Are holiday let owners viewed as unethical as landlords?

Posted by IrascibleOnion@reddit | AskUK | View on Reddit | 91 comments

I'm as appalled by the state of the rental market as anyone else in the country, but I'm curious as to whether the same disdain is felt for holiday let owners as regular landlords. My family has a house in a medium-rural area that we let out about 75% of the time and use ourselves about 25%. It's rarely standing empty for more than a couple weeks together, especially not over the summer. We don't make much money off it (made a loss this year due to boiler replacement), and whatever is made tends to be used to either make repairs or buy new furniture. People seem to like coming to stay here, it's a lovely retired spot, with the towns nearby largely populated by older people. I've heard people talk disparagingly about holiday let owners before, but as far as I can tell we're not doing anything especially exploitative. We're not planning to get rid of it either way, we love this house, but I'm interested to hear reddit's thoughts.