Last Friday saw a number of publications released by the government one of which was a pdf guide to tenants on Renting a Safe Home.
Lets take a look at it.
General impressions
This guide will probably be very helpful for well educated middle class tenants (of whom there are many) but others may find it a tad challenging.
It reads very much as if it were written by an official writing with reference to a copy of the Housing Health and Safety Rating System 29 hazards open at his elbow, and the narrative style is a bit turgid.
Even I found my eyes glazing over from time to time, and I am used to reading legal documents!
If the government wants a guide to help underprivileged tenants I would suggest a more user friendly version, ideally with pictures to illustrate the hazards being discussed.
In fact this is rather what I expected when I learned about the guide. The author obviously knows what he is talking about, but maybe fails to appreciate the extent that others may not.
This is a topic which is really crying out for illustrations.
For example:
- Pictures of damp patches on walls and of black mould would be helpful
- Examples of what he means by a ‘well ventilated room’. What should tenants be looking for exactly? Ventilation bricks? Cracks under the door? Or just windows that open?
- What are the signs of a poorly maintained appliance? Frayed cables? Knobs that fall off? People need to know what to look out for
- What do smoke and carbon monoxide alarms look like?
- What does a gas safety certificate look like?
- What do mice droppings look like?
- Diagrams showing safe and unsafe positions of cookers would be good, particularly as some people (eg students) may not be familiar with cooking meals
- Likewise examples of ‘inappropriate positioning of amenities’
- Pictures of the different types of vermin that may infest properties, and
- Pictures of unsafe electrical switches, overloaded electrical sockets, and plugs with frayed cables would all help get the message over
And so on.
Hobsons choice
The guide is also a bit naive and does not take account of our current housing crisis.
If the only choice is (a) a property with uneven stair treads and a slippery bath, or (b) sleeping on a park bench, I know which one I would choose.
Further – if the only property you can afford has geriatric kitchen appliances, and damp patches on the walls – these problems are why it’s cheap. Do you want to
- Risk getting evicted by the landlord if you report the issues or
- Risk having the rent put up to something you can’t afford if the landlord deals with them?
Probably not.
Unrealistic expectations
The guide is written on the basis that retaliatory eviction will soon be a thing of the past once the provisions to deal with it in the Deregulation Bill come into force.
However the regulations depend very much on Environmental Health Officers doing inspections and serving improvement notices on the landlord.
But, as I am sure Ben will confirm, all Local Authorities are currently having to make dramatic cuts in services due to massive reductions in their funding.
I suspect most tenants will be lucky if they can get an EHO out to their property at all.
I am sure that EHOs and indeed all Council Officers, will do their best, but there are only so many hours in the day, and calling a service ‘lean’ does not somehow magic up more time to get things done.
Particularly as often it is the older and more experienced officers who get made redundant.
In short
Although there is nothing actually wrong with the guide, and it is an accurate statement of the law, I have my doubts as to whether it will actually be much help to many of the tenants faced with living in unsafe properties.
If you want to read the Guide it is here.
I wouldn’t have been anywhere near as diplomatic in my review. Let’s be honest it’s completely useless.
E for Effort maybe?
But as long as they write “something” (anything) then they get to bang on to the press about ‘what they’re doing for tenants’.
I don’t think its a TOTAL waste of time. But I don’t think it will help the people who will need it most.
I suspect you are right RR and the main motivation is to be seen to be ‘doing something’.
First, the guide will help some people, as it will “help the helper” and also be read by people thinking of becoming a landlord.
There has been a project going on for many years to “translate” the bible into simple English (EasyEnglish) in such a way it can be understood by people that are only starting to learn written English, it uses a word vocabulary of about 1200, and a very limited subset of English grammar.
Given how much it is costing as us a country to provide support to people that can’t understand guides like this and the benefit system etc – should the same be done for government information? (With a link between the EasyEnglish version and the “middle class native” version.)
I tend to agree with Tessa, while the choose is between “bad housing” and no housing the tenants at the bottom are better off choosing “bad housing”.
I am sorry to say until the government sort out the legal system so that it is worth “good landlords” taking the risk to rent to tenants at the bottom of the pile, not much will change.
UC (with its unworkable admin system) is leading to lots of landlord moving away from renting to anyone on benefits. Likewise with the slowness of the eviction system and the impossibility of recovering the ever increasing costs of eviction from tenants on benefits.
I keep coming to the sad conclusion that every time the government tries to protect tenants, the likely outcome is that less landlords will be willing to take on tenants that most in need of protection, hence forcing them to rent from the worse landlords.
“I tend to agree with Tessa, while the choose is between “bad housing” and no housing the tenants at the bottom are better off choosing “bad housing”.
You actually said that?
Yes, sleeping in a shop doorway is not a good option! We live in the real world, not some makeup world where there are enough good homes.
Hot on the heels is this DCLG publication concerning prosecution of landlords which seems to fly in the face of govt advice to co-operate, and encourage landlords and in their amendment to the revenge eviction proposals. No they suggest a no-nonsense crackdown……….
“It is important to avoid wasteful informal engagement.
Landlords should respond to advice and informal engagement promptly, failure to do so should be met with prompt robust enforcement action and the beginning of prosecution proceedings”.
I thought that they promoted informal engagement as the preferred method of operating. It also contains the phrase “illegal landlords”. Have not heard of that one before.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/improving-the-private-rented-sector-and-tackling-bad-practice-a-guide-for-local-authorities
Someone at the DCLG must have gone over the top with some controlled substances.
Colin I shall be reviewing this over the next few days. I glanced through it the other day and it’s everything my team does but we have some more contacts.
One thing lets it down. The list of local authority powers looks great but you need the staff to do it and the recent round of cuts turns us all into King Canutes
Thanks for the link Colin. It is very badly written, the English is ruddy terrible.
I’m also bemused with this;
“the overwhelming majority of landlords are reputable and provide decent well maintained homes. We want to encourage and support these landlords”
There is nothing in the guide that does this. There is nothing in Government policy that does this. It is all about hitting bad landlords with a stick. No problem with that, I’d like to see an even bigger stick if anything, but I’d also like to see some carrots. It is the best (only?) way to improve the PRS. Prevention rather than cure.
“10.A key problem for local authorities can be identifying the location and scale of the private rented sector in their area.”
If this is a key problem, why don’t they simply put a tick box on the council tax form asking ‘is the property rented?’.
81 is incorrect.
83 is due to change.
86 is incorrect.
“tackling bad and illegals practice”…
Who decides what is “bad practice”, and how do they propose to tackle such (legal, I suppose) practice?
I think that there is enough work tackling illegal practice.
@Colin: “Someone at the DCLG must have gone over the top with some controlled substances.”
You might be onto something. I’m guessing one too many “election-in” pill.