, service charges, estate agent fees and the usual money you have to shell out being a landlord when something goes wrong with your property.
“I don’t have loads of money like most people would think I do, just because I’m a landlord.”
In hindsight, Ms Tait said she wishes she sold the flat when her parents passed away, adding: “It would save me a lot of stress.
“I did try to sell it in July 2022 but after it was on the market for 682 days without a sale, I gave up. It was the longest-ever chain-free sale.
“I did have some interest but with each of the four buyers I had, the sale fell through, and I was back to square one.”
