On Tuesday, November 3 2026, the Financial Times published a letter from our Chair and CEO, William Reeve.
In the letter, William laid out Goodlord’s view of the Burnham Government’s first Budget. We’ve included the full text below. After reading it, we hope you will join us in calling on the Government to consider the difficult position landlords find themselves in as housing legislation continues to evolve.
You can find the original publication here.
Over recent years, landlords have weathered seismic legislation changes, grappled with bundles of additional red tape, and absorbed a litany of new costs. The Budget's 2% tax hike is just the latest burden placed upon a market already teetering on the edge.
Placing a fresh financial duty on landlords is politically salient but practically disastrous. Treating landlords as the nation's piggy bank - and grouping them along with gamblers and bankers - makes solving the nation's housing and affordability problems harder, not easier.
11 million people call the private rented sector home, and we need a thriving landlord class to make the market function. Instead, our most recent research suggests 1 in 4 are actively looking to leave - a number that the budget is likely to exacerbate. The only losers in that equation are tenants. In a market already characterised by escalating rents and scarcity of supply, diminishing landlord numbers will push up prices.
Labour's vision of council housing solving the affordability crisis is a pipe dream. The budget's announcement of a paltry £1bn extra for social housing illustrates the challenge of finding capital to boost housing stock. The private sector could find tens of billions of capital if it was treated as an ally, not an opponent.
The Government must start recognising the value landlords bring to the market, not just the potential dividends they can deliver to the public purse. - William Reeve MARLA, Chair & CEO, Goodlord, London E1, UK