[Ben Reeve Lewis is going to Wales …...]
Writing this slightly earlier than normal as trying to clear the decks for the Landlord Law Conference Wales on Friday at the Angel Hotel Cardiff.
I shall, as usual, be trotting into the infamous Ashtons Fish Stall in Cardiff’s covered market to buy their sublime Laver bread a product generally unavailable in London.
In praise of laver
A dark green puree of seaweed that my missus says looks like it has already been eaten but who herself isn’t averse to having it subtly slipped into her bacon sandwich for that indefinable seaweedy tang.
If you get the Nori thing going on in Sushi then you’ll get using laver bread as a glue to tie in salty bacon and mild scallops in a sandwich as a sort of Cardiff meets Tokyo fusion.
Can’t wait.
In fact Laver Bread is an ideal metaphor for the difference between Wales and England in terms of housing law.
Laver bread is a regional Welsh oddity, lauded in its homeland (and my kitchen) but unknown or even vilified east of Bristol.
Welsh housing law
The Wales Renting Homes Bill is also an unknown regional oddity. Not exactly vilified east of Bristol but I would like to think vilified in Westminster, reason being it is a strident move away from the hands off approach to PRS renting in England and introduces all manner of controls for Welsh landlords and letting agents.
Those pesky devolved countries and their fancy laws.
In following last week’s election trauma, a result I still haven’t emotionally recovered from, I have decided to start a devolution party for London, who mostly voted Labour and I will usher in not only rent control for the capital but also the right to do the Lambeth Walk whenever and wherever we please AND add the words ‘Av a banana’ to the end of every pop song we deem fit.
Build to let
Letting Agent today threw us a tasty titbit about life post election 2015 the fact that private landlords countrywide will now be expanding into “Build to let”. Forget ‘Buy to let’….that’s so passé, so Noughties.
The article celebrates thus:
“The Build To Rent sector is set to enjoy a surge of new investment as a result of the Conservative victory in last week’s election – Our recent survey of leading investment houses identified a collective ambition to invest over £30 billion in the UK private rented sector, over 50 per cent from UK investment houses”.
To laugh or to cry?…..there’s the rub.
In the continuing round of musical chairs that has been the housing minister’s job for the past few years we welcome the current incumbent Mark Francois, MP for Rayleigh and Wickford in Essex.
Mark Francois
24 Dash fills us in on his experience and abilities
“Mark Francois, who will be 50 this year, was born in Islington in 1965 and moved to Basildon in Essex in 1971”
Okay…..no problems there.
“He studied history at Bristol University”
Fine
“He served as an infantry officer in the Territorial Army, including with the local Royal Anglian Regiment, in the 1980s.”
Coolio
“Before becoming an MP, Francois worked in banking”
Here we go…..the wheels are coming off
“During the 2009 expenses scandal, Francois was described as “a bit of an animal” by the Daily Telegraph due to his love of Peparami”.
Scuse me?????
“His claims also included Mars bars, Snickers, Kit Kats, wine gums, Twiglets, Jaffa Cakes, chocolate biscuits, Pringles crisps and “bags of sweets”. He also had a penchant for Häagen-Dazs ice cream, lemon sorbet, choc ices, crisps, Starburst, Bourneville dark chocolate and Trebor mints.”
WTF??????
So I did a bit of research and found that the expenses scandal he was involved in resulted in him being forced to return £200 that he had spent on snacks at the tax payers expense.
In his new role he will be working closely with Eric Pickles at the CLG, a now rather worried man, himself not exactly immune to a snack or two who will no doubt be hastily installing a refrigerated wall safe to protect his numerous Kit Kats.
Reading his rather strange CV I confess to doubts about Francois’ ability to even recognise a housing issue, let alone manage a solution.
Time will tell, well at least the few months he will have in post until the next clueless idiot comes along.
The Turner prize
The Turner prize has long been a source of both tabloid amusement and raging debate amongst artists, from the infamous pile of bricks to that room where the light went on and off as you walk into it. (Simply a sign of dodgy electrics or meter tapering if you ask me) but even I was surprised this year by the inclusion of a Liverpool council estate in the running.
A street of houses earmarked for demolition have been regenerated by a group of local artists
Admittedly it looks a bit quirky and fun. Wouldn’t mind living there myself but I can’t see the artistry in much evidence. A lot of plants I grant you but……………
Still, if a man in a dress, making pots can win the Turner then who knows?
Agents on the Naughty Step
Estate agents are on the naughty step this week with the Guardian Money section’s report about estate agents, Brian Cox charging house buyers a £2,000 bung just to remove a property from the market if the buyer ‘Wants to be taken seriously’.
Home buyer Jessica Rose smelled a rat and kicked up a fuss, with the result that Brian Cox held their hands up and said of the practice “We made an error”.
No shit Sherlock, and exactly how does one make an error of that kind?
When we said ‘Two thousand pound deposit’ we actually meant ‘Two thousand hounds in a closet’, an entirely innocent attempt to get into the Guinness book of records that accidentally got mixed up with their daily business practices.
But Jessica is social media savvy and went onto Facebook with this dubiousness, only to be dubbed by Brian Cox………..yes that’s Brian Cox, (Lets increase their search engine optimisation) accused her of “Slanderous comments about the deposit system” before announcing “We made an error”.
And people wonder why so many agents have a low trust rating.
What made me smile this week
Well apart from the Brian Cox story above, a joke by my favourite Tim Vine.
“So Batman hit me on the head with a teapot. He said “T’pow’, I said, ‘Don’t you mean K’pow?”, and he said ‘No…….I’ve got China in my hand”.
One for the over 40s.
See ya next week, or in Cardiff on Friday.
STOP PRESS: T’would appear that the story about Mark Francois is not true. There was 24 hours of confusion but Cameron announced that Brandon Lewis would stay in post http://nearlylegal.co.uk/blog/2015/05/vulnerability-a-fresh-start/ and it is actually the eternally charming Eric Pickles who has been ousted http://www.24dash.com/news/central_government/2015-05-11-Cameron-ditches-Eric-Pickles-as-Communities-Secretary-reports Still at least his snacks are safe
For the PRS, the Renting Homes Bill will essentially just replace Assured and Assured Shorthold Tenancies with, wait for it, Secure and Standard contracts, and everything else will be a Contractual Tenancy. Not a massive change for the bulk of the industry (but a real PITA for those on Agricultural Tenancies etc. and hardly worth the effort.)
Possession notices will change slightly.
Registration/licensing/training will come in to force, which at least will be a national scheme, but it won’t make any difference without enforcement and they don’t seem to have any idea how it is really going to work in practice or what the costs will be.
The code of practice is broadly similar to that of Arla and TPO, so not much change there.
Some sensible amendments to abandonment, joint tenancies and ending tenancies shortly after death, are the only changes that are really going to make things better and simpler for all parties.
I can see why the Welsh might want to make their own rules, but who is paying for it all? Ultimately, by having these different laws in Scotland and Wales it is creating greater barriers, bureaucracy and cost. Our organisation is pulling back operations in Scotland and Wales as a result.