Today (11 September 2014) has seen three significant announcements by the DCLG – as follows:
1. Retaliatory evictions
In 2007, the CAB published a report called ‘The Tenant’s Dilemma‘. This was all about the problem of tenants being scared to report disrepair to their landlords because their landlords might evict them.
As indeed some do – not all landlords but a significant proportion.
It now looks as if something is going to be done about it. In July a liberal MP called Sarah Teather tabled a private members bill called the Tenants Reform Bill which hopes to end this practice.
I have not seen a copy of the bill but I understand that the way it will work will by extending the existing restrictions on a landlords power to evict under section 21 by including situations where a health and safety hazard has been identified by Environmental Health Officers.
The announcement today confirmed that the government have given it their backing, in principle.
Of course the devil will be in the detail and it will be interesting to see what the bill actually says. If anyone can forward a copy of it to me I would be grateful.
2. Model tenancies
These have been published on the Gov.uk website and can be found here.
I have not had time to look at these in detail but they are fairly long and include ‘guidance’. They can be completed online or downloaded and completed manually.
Needless to say, all of us who provide tenancy agreements will need to consider these carefully and perhaps revise our own agreements in the light of them.
3. Private Rented Sector Code
This is most welcome and is something that has been needed for a long time. It is intended to be used by landlords, and letting and management agents in the private rented sector.
So now whenever there is a dispute we have something to refer to. Clause 1.2 provides that where the code says ‘must’ this is a legal requirement. When it says ‘should’ this indicates best practice.
However so far as agents are concerned, probably all of it can be considered mandatory, as it will be the default code which they will be judged by in any complaint made to their statutory redress scheme – and all agents and property managers will need to be a member of a redress scheme by 1 October 2014.
The link on the government site goes to a copy of the code hosted on RICS website but I have now put it on this site and you will find it here.
I will be writing a lot more about all three of these initiatives in the future so watch this space.
If you want an insiders view the members bill on retaliatory eviction dropped into my inbox this afternoon from a Shelter connection.
Less than 15 minutes later I got an email from a fellow housing enforcement officer in another council saying “Have you seen this?”.
Ten minutes after that one of our EHOs wandered over from his desk and said “Have you seen this?”
In short….its of interest to us guys and specifically the proposal that S21 proceedings be blocked for 6 months after service of a council works notice or even hazard awareness notice.
If this interest has been generated just this afternoon in just one office, think what is going on in the enforcement teams of 333 councils across the UK.
We are all going to watch the passage of this bill with great interest. Anything that gives us another tool for the box in the fight against rogue landlords that doesnt allow for appeals and delays is a real boon.
Can you send a copy to me? Or is there somewhere we can see it online?
Aye, and there’s the rub Ben.
Tenant doesn’t want to pay the rent, gets a hosepipe on the wall to create some damp, ‘rogue’ landlord can’t evict. Jackpot.
And I don’t suppose councils would dream of sending round the EH hit squad to help gatekeeping their council houses.
Result will be landlords becoming more stringent about who they take on in the first place.
“No DSS” will become “No applicants without 10 years secure employment, previous landlord’s blessing, 3 independent guarantors and a 30 metres swimming badge”.
Rents go up and the majority pay for the minority.
‘IF’ this comes in.
Your missing the point HB the works notices will only prevent service of an S21. If the tenant doesnt want to pay the rent as you suggest then landlord still has S8.
I actually dont understand your point about council houses. Councils have ‘secure tenancies’ so s21s dont apply.
As for your comment about landlords being more stringent this is a certain kind of stock reply used with depressing regularity and with which I am rapidly running out of patience. “Any attempt at introducing legislation to restrict landlord practices will be met by attacks on tenants”….nice one.
Let me bring you to speed with what is going on in councils at the moment. The prevailing winds are fanning the fire of Newham style blanket licensing as more and more councillors are getting pressured to deal with poor standards and curb the activities of rogue landlords.
In response a lot of councils, lots more than you will be aware of, are preparing reports for members on whether or not to introduce it.
Forget arguments about the pros and cons of it, the fact is this is what is being discussed in town halls up and down the land and as you know I am not a fan of blanket licensing myself.
Having more effective machinery to tackle rogue landlords and poor properties at an enforcement level is actually a powerful and helpful argument to deter elected members from ushering licensing in, when can assure them we have the tools we need.
Or alternatively….lets not do anything. Lets just let rogue landlords carry on doing what they like.
Oh and Tessa here is a link http://blog.shelter.org.uk/2014/09/tenancies-reform-bill/
It sets out the small amendments being tabled
Ben, section 8 is not fit for purpose. Very few private landlords use it as it is too easily (falsely) defended against.
My reference to councils was that this could be used as a gatekeeping tool by some councils to keep tenants in private accommodation by sending EHO’s round to find something wrong with it. I have yet to see a property, private or social, that a creative EHO couldn’t find anything wrong with.
Councils’ track record on gatekeeping hasn’t been exemplary and neither have some of the bonkers decisions by some EHO’s.
I know you don’t like the stock reply about landlords taking away their toys at attempts to curb them but it is what happens. It is the unintended consequences of ill thought out actions. Renting is a sellers market and looks set to remain so.
Personally, I don’t think we need any more legislation. We need to strengthen what we’ve got and give far bigger sticks to enforce it. And, God forbid, encourage good landlord behaviour.
As for blanket licensing, I’m resigned to the fact it is going to happen sooner or later. It is too plump a target to miss. But it won’t made sod all difference, just as it hasn’t in the areas already tried.
@Ben Thats just Shelter saying what they think it will say.
I want to see yer actual proper bill with all its legal wording in it. As I said, the devil will be in the detail.
Many an act has worked out differently from what people thought because of the way it was worded (tenancy deposit legislation?)
This is an extract from the Assoc of Tenancy Relations Officers Newsletter published last week. The proposals are still in draft stage. The Second Reading is timetabled for late November when the actual clauses and Bill will be published The Bill has cross party support. like any Bill the debate will allow for amendments and improvement of drafting as it progresses.
The main provisions of the Bill are likely to be
• Prohibition of issue or validity of a Section 21 Notice for 6 months after a report of Cat 1 or 2 disrepair and issue of Improvement, ERA, Hazard Awareness Notices and other specified issues
• Prohibition of a Section 21 Notice being issued in the absence of a Gas safety or EPC
• A Local Authority Certificate issued by a qualified designated person to be proof of the defect
• Provisions to prevent spurious claims
• Provision to allow sale of property in specified circumstances
“Prohibition of a Section 21 Notice being issued in the absence of a Gas safety Cert.”
Beautiful.
Change the locks, deny access and have another 6 months rent free.
Unintended consequences eh?
Thanks Colin. I’m too biz at the moment to find more detail but it seems to back up the brief mention in the Shelter thing Tessa.
I presume that the provision “To prevent spurious claims” relates to Shelter’s mention of having the complaint in writing and logged with the local authority.
@HBW That hasnt been my experience. i get driven to distraction by the lack of willingness of many EHO teams in the field to be more proactive in how they make their determinations. Usually this failing is the result of years of being worn down by fruitless action coupled with staff cuts rendering enforcement a theoretical exercise in many councils.
Gatekeeping? Well yeah its possible but it would be a foolish council indeed who deemed a property reasonable to occupy where there are Category 1 hazards or even notices served about the conditions.
Finally I dont think what is being proposed here IS more legislation and is most definitely just strengthening existing laws. Blocks on S21s already exist for failure to protect deposits or lack of HMO licence, this just widens the remit. It does exactly what you suggest and gives us lot far bigger sticks.
Thanks for the agreement HB haha
Here’s an example of those stock answers from landlords proving ill founded. http://leftfootforward.org/2014/09/cutting-our-massive-fees-is-bad-for-you-say-estate-agents/
If a landlord in Scotland is found to be unregistered then that a Rent Penalty Notice from the council prohibits that landlord from collecting rent while the notice is in force or from evicting the tenants because of it. So there’s some “sod all difference” which has a very obvious benefit to tenants. Registration won’t stop rogue landlords setting up shop, no more than a gun licence will stop a shooting but you simply cannot provide for homes and expect to stay under the radar; as so many do.
“Beautiful.
Change the locks, deny access and have another 6 months rent free.
Unintended consequences eh?”
HB How about dropping the ‘tenant as source of all manner of skull-duggery’ approach and looking at this proposed bill in the light of the reason it is being discussed in government…..to prevent landlords from evicting people who have the temerity to ask for help with the poor conditions of the property.
I have personally spoken to two clients this week who have been served with S21s after a visit from an EHO in response to complaints from, in the first instance a tenant whose window fell out onto her 9 month old child that the landlord hadnt gotten around to fixing and in the second instance an elderly gentleman who has been without hot water since 2011 but was too scared to complain for fear of just such a retaliatory eviction that this bill is aimed at preventing.
JS, you are right in that councils ‘could’ issue RPN’s, trouble is, they don’t.
Only a handful have been dished out which could have been served for other offences anyway. It is viewed as not cost effective. Far easier to concentrate efforts on soft target ‘good’ landlords.
It has made sod all difference to the 15% rogues that predictably haven’t bothered registering and stay under the radar.
To HBW
As you know the government and courts are currently looking at ways of speeding up the court process having taken on board the concerns of landlords.
However in the report by the Universities of Hull and Oxford report on rent arrears processes and found that judges state that claims by private sector landlords take up to double the amount of court time, than taken by mortgage or social sector claims. The reasons for the delays tend to be faults in the completion of claim forms by landlords that leads to a necessary adjournment that causes further loss of court time. A follow up report to the research is included in the latest issue of the New Law Journal and has specific comment on private landlord claims.
As for “6 month rent arrears” you will know that if a tenant is in receipt of housing benefit you can ask for the payment to be directed to you which will therefore prevent a further 6 months arrears. (and it is assumed that by your statement the tenant was already in arrears at the point of dispute). That can of course not apply to those paying rent from their own means, but unfortunately there is not an easy remedy provided by the state to all problems encountered by a private business.
My initial reaction to what I read about the bill is that this is yet more legislation, red tape, and council jobs, with the result of delaying evictions by 6 months (during which the life of both landlord’s and tenant’s lives may be hell).
As far as I know there is no obligation to have a valid EPC at all times, but only when marketing the property. In addition, is an EPC that important to impose such a restriction at all? What difference will it make to the tenant to get sight of one possibly years after moving in?
There’s a £300 fine for not having an EPC when required, I think that’s quite enough if it was seriously enforced.
I agree that there already plenty of legislation that should be better enforced first.
Anyone knows where to get a copy of the bill?
I couldn’t find the document on Parliament’s website.
“HB How about dropping the ‘tenant as source of all manner of skull-duggery’ approach and looking at this proposed bill in the light of the reason it is being discussed in government.”
Because Ben, this is just knee jerk politics without thinking through the consequences. By the time this comes into effect, it will be that watered down, it won’t make a scrap of difference to the scumbag minority of landlords engaging in it. It has all party support ‘cos posing as a supporter of widows and orphans is always a vote winner.
It will however, be exploited by the minority of skull-dugger tenants and that will have a detrimental knock on effect to the vast majority of decent tenants.
I can see beyond my own selfish reasons for thinking this is bollots.
It’s quite obvious that landlords currently under the radar are only there as long as their tenants don’t ring up the local authority (here in Scotland) to enquire on their registration. I encourage any tenants in doubt to do so, and they’re happy to when it means staying put and paying no rent while the local authority takes it further.
It’s perfectly “cost-effective” to send out the penalty notice. If the local authority track the rogue down all the better – but either way – it’s one for their blacklist. It makes a difference to tenants, and that is entirely the point.
Rather than picking on people’s specific arguments and get bogged down in Landlord Law Blog’s own ‘Vietnam’ and with time being an issue for me this weekend let me just address the point of better enforcement.
For better enforcement you need three things:
-Streamlined legislation.
-judiciary that takes housing matters seriously.
-The staff to do the work.
Much planning and EHO legislation is lengthy and unwieldy and allows the recalcitrant landlord ample time to appeal and drag matters out interminably. For instance, imagine you are a tenant with no heating or hot water and God knows there are plenty of them out there. Its October the 1st. EHOs can serve notices but the landlord has a given time to sort the problem, usually 21 days.
How would you feel going without heating and hot water, a service you are paying for and which the landlord is statutorily obliged to maintain, for 21 days?
If after 21 days the landlord doesnt fix it then they can be prosecuted. How long do you think that takes? You get into court possibly around late November, and thats if things go well. Meanwhile tenant has no heating.
Then when you do get it to court the landlord doesnt lodge any defence but turns up on the day with profuse apologies, asking the judge for an adjournment to get his case together. Woth Xmas break case gets re-listed for late January.Meanwhile tenant has no heating.
If there are no delays landlord gets paltry fine but tenant still has no heating.
That is a fairly typical scenario, brought about by pathetic legislation and a limp judiciary.
As for staffing levels. Let me give you another common and specific scenario.
Landlord converts property without planning permission. He did the wiriing himself and it’s very dangerous. Planning can order him to convert back to a single dwelling but only if the conversion was done within the last 4 years, otherwise they cant.
So the PLanning enforcement people have to prove the date of the conversion but the planning officers, all three of them for one of the largest boroughs in London has 300 cases each to investigate.
Sometimes I think you lot need to wake up and smell the coffee here about what is really going on out there.
Your arguments are rapidly turning me in favour of licensing
Hello Colin,
Yes, I’ve read the report and I fully accept the comments about landlords making a pigs ear of it.
But I wasn’t really referring to the speed of the process. Even when a section 8 is done correctly, by professionals, it is easily defended and woefully inadequate.
And I certainly wasn’t referring to HB tenants in arrears, they get more than enough bashing. As you say, direct payment is a loss limiter for landlords taking on HB tenants and one of the big advantages.
“There is not an easy remedy provided by the state to all problems encountered by a private business.”
Very true. Which is why private business does what it always does; adapts, overcomes or goes under.
Although Ben is rapidly running out of patience with this wacky theory.
JS,
I said it is “viewed” as not cost effective. By the Local Authorities themselves.
I agree tenants should shop their landlords but human nature being what it is, many don’t for a variety of reasons. And when they do, LA’s will just send out threatening letters. It is too difficult to police so they concentrate on administering the ‘good’ landlords instead.
30,000 estimated unregistered ‘rogue’ Scottish landlords in a constant state of flux. Ben’s lads can’t cope with 300 fixed in one place (and I cast no aspersions on their competency BTW).
Well, i’ve already listed the benefits of rent penalty notices for tenants so clearly they are serving some purpose right now and are not without effect.
Is the registration scheme rooting out the rogue landlords tho? No. We have a terrible habit in Britain of issuing penalties (and generating revenue) instead of coming up with real solutions that solve the problem. How do you really get rid of rogue landlords and prevent them from operating? I have my own ideas, but I’ll save them for another post (that hopefully Tessa will write).