I now find that they have messed around with the Court Service website.  I know it is as a result of administrative changes but it is really annoying.

The Court Service website was very useful.  It had County Court addresses and contact details, court forms and a useful search index which was how I found a helpful notice on tenancy deposit claims (which I discuss here).

Now everything is moved over to the Direct.gov site and the Justice site.  So I no longer know where anything is any more.

The court forms are now on the Justice site here.

However I have not been able to find the court details and addresses.  I can find individual court details by doing a search on the court name in Google, but the court finder service was very useful to me.  If you know where it has gone please leave a message.

Likewise the helpful notice about tenancy deposit claims seems to have disappeared without trace.

However, strangely the enormously helpful and informative Residential Property Tribunal service website is still there.  PLEASE don’t move it!

I do wish that government would stop messing around with public service websites.  It causes huge inconvenience all round as none of our links work any more.  I can remember the same sort of frustration years back when then got rid of the ODPM website.

A message to government.  Can you leave the sites alone now.  Please?

Housing benefit and LHA – what are they thinking?

I notice today that after climbing down over prison sentences for knife crime the government is also getting,……well not exactly cold, but definitely chilly feet about housing benefit plans. Or are they just seeing sense and listening to people in the know?

Housing Benefit / LHA – the lowdown

In case you’re not aware, in order to cut £1.765 Million from the housing benefit budget the government, amongst other measures, are raising the age limit for receipt of Single Room Rate (SRR) from 25 to 35. The SRR is a regulation that says if you are under 25 and on housing benefit you will only get the amount of rent required to occupy a bedsit. If you want your own self contained 1 bedroom flat you will have to make up the difference in rent yourself

Obviously if you are on basic Job Seeker’s Allowance (JSA) @ £65 a week where are you going to get that extra cash?

Now I don’t means to diss (By which I mean London slang speak for ‘Disrespect’……not the town in Norfolk) landlord’s of bedsits but HMOs (House in Multiple Occupation) are generally regarded as poor quality accommodation with more than their fair share of social problems. For many the only way out of that is when they get old enough to get out from under the rent cap.

Under the new rules, due to come into force in April 2011, a person on benefits is stuck in that type of accommodation until almost middle age.

Panic stations at Local Authorities

When the government announced these plans a few weeks ago many London authorities went into a panic and block booked bed and breakfast accommodation down to the south coast and north to Luton to deal with the anticipated deluge of homelessness cases coming from hundreds of thousands of people who would be priced out of their accommodation. One MP likened the effect to be on par with the Highland Clearances of the 18th Century.

The government seems to have actually listened to cries of protest and have slightly amended the plan. Now, people on benefits already wont be hit by the new proposals until January 2012. however, any new claimants from April 2011 will be affected.

Not being cynical, but …

The idea behind this is to allow existing benefit claimants time to downsize from their self contained flat to a room in a shared house. Now I hate to sound cynical but do you really think that many of the countless thousands of benefit claimants who are going to be affected by this will rush, pro-actively, to move from their flat to a bedsit? I know In wouldn’t!

Don’t you think that it is likely that by January 2012 most of them will still be in their self-contained homes? This just means that the effects of the new model ‘Highland Clearance’ are just going to be delayed for a further 9 months.

What about the landlords?

And how will this hit landlords? Obviously landlords of HMOs will benefit from the increased numbers of tenants looking for available rooms but what about the landlords who will have tenants who can no longer afford the rent because of the cuts?

As is so often the case with all government plans, the savings that are trumpeted in one area just pushes the real cost somewhere else. Extending the SRR may save millions in HB but it is the landlords of benefit claimants who will have to pick up a large part of the tab in rent arrears that they cant recover and costly evictions, perhaps going Dutch with Homelessness units who will have to split the bill and spend out on rehousing some of them.

They have another plan too, which is to temporarily lift the LHA restriction, for landlords who are willing to reduce the rent levels to keep people in their homes. Once again, the landlord is footing the bill for housing benefit cuts. (LHA is the ludicrous and nationally unpopular system whereby direct payments of housing benefit to landlords is prohibited, even if the tenant actually wants it).

I wanted to write this because all of the protests about SRR are in support of the tenants, who I also support, but nobody talks about the landlord side of things here.

Part of government thinking in raising the SRR age limit is to get people off of benefits and into work but the jobs have to be out there for them to have and the recession’s eclipse is wide and dark.

Nobody is saying that cuts in public spending aren’t necessary but Mr Shapps You have to think more than one step ahead before you come up with a plan like this.

What about better HMOs??

Alternatively is it possible to raise the general standards of HMOs in order that they aren’t seen as poverty accommodation? Licensing has been much in the news but I am thinking beyond standard physical conditions and more into the lifestyle quality of them

Until the 1960s there was a long and acceptable tradition of gentlemen’s lodgings, that weren’t considered low quality options. I am not saying that we should wind the clock back and live like Alec Guinness and Stanley Holloway in the Lavender Hill Mob, but surely we can have HMOs that are an inviting and humane environment.

I know an HMO landlord who has internet installed, the accommodation is all clean, well decorated and there is even a sense of community amongst the tenants. Too many of the ones I visit are like something out of Charles Dickens.

Ben Reeve-Lewis

About Ben Reeve-Lewis: Ben has worked in housing in one form or another since 1987. He has variously been a Homelessness caseworker, Head of Homelessness for a local authority, a TRO and Housing law trainer. He now divides his time between doing contract Tenancy Relations work and as a Freelance housing law training consultant for the CIH, Shelter, Sitra and many more. Read more about Ben here.

Photo by Shandchem

…..a personal if informed rant!

The Conservative / Lib Deb coalition housing benefit plans

So the new coalition government is gradually putting a plan together and have turned their eyes on housing benefit reforms. They have made bold and popular statements that appeal to many of us, me too, but few seem to be looking at the consequences of what they are saying. If you have worked in housing a long time then they jump out at you like a jack in the box.

I just want to examine one proposal, which is the plan to cut people’s housing benefit by 10% if they have been out of work for 12 months and look at where this will lead us.

Cutting housing benefit by 10% of the applicant has been out of work for 12 months

An innocuous enough proposal and one that will get many nods of agreement. The papers have always been full of articles on benefit cheats, scroungers, mis-use of tax payers money etc.  Just the other day I saw a piece on TV of a man on disability benefits claiming that he couldn’t walk more than a few yards un-aided who was filmed by benefit fraud officers energetically playing football for his local team.

I recently had to deal with a family with 8 children and a ninth due in November whose benefit payments were over £600 a week and that was without housing benefit on top of that. The council have a legal duty to re-house them but don’t have a property big enough so will have to spend thousands finding them a home and keeping them in it.

This prompted much talk in the office about benefit reforms and personal responsibility. Government statements aimed at tackling similar situations will always have emotional resonance for a huge majority of the population. We tend to respond in a knee jerk way…. even me, but what will it really mean if they go ahead with this 10% cut plan, marked for 2013?

Empowerment

A couple of years back the labour government decided to introduce a housing benefit scheme called ‘Local Housing Allowance’.

Basically this means that tenants of private landlords who are claiming housing benefit should no longer have the right to sign payments directly over to the landlord accept in specific circumstances. The reasoning behind this was to stop treating HB claimants like irresponsible children and to empower them to take charge of their finances.

Everyone I know who works in some way in the private rented sector thought this was the most ludicrous idea the government ever had, for 3 reasons:-

• Although some tenants would deal with the matter responsibly, what of the HB claimants with drink, drug or gambling problems or who were just terrible at budgeting ,who suddenly find themselves with an extra 5, 6 or 700 pounds in their bank accounts? How much of it would end up being used as rent?
• Rent arrears would rise and with it evictions and homelessness claims.
• Landlords would be less likely to rent to benefit claimants because of concerns over receiving rent.

The same issues crop up with this proposed 10% cut in HB.

Don’t get me wrong, I am more in favour of personal empowerment than most, but I also know you don’t achieve that by just giving a person their rent payments.

Reluctance to rent

For many years now the windows of most letting agents have had stickers saying ‘No DSS’, (even though this is now defunct) really meaning, no housing benefit claimants. Landlords have similarly been cautious. LHA put many landlords I speak to in a very reluctant mood. Procurement officers that I know working for local authorities tell me how much work they have to do to reassure landlords about tenants they are trying to place with them.

Some councils deposit guarantee schemes have closed down completely when deposits have been withheld because of rent arrears caused by LHA and the deposit scheme budget quickly dwindled.

Once word gets around that there will be a definite cut in HB how many landlords will go back on the standard old ‘No DSS’ approach?  As I have written elsewhere councils are under a duty to provide housing for people who pass the full homelessness assessment route but don’t have enough council housing to fulfil the legal obligation and look to private landlords to fill the gap. The 10% cut will have a big effect here.

Empowerment Revisited!!!!!

The government states that cutting 10% off HB for people who have been on job seekers allowance for 12 months will encourage people to find work.

I am going to sound a bit cynical here so apologies in advance. Just as introducing LHA is not enough on it’s own to empower people, neither is cutting people’s benefits.

Every single day I meet so many benefit claimants who think that once they have filled in the forms their involvement ends there and rent is then the council’s responsibility.

A high proportion of people I deal with don’t even know how much rent they pay or when it falls due because again, to their minds, the council deals with these things.

When a fixed term contract comes to an end most council’s housing benefit teams stop payments until a new contract is issued. I get involved when the landlord complains of rent arrears and the tenant doesn’t even know that HB payments have stopped or why.

My great fear in this is that far from being empowered so many tenants will just accept less housing benefit as an occupational hazard and shrug it off thinking it is nothing to do with them.

Also, and in defence of many, looking for work is one thing, having jobs available to look for is another. The government is already talking about the amount of jobless and for many, depending on the area, working can be a difficult prospect.

Consequences

• If housing benefit doesn’t cover enough of the rent then this gives a landlord grounds to evict their tenant for rent arrears.
• If a tenant then becomes homeless as a result then they can approach the council’s homelessness unit who have a duty in many cases to investigate the claim.
• If they find that a person lost their home through rent arrears they can deem that the person is what is termed ‘Intentionally Homeless’ and refuse to re-house them.

Result?….

• More homelessness claims on already overstretched services having to find 25% cuts to fit the government’s budget.
• More loss of homes and with it weakened communities. How can you sustain a community when people keep moving?
• More families forced to make do, sharing with friends and family or living in overcrowded conditions.
• Damaged ability to rent other properties privately because of bad references.
• Less properties available for rent to benefit claimants.
• Loss of ability to borrow money because of damaged credit ratings.
• Smaller market for private landlords to invest in.
• Increased support costs for people who need social services involvement

And all this because of a populist idea of saving 10% on HB budgets. But how much will this cost a council overall? It costs tens of thousands of pounds to push a single family through the homelessness system, far more than would be saved by a 10% cut elsewhere. The difference is that cuts in HB would come out of the financial services budgets while increase in homelessness and support costs come out of housing department budgets, but all in all it is still the council’s pot.

A new government, new ideas but the same old lack of joined up thinking in favour of a crowd pleasing policy and demonization of people on benefits.

Ben Reeve-Lewis

About Ben Reeve-Lewis: Ben was the Tenancy Relations Officer for Lewisham Council for 11 years, prosecuting landlords for harassment and illegal eviction. Now he is a freelance housing law training consultant with a more balanced approach, delivering housing law courses for the Chartered Institute Of Housing, Shelter etc. His aim now is to help the housing world work as a interdependent system that benefits all

Legal Aid
Long term readers of this blog will know that I have written extensively in the past on legal aid, and have expressed concern, along with other law professionals, at what appears to be the gradual destruction of our once proud legal aid system.  This was set up by a Labour government in 1949, and was at that time considered to be an essential service along with the national health service.

In the past
When I first started to practice law in the 1980′s, virtually all law firms offered a legal aid service, along with their work for fee paying clients.  Someone on a low income could get legal help and assistance from almost any firm they wanted.  However in the past 15 years or so, this has all changed.  Now hardly any firms do legal aid, and it is extremely difficult for people to get help for housing, welfare, and similar legal problems.

Giving with one hand …
It ironic that the government which gave us the Human Rights Act 1998 has taken away the ability for many people to use it.  We live in a complex society and our laws are therefore complex also, as a reflection of this.  Inevitably it will be difficult for ordinary people to enforce the legal rights which are available to them, without professional legal help.

Yet this government seems intent on dismantling the legal aid system, and is making it more difficult for people in need to get proper help.

The recent PRS announcements
A prime example of this is the recent announcement by Mr John Healey, the minister for housing.  He accepts that tenants need help, but what is he offering them?  A tripadvisor type web-site and a telephone helpline.  However what tenants in difficulty *need*, is to see a qualified and experienced lawyer face to face.  Yet this is something the government appears reluctant to countenance.

What tenants actually need
Face to face advice, in particular for people who are disadvantaged (which will include vast numbers of tenants), is really essential.  As I discussed in 2006, telephone advice can be worse than useless.

To advise properly you need to see the paperwork.  An experienced housing solicitor can often get a complete understanding of a situation from just a brief glance through the papers.  He will then be able to advise on the correct course of action with confidence.  However a tenant at the end of a telephone line will not know the significance of the paperwork they hold.  They may, for example refer to a courts summons as an injunction, and fail to mention altogether documents which are crucial in the understanding of their case.

What happened to joined up thinking?
Proper professional advice can not only help the client, it can also in the long term reduce public expenditure.  For example there was a report recently in Shelter’s magazine Roof, about a recent case where a young man, who had got into a bit of a muddle with his rent.  Through the help of an experienced solicitor from the South West London Law Centre, he was able to bring a claim under the Human Rights Act against the Local Authority who were seeking to evict him.  He is now assured of accommodation.  Making him homeless would have done no-one any good, and if he had ended up sleeping on the streets, he could have developed medical problems which would then have been a cost to the National Health Service.

Save our Law Centres
The South West London Law centre is fortunate in that it receives support from City law firms (not normally short of a bob or two).  However even so it is finding it extremely difficult to survive.  Many law centres have closed over the past few years and others have major funding problems.  Yet law centers such as this are crucial for helping the under privileged.

If Mr Healey really wants to support and help tenants, providing more funding for law centres might be a better way of doing it. Rather than funding a ‘tripadvisor’ type web-site which is not going to do much to help needy tenants (many of whom won’t even have access to a computer), and will only serve to antagonise the landlord community who, understandably, consider it to be invitation to malicious tenants with a grudge to ‘bad mouth’ them.

Law Reform
Then there is the question of law reform generally.  The Law Commission was set up specifically to review the law, and make recommendations for reform.  From about 2003 it conducted a major review of  housing law and carried out a consultation exercise where literally hundreds of landlords, tenants, and advisors were spoken to and/or submitted responses. This culminated in 2006 with a final report, the Renting Homes Report, and an accompanying draft bill.  Shamefully, this major and well thought out report has been completely ignored.

What is the point of having a respected organisation such as the Law Commission, with expert lawyers such as Professor Martin Partington (who headed up much of the housing project), conduct an expensive and detailed review, if you are going to completely ignore it?

The governments main reaction was to commission yet another report (no doubt hoping that this would bring forth the ‘right answers’) from Dr Julie Rugg.  However the actions which are now proposed (including the proposed ill thought out reforms to the planning system) follow neither the (generally excellent) advice of Dr Rugg nor that of the Law Commission (although there are  elements of both).

The Law Society’s Manifesto
The Law Society, as the representative body for solicitors, who form the largest part of this country’s legal profession, has recently issued a ‘manifesto‘ setting out its position and its concerns. It looks at four main areas:

• The rule of law and access to justice
• The defence of the rights of the people
• Good governance and better law-making
• A strong and independent legal services sector

The document makes some very important points, and I hope that both those in power at present, and those hoping to be in power, will read it and take note.  You can download the pdf here.

The tenancy deposit disaster
One of the points the Law Society make is about ill drafted legislation and unintended consequences. We have seen this with the tenancy deposit legislation, added as a late amendment to the Housing Act 2004.

Although generally based on a good idea, the drafting of the clauses have proved so problematic that we are at the time of writing left with a situation where a tenant’s right to recover the penalty award of three time the deposit money (supposed to be there as a deterrent to landlords) is now dependent on the rules of the tenancy deposit scheme concerned.  Surely it should be the terms of the Housing Act which decide this, not a third parties terms and conditions?

Is this what we want?
One of the problems we have, and in particular with legal aid, is the general negative attitude people have towards the legal profession.  Generally people’s response when learning about cuts in the legal aid scheme is something along the lines of “good, that will stop all those greedy lawyers making fat profits from our money”.

Leaving aside the fact that legal aid lawyers are finding it difficult to make any sort of profit at all, let alone a fat one, the fact is that in the long run it it is not going to be the lawyers who will suffer.  They are all pretty clever people with a good qualification, they will find something else to do (and will probably be a lot better off financially as a result).  The people who will suffer will be the clients, desperately in need of good legal help, but with no-one available to provide it.

Is that the sort of society we want to live in?

A lady has just rung me about it. As the complaint was made two weeks ago I had forgotten all about it. Also she rang me just when I was in the middle of writing something complex, and I did not particularly want to discuss it, neither did I really want her ringing me back about it.

No doubt she will now tick her boxes to show that she has satisfactorily dealt with another customer complaint, thus improving the banks customer service statistics. It’s a great way of dealing with customer complaints, apart from the fact that the customer (i.e. me) does not feel particularly happy about it.

The Courts have an even better way. It is now almost impossible to get through to the courts to speak to a real person (certainly this is the case in the busier London courts) unless you are prepared to hang on for hours. Although I rang a Court recently which did not even give me that option, but only the option of leaving a message.

So the only thing to do is to write. This leads to the following ridiculous scenario:

1. A client contacts me, unhappy about the court failing to do something
2. I try to ring the court, can’t get through. Not having all day to hang on the phone (I do have other clients) I send a fax, asking what is happening
3. Several weeks later the court write about the thing the client contacted me about.
4. Several weeks after that, I get a letter in reply to my fax, saying that the thing I was asking about was dealt with a couple of weeks ago
5. No doubt the clerk then ticks a box to say that the complaint has been satisfactorily dealt with

This has happened to me several times.

I also know of a case where a solicitor wrote to a court asking them not to list a hearing on a particular day for a particuarly important reason. However the court lost the letter and listed it on that day. When the solicitor rang to complain, he was told that he would have to write in about it!

Its madness!