There is always something happening in Landlordlawland. Legislation, events, reports, you name it.
The Rugg Report
We have just had a really big report published, one of the authors being Julie Rugg who published an influential report in 2008 (although I think government ignored most of their conclusions).
I have not had time to read it all yet, but our own Ben Reeve Lewis was involved in it and has published a post about it here.
The report is fairly scathing about some letting agents saying that they are as amateur as the landlords they work for, which is hardly surprising as you can set up business as an agent with no regulation, no training and no knowledge of renting property – perfectly legally.
It seems about 38% of landlords use an agent, but
survey data indicate higher levels of dissatisfaction with letting agents: tenants asked about repairs and maintenance were almost twice as likely to be dissatisfied if their tenancy involved a letting or managing agent rather than a landlord more directly.
I found a nice summary of the report on the Lime Legal site which said
The main findings in the review include:
- Current regulation of the sector is ‘confused and contradictory’ and ‘failing at multiple levels’. Opportunities for linkage and simplification are being missed, with tenants and landlords unsure of their rights and responsibilities.
- Poor conditions are a problem at both ends of the market – one in five homes let at the top 20% of rents are non-decent, to one in three let at the bottom 20 per cent. Conditions get worse the longer tenants are in their property, indicating that poor property management rather than old housing stock is the root cause.
- Changes to welfare reform are creating a ‘slum tenure’ at the bottom end of the market as more tenants are unable to afford to meet their current rent levels or find accommodation without the help of statutory or third sector agencies.
- Policy interventions are increasingly focused on helping higher and middle-income renters priced out of the ownership, with little or no help for those on low incomes.
To read the review, click here To read a summary, click here.
Legal aid and discrimination
The Equalities and Human Rights Commission has published a report looking at the impact of legal aid changes since 2013.
Recommendations include reinstating legal aid for initial advice in housing cases and that the exceptional case funding scheme should be reformed to provide an effective safety net where the absence of legal aid would otherwise lead to violations of people’s rights.
Future Renting Conference
I attended this conference run by the RLA yesterday and will try to get a proper report online if I get time.
It was a useful conference – speakers included Anne Frost deputy directory PRS, Kate Faulkner, David Smith, David Cox, Katrine Sporle and Karen Buck MP.
I was particularly interested to learn about the research work that is being done and presented to the government to back up their lobbying work. The RLA really is an excellent organisation.
Amusingly there was a small tenants demonstration outside the venue – obviously unaware that these are the ‘good guys’.
I think one of their questions was ‘Do you think anyone should be allowed to own more than one property’. Although if that was the case – where would the people who prefer to rent and who do not want to own a property, live? If no-one is allowed to own a second property to rent to them?
The main effect of the demonstration was that it disrupted the conference lunch – which will no doubt please them.
HMO changes warning
One strong theme at the conference was the looming change in the HMO rules which will mean thousands of properties coming into scope for HMO licenses.
Be aware landlords – it will apply to existing tenancies as well as new ones after 1 October. So you really need to get round to your properties and check how many people are living there.
There has been very little publicity about this major change from government. Despite the fact that it is a very big deal and the penalties for non-compliance are HUGE.
There is no grace period – so if your property is going to be affected you need to get your application for a license into your Local Authority NOW.
Snippets
- Landlord who let fire hazard tiny room in HMO is ordered top pay £32,000
- Transport for London is looking to build rental flats above tube stations
- LB Camden targets rogue agents in a special clampdown. But surely they should do this all the time?
- There is a useful article about landlords fire safety obligations here.
- The RLA has published a nice collection of essays to mark its 20th anniversary which you can download >> here.
Newsround will be back next week.
‘– one in five homes let at the top 20% of rents are non-decent’
Makes a mockery of applying council housing standards to private rentals.
A council clipboard warrior could condemn Buck Palace if they applied the Decent Homes Standard;
“Single glazing? EPC rating G? Kitchens over 100 years old? Victorian plumbing? 200 metres to the Throne? Excess noise pollution from the trumpeters?
-Where’s me improvement notices?!”
I agree the Decent Homes Standard is a bit silly. I am letting my former home and it would fail because the kitchen is over 20 years old. Apart from one slightly warped shelf and some scuff marks on the floor there is nothing wrong with it. I lived with it for 18 years,
Also the figure are likely to have changed a lot since the 2013/14 report they used, because the minimum EPC standard stops properties that would fail the thermal comfort part of the DHS from being rrented legally without an exception.
“Conditions get worse the longer tenants are in their property, indicating that poor property management rather than old housing stock is the root cause.”
This conclusion illustrates how dangerous it is to pull out data and draw theoretical conclusions from it, which although they may make logical sense, are not the actual explanation.
I’ve reacted to this comment because it applies to me.
It is the norm for me that when a new tenant moves in we are swamped with complaints – to the extent that we prepare for it and have tradesmen available to deal with the issues. Some of them are just people who don’t know how to work the microwave and can’t be bothered to read the manual, but also a lot are genuine issues which the previous tenant couldn’t be bothered to report, and lived with. Yesterday’s was a shower with overhead and handheld showerheads. When handheld the thermostatic temperature control works, when overhead it is “dodgy”. Perfectly liveable with, but a fault, and a fault that wouldn’t be picked up from a flat inspection.
We don’t do flat inspections – because it causes more grief with the tenants than they are worth. 30 years ago societies attitude was that the owner of the property had the right of access, today tenants know their right to quiet enjoyment, and just plain don’t like the owner “having a look”. They also don’t want the disruption that a bit of redecoration would cause.
Without doubt conditions get worse the longer tenants are in my properties. However I provide a full time Concierge, part time Handyman, and most days there is a contracted builder on site and able to deal with issues. I object to the conclusion that poor property management rather than old housing stock is the root cause.
There us one finding of the report that I strongly agree with:
There is a profound lack of information on how the PRS works as a market, at both
the national and local levels, and where and how particular interventions have
impacted on effective operation of those markets. Sector interventions are too
often based on London problems and then extrapolated to other types of area.
I haven’t finished reading it.