A reader writes:
I am seventy-one and I have never owned a house. I came to England in my twenties to train as a nurse, and in all the years since I have rented. Rooms in Brixton with a shared cooker on the landing. A flat in Croydon where the damp came through the bedroom wall every November and the landlord’s answer was a tin of paint. A council place for a while, which was the best of them. Now a small housing association flat that I am grateful for. So you will understand that when people talk about landlords, I have opinions.
Here is why I am writing. Last year my daughter, who works in accounts and has done very well for herself, bought a second flat. Not to live in. To rent out. She showed me the figures on her tablet at Sunday dinner, very proud, and I smiled and said well done. But inside I felt something close to sick, and I have not been able to put it down since.
I have been reading my Bible about it. I know the verses people use. The workman is worthy of his hire. The parable of the talents, where the servant who buried his money was scolded. I know that somebody has to own the flats or there would be nowhere to rent. My pastor, when I asked him, said much the same and told me not to be so hard on the girl. He is probably right. He usually is about practical things.
But then I read Isaiah, where the prophet says woe to those who add house to house and join field to field until there is no space left, and they live alone in the land. And Leviticus, where God tells Israel the land is His and they are only strangers and tenants with Him. And I think about the Year of Jubilee, when property went back to the families it belonged to, so that nobody could keep buying up everybody else’s inheritance forever. I am not a scholar. I may be reading it wrong. But it seems to me God was very worried about some people owning the roofs that other people sleep under.
I remember what it felt like to be on the other side. To hear the key in the downstairs door and wonder if it was the landlord coming about the rent. To not be allowed a picture hook. To be told, when I asked about the boiler, that there were plenty of other people who would take my room. I once waited five weeks in winter for hot water, washing out of a kettle. That man went to church. I know because he told me so, as if it should make me feel better.
My daughter is not like him. I want to say that clearly. She is kind. She got the flat properly checked, she answered her tenant’s message about a dripping tap within a day, and she has said she will not put the rent up this year. When I told her some of what I felt, she was hurt, and she said, “Mummy, would you rather it was owned by some big company that doesn’t care?” I did not have a good answer for that.
And I have to be honest about myself too. Part of what I feel is not about the Bible at all. Part of it is jealousy, or grief, or something in between. I worked hard all my life, nights and weekends, and I never got to own anything. My daughter, in her thirties, owns two. I am proud of her and I also feel a little left behind by my own child, which is a strange thing to confess to a magazine.
So I suppose my question is really two questions. Is it right for a Christian to make a living, or part of a living, from other people’s need for somewhere to live? And if it can be right, what would make it right? Because I do not want to be a bitter old woman who spoils her daughter’s success. But I also do not want to pretend that renting is just like any other business. When you rent out a flat you are not selling someone a pair of shoes. You are holding their home in your hands.
I would like to hear what other readers think, especially anyone who is a landlord and a believer and has thought about this more than I have.
— Hyacinth, south London
Editor’s note
Hyacinth’s last line may be the best answer to her own question: a landlord holds someone’s home in their hands. Scripture does not forbid owning property that others live in, but it does treat that power seriously, as the passages she found show. A believer who rents out a home is taking on a responsibility, not just an asset. That looks like repairs done promptly, deposits handled honestly, rents set fairly, and tenants treated as neighbours rather than income. It sounds as though her daughter has started well. Perhaps Hyacinth’s own long experience as a tenant is exactly the wisdom her daughter needs beside her.
Reader letters may be edited for length and clarity, and names and identifying details are changed.
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