Most of the discussion around the Renters Rights Bill tends to be
- Landlords whinging about the loss of section 21 and
- Tenants complaining that the changes do not go far enough!
However, what is not being covered is the swinging changes to the powers of Local Authority Enforcement Officers!
Rogue landlords are a real blight on society:
- Their poor quality housing frequently causes stress and sickness for their hapless tenants. This increases costs on the National Health Service, which we all pay for through our taxes.
- It can affect children’s education outcomes – and our children are our future.
- Poor quality housing also contributes to social instability and higher crime rates.
So it is important that the scourge of poor housing and bad landlords is dealt with.
Enter Local Authorities
Housing crime is mostly dealt with, not by the police (whose training rarely covers housing law), but by Local Authorities.
However, despite the fact that there is a substantial body of housing law designed to protect tenants, it mostly goes unenforced.
Why? Because there is no duty on Local Authorities to enforce it. Due to their parlous financial situation, this mostly results (with a few honourable exceptions) in Local Authorities deciding not to do housing enforcement work.
Enforcement work is expensive – if only because of the staff costs and the cost of training them.
This, though, will all change once the Renters Rights Bill comes into force.
Changes being brought in by the Renters Rights Bill:
The first big change is being brought in my clause 107, which says:
It is the duty of every local housing authority to enforce the landlord legislation in its area.
So, Local Authorities will now have to step up to the plate and deal with the criminal and rogue landlords in their areas. The bill gives them new powers to help them do this:
Civil Penalty Notices (CPNs)
These can currently be issued under the Housing and Planning Act 2016 for a number of offences, including failing to comply with improvement notices and breaching HMO licensing requirements and management regulations.
The advantage of a CPN for Local Authorities is that they can keep the fine money. Unlike fines awarded in the Magistrates Courts which, when paid, go to central funds.
In the hope that the money from CPNs can help fund enforcement work, the Renters Rights Bill brings in a whole new set of offences where CPNs (usually up to £7,000, but sometimes up to £40,000) can be applied, including:
- Breach of rent bidding restrictions
- Purporting to create a fixed term letting
- Failing to provide a written statement of terms (ie a tenancy agreement)
- Discrimination against families with children or benefit applicants
- Breach of the forthcoming decent homes standard, and
- Breach of ‘Awaabs law’
- Breach of the landlord database requirements
- Breaches of new rules relating to possession notices and possession proceedings
The bill also provides for Local Authorities to be able to serve a CPN for breach of the Protection from Eviction Act where landlords have unlawfully evicted or harassed tenants. Something which at present can only be enforced through the courts. Here, the higher fine limit of up to £40,000 applies.
There remains the fact that Local Authorities will only be able to keep the money if the fines are actually paid – something many rogue and criminal landlords are unwilling to do. However, there are new services being developed to help them with this.
Piercing the ‘corporate veil’
One of the problems which Local Authority Enforcement Officers currently often encounter is rogue landlords and criminals operating behind a shield of limited companies. These will ‘phoenix’ (ie close down and then re-start with the same directors and assets) at the slightest sign of trouble.
However, the bill provides for Local Authorities to enforce against company officers – meaning that phoenixing will no longer offer protection to criminal landlords.
Rent Repayment Orders
These are awarded by the First Tier Tribunal where landlords are in breach of specified offiences. The most significant being failure to pay and apply for an HMO or selective license.
They are very popular with tenants, many of whom have obtained significant awards of up to 12 months’ worth of rent.
If the rent is paid by benefit, then the application should be made by Local Authorities who will get the benefit of any award made. However, few claims are made by Local Authorities as:
- Many rogue landlords operate under ‘rent to rent’ arrangements where the immediate landlord has no assets. The case of Rakusen v. Jepson held that awards could only be made against the immediate landlord.
- It takes a long time for Local Authorities to be in a position to bring a claim, and the current 12-month period to apply is usually insufficient.
This will all change once the Renters Rights Bill becomes law:
- The case of Rakusen v. Jepson will be reversed, meaning that criminal landlords will no longer be able to hide behind a rent-to-rent arrangement, and
- The time limit will increase to two years. Plus
- The award limit will go up to 2 years’ worth of rent.
If the Local Authority issues a CPM and then goes for a rent repayment order, the tribunal must award the maximum amount. So, Local Authorities will be able to recover significant sums from rogue and criminal landlords under rent repayment awards.
If landlords fail to pay, Local Authorities will be able to obtain a charging order over the property, followed by an order for sale.
New investigatory powers for Local Authorities
These are pretty powerful, and it may be that Local Authorities will end up having more powers than the Police!
The new powers will include:
- Entering business premises without a warrant
- Entering residential premises without a warrant
- Plus entering premises with a warrant
- Removing documents and other items
This will significantly enhance their chances of gaining sufficient evidence to support successful claims against rogue and criminal landlords.
And finally
This all opens up new vistas for enforcement officers whose job will become a lot more interesting and satisfying.
So if you hate rogue landlords (perhaps you had the misfortune to live in one of their properties) and want to help rid the world (or at least your local area) of the blight of poor housing – you may just want to consider a career in Local Authority enforcement work!
Well done Tessa. This is an excellent article. I agree with everything you say.
You are correct when you say that most landlords are “whinging” about the loss of s21. They are doing only that. They are not selling in large numbers.
And your article describes accurately the reasons why there will be a massive exodus of private landlords using new mandatory ground 1A when the first reports are published about warrantless entry into landlords’ homes, very large fines, and 2 year rent repayment orders. It won’t be the loss of s21 which persuades huge numbers of private landlords to sell and deters inheritors of properties from letting them. It will be the onslaught of LA enforcement officers armed with greater powers than the police and significant financial incentives to find fault.
Keep it up Tessa. Make the most of the few remaining years when there will be private landlords available as potential readers of your excellent commentaries.
Er…no local authority officers has more powers than the police and the financial incentives comes from pursuing penalties against criminal operators, which I thought is what all normal landlords want isnt it? The general assumption that ordinary, compliant landlords will be accidentally caught up in criminal sanctions is just plain daft scaremongering.
I doubt that the majority of people working in regulatory services shares your enthusiasm Tessa. Just as many landlords have been getting out of the business, so have many people working in regulatory services. I know a LOT of people in my game and there isnt a single one who doesnt (and hasn’t for the past few years) have a problem with recruitment into existing posts, let alone finding funding to meet the new duties and powers.
The size of the PRS dwarves the numbers working in enforcement and regulation and the amount of criminals operating, plus the complexity of the scams used, makes the work, even at current levels, overwhelming, without all the additional layers in the RRB.
One of our biggest concerns is how to meet the duties, given that a failure in a statutory duty leaves the authority open to judicial review, for which a defence of “We dont have the staff or resources”, wont work.
New burdens funding promised by government wont be realistic, it never is, so the only way to fund enforcement is through RROs and CPNs against the criminal element and robust pursuit of the money on the awards. If pursued in the right way councils may find the resources they need but that still doesnt address recruitment problem. The uber-committed 300 Spartans at Thermopylae fighting off one million Persians may have had the right attitude but would anyone volunteer?
In my experience, where a CPN is issued the recipient appeals to the FTT by filling in the form saying the fine amount is too much. No evidence or argument as to why is given.
The FTT then ask the CPN issuer to provide the full ‘prosecution file’ which it does.
The FTT then makes it’s own decision, usually agreeing the CPN is justified, but often deciding the issuer has not given enough discount and so reduces the amount.
This process increases the workload for the issuer but is also seen as a cost effective process for the recipient as for spending an hour filling in a form and a morning in a FTT hearing, the recipient can save quite a bit of money.
Is this an April fools?
Local authorities can’t enforce the powers they’ve already got.
Driving out decent landlords with the RRB will make it far, far worse.
“However, despite the fact that there is a substantial body of housing law designed to protect tenants, it mostly goes unenforced.
Why?“
-Because it is useless, unpractical drivel brought in by lawyers and politicians for their own ends.
Who has really benefited from the huge raft of recent housing legislation?
It’s not tenants.
I think that the bigger concern is that when people extoll the benefits of this part of the new legislation, they don’t define what they mean by rogue landlord. The Bill seems to allow for both civil penalties and RROs for what many would regard as simple admin errors. The readers of this site are likely to be among the tiny minority of reasonably well informed and connected landlords looking to do the right thing, but the vast majority are probably not even aware of the Bill, let alone the detail. They may be perfectly decent landlords that have signed a 2 or 3 year contract with their tenant and will be unaware that many of its provisions will disappear on the day the law is enacted. The first that many will know could be when they are invited to an interview with the local authority under caution, or worse when the Council forces entry to their home and removes their laptops and phones. This sort of pseudo-criminalisation of landlords should be a concern to us all.