Landlord Law Newsround #381

Landlord Law brings another of our weekly Newsround, let’s see what has been in the news this week.

Tenants still unaware of Renters’ Rights Bill

New research out claims that 43% of tenants still know very little about the Renters’ Rights Bill, and 5% of tenants are totally unaware of the changes coming in.

The report out by Pegasus Insight revealed that 31% of tenants believe that the new bill will have a slightly positive impact while 6% said it would a negative impact. They hope that their living conditions will improve and they will have stronger tenancy stability with the abolishment of Section 21. They also feel that they will stay in a tenancy longer and 26% of tenants will move.

As regards to the bill impacting the market 27% of tenants feel that their rents will increase, and this appears to be true as 62% of landlords have said that they will recoup their losses as a direct impact from the new bill by increasing their rents.

Mark Long director of Pegasus Insight said

Our latest Tenant Trends research report suggests more needs to be done to educate renters about the new legislation set to be implemented by this Autumn, as a significant proportion of tenants know little to nothing about the imminent changes to their rights.

Quarterly inspections should be the norm – letting agents claim

Inventory Base are urging all letting agents to encourage their landlords to carry out quarterly property inspections, and this should be the norm as it ‘enhances tenant well-being, mitigates against long term costs and protects asses values’.

They also state that inspections don’t need to be costly or time consuming with the use of modern technology apps for logging an inspections and following up with any repairs. This also can speed up the length of time it takes to carry out a repair.

Another incentive for more regular inspections is compliance and risk mitigation, with fines reaching anything as high as £30,000 now for health and safety breaches regular three monthly inspections enables landlords to identify any risks before they turn into liabilities.

Here are Landlord Law we have always said that inspections should be carried out every three months as a minimum and we have our Property Inspection Kit here.

Tribunal backs tenant on rent increase

A First Tier Tribunal has rejected a landlords 25% rent increase after the tenant was unhappy with the increase. Propshire Ltd served a Section 13 onto their tenant Charmaine Powell increasing her rent from £2000pm to £2500.

The court heard that the property had damp and mould and a faulty heating system. The landlords challenged this saying the damp was down to the tenant not ventilating the property adequately. A similar property let nearby for £2100pm was discredited by the landlords saying that it was below market rent.

The tribunal ruled in favour of the tenant and ‘did not accept Mr Grunhut’s assertion that the poor condition of the property was entirely due to the tenant’s lifestyle’. It stated that £2300 would be an acceptable rent if the property was in good condition he deducted a further 10% to reflect the condition of the property and ruled that £2070 was the correct rent to be paid.

Tribunals are bracing themselves for many more claims to come their way post Renters’ Rights Bill where Section 13 will be the only way to increase rent and tenants will be able to challenge rent increases more readily.

Council Licensing is too complex – claim

Portsmouth Council’s HMO’s licensing system is ‘needlessly complex’ claim the Portsmouth & District Landlords Association. They say that the council’s system will not automatically transfer data from old licenses to new ones unless a request is made is writing, and it is not written in the renewal notice either.

This results in landlords having to re-apply at renewal as if they were applying for the first time causing much more paperwork for landlords and using up more of their time, and giving more chances of making mistakes. Furthermore, their licences will only last for 2.5 years and not 5 years if a renewal application is submitted less than 14 days to the expiry date.

Martin Silverman of the landlords association said

Sadly we have been forced to compile and issue guidelines to help landlords navigate a licence renewal scheme that is approaching Byzantine proportions in its needless complexity.

You can read more here.

Snippets

New ‘crackdown on bad landlords’ launched by London council
Landlords encouraged to join selective licensing online event
Council to review 70 rent overcharge evictions
Should tenants worry more about the Renters’ Rights Bill than landlords?

See also our Quick News Updates on Landlord Law

Newsround will be back again next week