In the current conditions mortgage lenders are seeking bailouts form the taxpayers to stay afloat. The select comittee's suggestion that they also diversify into property management is hopeful to say the least.  

What form this ‘professional management’ of buy-to-let properties would take is anyone’s guess, but considering that the law permits private tenants to be evicted with two months notice, one can imagine where all this is going.  The result of buy-to-let repossesions is twofold. On the one hand, an investor can lose their money. On the other hand, a household who have paid full rent can lose their home.

It is now time to introduce more sensible laws governing the use of homes for investment purposes, and create conditions in which longer term occupation of homes is the norm. Without this we are scarcely likely to achieve any degree of economic security, and are more likely to witness a continued widening of the gap between rich and poor.

For the last twelve years, a growing number of prospective first time buyers have been displaced by precarious property investors and their offers of temporary tenancies. These same tenants, who have contributed to the tax bailout of financial institutions, now stand to find themselves homeless due to the fact that someone else’s property investment gamble hasn’t paid off. That is unless they are all able to find suitable alternative accommodation within two months. A paying tenant who has looked after their home does not deserve to be put through that.