Most of the housing news this week has been about the terrible Grenfell fire.
Until the inquiry, we won’t know exactly why this inflammable cladding was installed, but it does look as if it was installed on quite a few other tower blocks. Plans are in place to rip it down again.
Residents are understandably anxious and at least some Councils are setting up round the clock fire patrols until this has been done.
Illegal cladding?
There is also the question of why this cladding was installed at all when it appears that it was banned in the UK (according to the Chancellor). Camden Council have also claimed that the materials used were not according to their specifications – which raises a lot of interesting questions. There is a criminal investigation underway.
Here is the Council Leader Georgia Gould quoted in the Guardian:
“The panels that were fitted were not to the standard that we had commissioned. In light of this, we will be informing the contractor that we will be taking urgent legal advice.
Why did this happen?
Many people have been writing about why this happened. Concern has focused on the lack of expertise in Councils. This letter in the Guardian from Judith Downey pointing out
one of the most important of the unintended consequences of outsourcing is the total annihilation of expertise among those commissioning the contract. Without appropriate in-house expertise, contracts cannot be effectively monitored or even understood. That’s why professional officers and, yes, experts, matter so much. And not just in local government.
Foster on Friday in the Guardian has pointed out that tower blocks are perfectly safe if properly maintained and all that is needed is proper funding and management.
For a thoughtful overview of the situation with social housing, the law which applies and some suggestions for improvement see this post from Giles Peaker of Nearly Legal.
The revolving door
I and other housing writers were commenting on the short tenure of housing ministers years ago – this post was written eight years ago in 2009. More recent posts on the same topic are from Property Industry Eye and Jules Birch.
When the average tenure is just 14 months, how can government hope to make serious inroads in the major problems we have?
There is also the lack of housing experience of these ministers. The new incumbent, Alok Sharma has no real experience in housing, although hopefully his accountancy background will be some help.
Housing is a tough subject and the housing crisis is going to be hard to deal with. Politicians accept this, make strong statements about how Something Must Be Done. Then, as a general rule, they slide off and do something else.
Its worse in China
However although things are bad here, it seems we have not yet got to the stage of finding 400 people living in an underground complex under an apartment complex as has happened in China.
The Independent reports:
The hidden space had been subdivided into workers’ dormitories complete with kitchens, single bedrooms and even a smoking room.
The tenants were migrant workers who had come to the city looking for low paid work, Chinese state radio reported.
At least 400 people are thought to have been living in the space, in stark contrast to the wealthy elites living in the spacious Julong Gardens above.
Landlord Action Sale
Turning to other news, Paul Shamplina’s Landlord Action firm, which has operated as a law firm regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority since 2013 has now been bought by HF Resolution Ltd, a subsidiary of Hamilton Fraser Insurance.
Hamilton Fraser, in various ways, is the company behind quite a few services in the private rented sector – My Deposits, The National Landlords Association, the Property Redress Scheme (where I am a Council Member) and now Landlord Action.
All of these, apart from the NLA, will be occupying the same (rather lovely) premises in Borehamwood. Which will be good for collaboration and cross fertilisation of ideas. I am sure we will see further new products and ideas from them in the future.
Tenant fee ban
The other big news is the inclusion in the Queens Speech of an enhanced letting agent fee ban, – which includes a number of elements not mentioned in the consultation, in particular the right for tenants to recover unauthorised fees.
The speed of the notification – the consultation only closed on 2 June, raises suspicion that many of the responses have not even been looked at, David Cox of ARLA saying
“It appears they had already made their decision and therefore the consultation was no more than a ‘tick box’ exercise and they haven’t appropriately taken the industry’s views into account.
There is also anger in the letting agent community that the workshops which had been arranged, were cancelled due to the election, as these would have been a good opportunity for them to put their concerns to government.
However as this is a generally crowd pleasing topic that will have the support of both sides of the house, I suspect it will be on our statute books fairly soon, whatever views the industry may have about it.
What made me smile this week
In a very bitter sweet way, but the public response to the Grenfell Tower tragedy was a wonderful thing.
Witness that when the PM belatedly promised £5 million, this sum had already been raised by the public.