Another week and another Landlord Law Newsround, this week most of the housing news is coming out from Conservative Conference. But we start with a depressing report saying
Housing conditions in England are the worst in the developed world
A quarter of UK private renters pay over 40% of their income for housing, compared to just 9% in France and 5% in Germany, according to OECD data.
The problems have been developing over many years (we have discussed them often on this blog) and are largely down to a lack of supply, partly due to a failure to build enough homes. Although there are also problems of poor housing conditions (partly due to the age of our housing stock and partly due to Council failures to enforce standards). The report cites 15% of all existing homes as not meeting the decent homes standard.
I suspect that one reason for the housing crisis is the revolving door of housing ministers – no one is ever tasked with the housing brief long enough to do anything about it.
Renters Reform Bill disappears from the Gove’s keynote speech
Many activists have condemned Michael Gove’s keynote speech this week at the Conservative party conference, for leaving out any mention of the renters reform bill.
This goes against his assurance at fringe meetings that the bill would indeed reach the Commons before christmas. Generation Rent was one of the first to tweet their annoyance, Conor O’Shea of Generation Rent said
Not a single mention of the Renters Reform bill in Housing Secretary @Michaelgove’s speech here at conference. More worries that the issue is not as high a priority as we have been reassured.
Timothy Douglas, Propertymark’s head of policy and campaigns also commented that we ‘need action now’ saying
The party of home ownership also needs to be the party of renting which means a whole-scale review of taxes impacting landlords and investment in the private rented sector.
Michael Gove has been quoted as not being able to ‘guarantee’ that the Renters Reform Bill will make its second reading before the Kings Speech on November 7th. The government is going to have to get its skates on if this bill is going to reach the statute book before the General Election.
Not all renters are ‘bad people’
Rachel Maclean has stirred up a hornet’s nest after telling people in her fringe speech at the Conservative conference that not all renters are ‘bad people’. This comment has received a lot of backlash on social media with objections to her caricaturing all private renters to be the ‘same weed smokers or in gangs’. She went on to say that
There are plenty of young people who are in the private rented sector who are not weed-smoking bad people, in gangs and crack dens and everything else and smashing up the neighbourhood.
There’s lots of decent people, hard-working people in the sector and we need to do the right thing for them.
She went on to say that people were not to ‘lose confidence’ in the market as there were ‘a lot of very good landlords’.
Ben Beadle of the NRLA reminded Michael Gove that the only way to achieve a thriving rental market was to develop policies to secure landlords remain in the market and have confidence in it. He said
When section 21 repossessions end, landlords need certainty that the courts will more swiftly process possession claims where there is good cause. Alongside, this, we need to reform a tax system which is penalising the provision of the very homes renters are struggling to find.
There seems to little progress from where we were at the beginning of the year.
Swift evictions process to be guaranteed
Rachel Maclean has pledged that the government will ‘guarantee’ that repossessions that go through the courts will happen ‘swiftly’ as part of the new reforms to the rental market. At present, it takes over 6 months to repossess a property through the courts to it actually happening. NRLA claim this is still too long a process.
Rachel Maclean has pledged that the court process will be sped up because landlords need a ‘guarantee’ (this word is being used rather a lot this week!) that they can re-claim their properties back quickly where there are serious rent arrears or anti-social behaviour.
Ben Beadle from the NRLA said
Without the confidence of knowing that where they have good cause they can regain their property swiftly, the exodus of landlords from the market will continue. All this will do is make it even harder for renters to find a place to live.
The Minister’s comments are welcome, but they need to be backed up by clear plans setting out actions that will be taken and a timeframe for implementation. That must include investment in new staff and greater use of technology to process cases more swiftly.
Whether this is actually going to happen seems doubtful. Rachel Maclean can’t really speak for the Courts as they are in the Justice Department not the Department of Levelling up.
And finally, this week, we finish on a positive note with Wales’ new property tribunal system set to be simplified.
New property tribunal system for Wales gets closer
The Welsh government has issued a White Paper consultation for its new property tribunal system, which should simplify their court processes. It will merge nine tribunals and become a First-Tier Tribunal System.
Propertymark have welcomed this change as an all round benefit to the law, workloads and decision making, but would still like to see a dedicated housing court in Wales, which would take the pressure off an already over loaded court system. Tim Thomas of Propertymark says
A separate and dedicated housing court could assist in taking strain away from the court system in Wales, particularly to tackle issues between landlords and tenants that can otherwise take extended periods of time to resolve in the County Court system.
Snippets
UPDATED: The story of ‘Landlording’ – a brief history
Judge rejects landlord duo’s appeal over £21,000 council fine
Rogue landlords prosecuted by council in three days
Charity blames landlords for millions of tenants’ poor health
More than 1 million children in UK sleep on floor or share bed, study finds
Rogue landlord handed maximum £30,000 fine
Newsround will be back next week.