MP Landlords refuse to vote-in Homes Fit for habitation

The row over Tory MPs who voted against a bid to ensure all homes let to private tenants were “fit for human habitation” has taken a new twist.

This is because it has been revealed other parties also have MPs who are landlords and who did not vote for the proposal

Last week a Labour amendment to the Housing & Planning Bill called on landlords to ensure their properties were kept to a fit standard for human habitation; Conservatives declared this to be a stunt and say it would create further red tape for landlords.

A row broke out over 72 Tory MPs - who each earned at least £10,000 each per year from letting out homes - who were amongst those who voted against the bill.

However, it now appears substantial numbers of other ‘landlord MPs’ didn’t vote for the measure too.

Research by the International Business Times suggests 25 Labour and seven SNP MPs, along with a Liberal Democrat MP, were themselves landlords receiving in excess of £10,000 a year, and did not vote for the measure.

Instead they abstained, as did 23 other Tory MPs who are landlords receiving £10,000-plus.

source https://www.lettingagenttoday.co.uk/breaking-news/2016/1/labour-and-snp-buy-to-let-mps-did-not-vote-for-controversial-amendment

Somewhere over the rainbow....EPCs are coming... again.....

The government has announced new dates for energy efficiency compliance in rental properties, this will mean all properties to be rented out, including those already rented will be subject to the new energy legislation.

The proposed dates are as follows

From April this year (2016) tenants living in private rental sector property with F and G rated homes, as measured by Energy Performance Certificates will be able to request improvements, such as more insulation. The landlord will then be legally bound to bring the property up to an E rating.

Then from April 1st 2018 agents and landlords with properties rated F and G will be unable to let them out legally

April 2018: by this date it will be unlawful to let out a property with an F or G Energy Performance Certificate rating, as a new let. There will be a few limited exemptions;

April 2020: by this date the requirement for a minimum E rating will apply, not just to new lets but also to existing tenancies;

2025: the target is for a minimum D rating;

2030: the minimum target will be a C rating.

With the recent abolition of the Green Deal it is unclear how landlords will be expected to pay for the renovation works that will be required on the millions of homes on the rental market
Watch this space for updates...

Do you have the Right! The rent?

From the 1st February new legislation comes into force Under section 22 of the Immigration Act 2014 requiring all landlords and letting agents to check the immigration status of potential tenants before granting them a tenancy

The Scheme was piloted in parts of the West Midlands in December 2014 and the extension to England is the next phase of what the government intends to be a UK-wide roll out
Following a recent Freedom of Information Request, Right2Rent.co.uk, received confirmation that as of the 7^th August 2015, 7 Civil Penalty Notices had been issued to Landlords in the pilot areas. The penalties ranged from £80 to £2,000. A further 21 Civil Penalty Referral Notices were issued before the 7^th August 2015, notifying Landlords that they may be liable for a penalty.

So what is Right to Rent
In short, it means ALL landlords and agents MUST check the immigration status of your potential Tenant or lodger, to ensure they have the Right to live in the UK, you can check the status here:
https://www.gov.uk/check-tenant-right-to-rent-documents

These new laws apply to anybody who sublets or takes in lodgers,Liability only applies to NEW tenancy agreements entered into after the commencement dates (i.e. existing tenancy agreements will not be affected).

Failure to do these checks will result in a financial penalty of up to £3,000 per tenant and to add insult to injury The Immigration Bill 2015/16 contains proposals to broaden the liability that individuals face under the Right to Rent scheme. If this bill becomes law, as appears likely, then the persons with responsibility for carrying out the checks will become CRIMINALLY liable if the right to rent provisions are not followed. Such persons if convicted will face a custodial sentence of imprisonment for up to 5 YEARS and/or a fine.

For once the Government have published a useful guide for landlords on how to carryout these checks, you can download it here: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/489675/2016-01-5__Document_Guidance_For_Landlords_V1_1.pdf

So... I'm sure we can all see whats coming..... Landlords and agent will just default to renting to obvious British Citizens ONLY.... Thankfully someone has actually thought this through and it would be in breach of discrimination laws to discriminate on grounds of nationality by only renting to British citizens. A landlord adopting this approach could face a discrimination suit which would have uncapped damages.
In order to comply with the Right to Rent scheme, landlords should carry out checks on ALL prospective tenants, regardless of appearance, to ensure that they are complying with the new scheme

These checks are not a one off either, if you renew the tenancy or were aware of a  ‘time-limited’ right to rent is established then a further check will be needed after the longest of the following:
a) one year, beginning with the date on which the checks were last made;
b) until the period of the person’s leave to be in the UK expires; or,
c) until the expiry of the validity period of the document which evidences their right to be in the UK.

Mistakes
The main issue with all new legislation that requires audience participation of some form usually has its teething problems and the odd innocent mistake is made, interestingly as the Government is make us de facto immigration officers with no training or immigration knowledge, they have stated that there is no excuse under the statute if the Landlord makes a mistake in interpreting documentation or commits an innocent error. In these circumstances, unless landlords have passed on liability to an agent, they will remain liable for breaching the requirements of the Right to Rent scheme.


I do wonder though, how the Government will manage to police yet another Bandaid policy given that all these great ideas such as Compulsory advertising of Fees, EPCs before letting, protection of deposits..  have slipped seamlessly under the radar

Right to Buy or not the Right to Buy.... a Cheeky little number

As I am sure you are all aware, the Housing and Planning Bill had its last day in Committee yesterday in the House of Commons.

You may be forgiven for thinking that we are now fast approaching the final jump to Royal Ascent... sadly at the 11th hour 2 new clauses and 1 new Schedule have been slipped in to upset what had been a rather well balanced apple cart.

These amendments seek to prevent  new periodic secure tenancies from being granted (subject to very limited exceptions, mostly to be set out in additional legislation) and replace them with fixed term tenancies of between 2 and 5 years.
These fixed term tenancies will principally mirror the model of the current flexible tenancy,

Now here is the science bit......

A local authority who decides to grant a fixed term tenancy of 3 years or less, will, under this proposed clause, be able to avoid the option for tenants to Buy their council property.

Right to Buy eligibility commences after 3 years of being a tenant (s.119(A1), HA 1985
So.... if councils grant tenancies of 3 years or less and dont renew them, the tenant never becomes eligible to take up their Right to Buy.
On top of this, even if a council does grant a 5 year tenancy and the Right to Buy eligibility is met after year 3, the tenant will only be eligible for the minimum price discount on the cost of the property, This is because the additional discount (1% p.a. for houses or 2% p.a. for flats) only arises after the fifth year (s.129, HA 1985). So, a five year tenancy which is not renewed means the tenant will never get the “length of occupation” discount.

As we know there is seldom any joined up thinking in Housing legislation after all  one of the main reasons for creating secure tenancies under the Housing Act 1980 was precisely to facilitate the Right to Buy.

on a slight side note: Succession to a tenancy is also under fire, with proposals that the spouse or civil partner only succeeds to a five year fixed term tenancy

The Bill comes back for Report Stage early in 2016  So watch this space to see how this little gem unfolds

Homeless reviews.... Only if you pay up first

Now i am sure many of my industry peers will have come across this problem before, however its a first for me having recently changed the Borough i work in

I saw a client who had been given a Not Priority Need decision, as i always do i put in to review this, as i can mostly find an error when trawling the housing file

Now the previous Borough council i worked with were very helpful and would supply the housing file , albeit after some vigorous chasing, free if charge

So you can imagine my surprise when this local council refused to release the file without £10 payment

Now i appreciate there is no law stopping them from charging, but this hit me with a dilemma.

Who pays the £10?

I work for a charity we have no spare funding for this

The client is homeless with very limited funds, £10 to them is a lot of money

I tried to reason with said council, but no joy and as they outsource the review, another situation i had not come up against before, the reviewers were threatening to carry out the review without my input

Thankfully the client is now house and not under homeless duty

But i am still left with the dilemma for future clients, if a client cannot afford to pay for their housing file is this in someway discriminating against their legal right to review?

Im not a solicitor so any input would be appreciated 

  

New Rules for Section 21 Notices

From 1^st October, changes to the way a section 21 notice can be served will come into force.

These changes will start to effect assured shorthold tenancies due to hit the 6 month mark in April

These changes are a combination of the Deregulation Act 2015 and The Assured Shorthold Tenancy Notices and Prescribed Requirements (England) Regulations 2015

These changes ONLY apply to NEW tenancies starting after 1^st October 2015, this WILL include any RENEWAL tenancies where a new fixed term tenancy is drawn up, this will NOT affect any tenancy migrating onto a statutory periodic tenancy from a fixed term.

The section 21 notice will also now be in a new prescribed form.

Landlords and letting agents will not be able to issue a section 21 notice at the commencement of a tenancy, this is currently normal practice. A section 21 will not be able to be served on a tenant until 4 months have passed from the start of the tenancy.

New Time Limit: A possession claim cannot be started on a section 21notice after the end of 6 months from the date the notice was given. Or for a s.21(4) notice where the notice period has to be longer than two months, a possession claim cannot be started based on that notice more than 4 months after the end date specified in the notice
Section 21s will now also have a shelf life, if possession proceedings are not brought within 6 months of serving the notice, the notice becomes invalid and a new notice must be served

New legislation to protect tenants from retaliative evictions.

Tenants in private rented accommodation ONLY, will be protected from eviction if they have made a legitimate complaint about the condition of the property to their landlord.

 

This New Retaliative Eviction law will come with rules which must have been followed Before a Section 21 notice is served by the landlord

• Tenant must make a formal written complaint to the landlord of the disrepair/condition
• Landlord has 14 days to respond (an adequate response by the landlord is a response in writing which—provides a description of the action that the landlord proposes to take And sets out a reasonable timescale within which that action will be taken)
• If no response from landlord – a section 21 served now would be invalid.
• Tenant must then report this unresolved issue to Local authority
• ONLY once the local authority has confirmed that the repair needs to be carried out to prevent a potential risk to health and safety, will the new rules come into play.
• The landlord will not be able to evict a tenant for 6 months

A landlord will also be prevented from evicting a tenant where they have not complied with certain legal obligations such as

• Supplying Gas Safety Certificates
• Supplying Energy Performance Certificates.

This restriction would be lifted as soon as these documents are provided

If a Property is on the market for sale, then it is likely the new rules will NOT apply to Section 21s regardless of the condition of the property

A section 21 served after 1^st October, will not be required to expire on the last day of a period, all that will now be required is two clear months notice. To accompany this is the requirement to repay the tenant pro rata the ‘unused’ proportion of any rent paid in advance where the s.21 expires in the course of a rent period and the tenant leaves.

The Something Must Be Done Bill, Calais edition

The Rent Act 1957 introduced the requirement for a court order for eviction from a tenancy. That is 58 years of eviction without due process of law being unlawful. But no matter, for Something Must Be Done to deter people who have spent months on perilous journeys across continents and are currently sleeping under an old tarpaulin. Nothing is more likely to make such desperate, traumatised people turn their faces from England, pick up their tarpaulins and walk away into France than knowing they will not get the security of occupation offered by Housing Act 1988 or Protection from Eviction Act 1977.
And that is just one of a whole series of wizard wheezes announced by the Communities Secretary (and Home Office) today. Here is the whole lot – minus, of course, any of the crucial details.

Measures in the forthcoming Immigration Bill will go further, and will enable landlords to evict illegal immigrant tenants more easily, by giving them the means to end a tenancy when a person’s leave to remain in the UK ends – in some circumstances without a court order.
This will be triggered by a notice issued by the Home Office confirming that the tenant no longer has the right to rent in the UK. The landlord would then be expected to take action to ensure that the illegal immigrant tenant or occupant leaves the property.

This, of course, runs roughshod over centuries of land law, in which an estate in land in wholly distinct from any mere personal characteristic. Uncertain terms, contractual periods that are potentially no such thing, and of course, eviction on the say so of the Home Office, who always get things right. Where is the route of appeal? Where is the possibility for scrutiny by the Court? Hard to say until the detail becomes clear, but there is enough here to make it likely that the legislation will be a complicated mess.
I spent an idle few minutes earlier today considering how many ECHR rights such legislation might breach. It became easier to count the ones it didn’t. Assuming that we haven’t actually been taken out of the Convention by the time this enters law, ‘proportionality’ is going to have do an awful lot of stretching to cover breaches of P1A1, Art 8 and Art 6. Incompatibility beckons…
And there I collapse, it is impossible to satirise, or even mock, such a catatonically dim-witted, legally illiterate, wholly unnecessary, thoughtless proposal.
But of course, it doesn’t end there. Yes, ‘right to rent’ will be extended nationally. Even though the evaluation of the West Midlands pilot hasn’t been completed and despite early evidence that British citizens without a passport were being turned away by landlords. What chance would a Zambrano carer have?
This is an odious law. We have always said so. Now we will have a chance to see just how bloody stupid it is on a national scale.
And then ‘rogue landlords’ (but not as we know them).

There will be a new criminal offence targeted at unscrupulous landlords and agents who repeatedly fail to conduct the “right to rent” checks or fail to take steps to remove illegal immigrants from their property. These landlords may face a fine, up to 5 years imprisonment and further sanctions under the Proceeds of Crime Act.

But then again, the NLA welcomed ‘stronger eviction powers’, their main concern being that these immigrant types, once they lost their right to rent, might turn out to be dangerous to, um, landlords, with Richard Lambert, NLA chief exec saying:

“I do worry in the case of an illegal immigrant you possibly have a despairing person in a desperate situation. That often leads to people doing very desperate things. Who knows? Barricading themselves in? There is the risk of defending themselves with all the force they can muster. It could put people in potential danger.”

Yes, Richard, that is the real risk of this proposed legislation. How could we have overlooked it?
The DCLG continue:

Forthcoming legislation will create a blacklist of persistent rogue landlords and letting agents, helping councils to focus their enforcement action on where it is most needed, and keeping track of those who have been convicted of housing offences.
And new measures will prevent a landlord or letting agent from renting out of properties if they are repeat offenders.

‘Rogue landlords’? In a remarkable redefinition, it appears that a rogue landlord will now be someone who doesn’t evict their tenants without getting a court order.
But I suspect that the PRS landlords will not be remotely happy at the prospect of a 5 year prison sentence for messing up immigration status checks.
The ‘blacklist’? (perhaps a slightly unfortunate term in the context of anti immigrant legislation) – well we will have to wait and see what is involved there. Given the lengths that the MoJ went to to resist a FOI request for details of prosecutions of landlords, this could be interesting, so long as it is not restricted to breaches of ‘right to rent’.
The other announced measures are:

• a new tougher fit and proper person test for landlords of properties that have to be licenced, to ensure they do not pose a risk to the welfare or safety of tenants
• extending Rent Repayment Orders so local authorities can claim back rent payments from landlords who abuse the Housing Benefit system by failing to ensure the property is maintained to a good standard
• enabling local authorities to issue penalty notices for certain civil offences, with the money retained by the council and used for housing purposes
• permitting the sharing of Tenancy Deposit Protection data to help councils crack down on rogue landlords who knowingly rent out unsafe and overcrowded accommodation
• enabling landlords to recover abandoned properties more quickly without the need to go to court.

Again, the devil will be in the detail. ‘Penalty notices for certain civil offences’ is downright odd, as a) these are civil offences and b) councils aren’t the claimant in civil matters.
Sharing of TDS data will, I have no doubt, be with HMRC as well as councils. Landlords and agents take note.
Easier recovery of ‘abandoned properties’ by landlords? Hmmm. Again, devil in the detail, but unlikely to be good.
At a time when housing law needs a serious reconsideration overall (and Scotland and Wales have gone some distance in that regard), I despair at this petty, pointless, vicious, knee-jerk pandering. This atrocious Something Must Be Done legerdemain. And we know there is more to come…

credit
http://nearlylegal.co.uk/blog/2015/08/the-something-must-be-done-bill-calais-edition/