Landlords 'offer valuable services'

Landlords who provide reasonably-priced rental accommodation to students are helping people attend university, an industry expert has argued.

Recently, some media sources have been calling on the government to scrap the tax relief that buy-to-let landlords receive on their property, amid fears that a growing rental sector was contributing to rising house prices.

However, Richard Gard, a public affairs officer for the National Landlords Association (NLA), argued that these landlords provided a valuable service for students and young professionals.

"The private rental sector provides a very useful role in [increasing] mobility and allowing people to move away from home," Mr Gard explained.

"It is enabling people to achieve their ambitions of going to university.

"That has been acknowledged by the government; that [the sector] does allow a huge amount of flexibility that otherwise wouldn't be there at all."

Mr Gard added that policies like the Tenancy Deposit Scheme did not seem to have put people off becoming landlords.

"[Our concern was] that, with the huge amount of other legislation that landlords have to deal with, it [would be] another block on top of the things they need to do… But we haven't seen any slowdown in the market because of this."