In an ideal world, home ownership would be the accepted way for everyone to live, with people enjoying the security, warmth, shelter and sense of belonging that comes with being able to shut your own door behind you.

But this is not an ideal world – in fact, it sometimes feels that each passing day makes it less ideal – and home ownership remains, and will remain, out of the reach of substantial proportions of the population.

In this real-world scenario, in which the continuing lack of housing stock is stifling residential sales, the role of landlords in the private rented sector [PRS] can only become more important, since they provide a viable, and vital, alternative for many individuals and households.

But in the current climate, especially in Scotland, the positive contribution that the PRS makes to the ongoing housing crisis can seem not only to be overlooked, but to be actively denigrated and obstructed.

The trope of the Rogue Landlord is deeply embedded in a great deal of current thinking around housing needs and, indeed, it can sometimes feel to an objective observer that it is the main driver of policies – policies which are pushing increasing numbers out of the sector just at the time when they are most needed.

The reality is that the overwhelming majority of players in the PRS are well aware of, and fully on side with, the understanding that they can’t treat the market like the Wild West, and they are wholly supportive of cleaning up and regulating the sector.

So, it is perhaps not unreasonable to propose some counterarguments to the perception that landlords are pushing up rents at a prodigious rate just at the time that many tenants are facing a very real and very well-documented cost-of-living crisis.