Recession improves landlord image

During the property boom period, the perception of landlords was one driven by greed, with many UK landlords accused of setting high rent levels and refusing to undertake maintenance and necessary repair to their properties.

The lack of choice of property at the time meant that tenants were often forced to rent substandard accommodation. But driven by a raft of legislation and having being hit hard by the recession, Graham Kinnear from Landlord Assist, believes the industry now enjoys a much better reputation.

He said: "The credit crunch has forced more and more people to turn to rented accommodation over the last 18 months. This has helped to remove bad landlords from the UK rental market and made those remaining much more socially aware, with affordable accommodation and high qualitycustomer service becoming a priority.

"Institutional investors have also introduced high quality rental accommodation to the market and enforced others to provide better quality accommodation in order to compete."