Landlords call for package to support tenants hit by coronavirus

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The country’s leading landlord organisations are calling for a package of measures from Government and mortgage lenders to support tenants and landlords affected by the coronavirus. The package of measures includes: A temporary scrapping of the five week wait before Universal Credit claimants get their first payment Pausing the final phase of restricting mortgage interest […]

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Rogue landlord task-force secures first prosecution

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Latest action by Camden makes it the toughest London borough on errant landlords since it began regulating HMOs five years ago.

Camden Council’s Rogue Landlord Taskforce has bought
its first prosecution in a renewed clampdown on licence flouters and dodgers.

Monsoon Properties Limited and the company’s director
Kamal Uddin, of Turnpike Lane, Haringey, were ordered to pay £9,500 in fines
and costs at Highbury Corner Magistrates Court after both admitted
over-occupying a licensed HMO and breaching HMO management regulation.

Despite their licence limiting the number of tenants to
four, the property – in Hampstead Road, Camden
– was being let to five international students after the dining
room was partitioned to create an extra bedroom.

Inspectors also found that fire safety standards weren’t
met and there was a lack of both fire alarms and fire-resistant doors
throughout the property.

Camden was the first inner London borough to introduce an
additional licensing scheme for HMO properties in 2015 and has made 135
prosecutions since then.

It was the most prolific council for acting against
criminal landlords in the year to February 2020, handing out more than £750,000
in fines, according to the Greater London Authority’s Rogue Landlord and Agent
Checker.

Camden’s Rogue Landlord Taskforce was set up in August
2019 to better use council resources to help tackle rogue landlords operating
in the borough and protect tenants from exploitation.

Councillor Meric
Apak, cabinet member for better homes, says: “The prosecution we have seen brought forward by our taskforce is a
last resort. Our message to landlords and letting agents is that we are here to
work with you, and provide advice and assistance first of all, to ensure you
can meet your obligations.”

It
is currently bidding to renew its additional HMO licensing scheme for another
five years, with landlords having to fork out £1,300 per licence
application – up from the current £750
for a standard application fee, plus £60 for each
room/studio used for sleeping.

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Petition calls to freeze rents, S21 and S8 for Covid-19 outbreak

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Acorn, a Left Wing community based union of working class people, is petitioning the government to:

– Enact temporary rent freezes for renters suffering with the virus or self isolating for the period of their self isolation and recovery

–

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BREAKING: Scotland ‘actively considering’ ban on evictions during pandemic

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Housing minister Kevin Stewart says no tenant should be evicted after suffering financial hardship due to Coronavirus.

Scotland is likely
to become the first country within the UK to prevent landlords evicting tenants
as the Coronavirus pandemic worsens.

The announcement
this morning by Scottish housing minister Kevin Stewart is in response to calls
made to him by campaigning group Living Rent, which over the past three days
has gathered 1,300 signatures for a petition calling for landlords to pause
evictions and also grant tenants a ‘rent holiday’.

Stewart has confirmed that the Scottish government is ‘actively considering’ such measures, and follows the decision by authorities and landlords in New York that evictions are to be suspended within the state for three months.

“No landlord should
evict a tenant because they have suffered financial hardship due to coronavirus
and we are actively considering how best this can be addressed,” says Stewart.

“This is part of
our urgent consideration on what wider measures can be put in place to support
people against the economic impacts of coronavirus and further announcements
will be made.

“People affected by coronavirus who are concerned about paying their rent can claim Universal Credit from the Department for Work and Pensions which includes support for housing costs, if eligible.

Responsible thing

Living Rent’s David Hanson, who launched the petition, says: “If we’re serious about containing the spread of the virus, tenants need to know that they won’t face destitution for doing the responsible thing.

“That has to mean stopping rent collections for anyone affected – both those who are unable to work or who need to self-isolate – and making sure nobody faces the threat of homelessness or having to find another home during this time.”

Paul Shamplina of eviction specialist Landlord Action, says the detail of an eviction ban or ‘free rent’ period need to be thought through carefully before being implemented.

“Landlords will HAVE to be given a mortgage holiday if they are to suspend rental payments, and there will have to be some sort of medical screening process before an evictions ban is introduced, but the health service is already under immense pressure as it is. These are worrying times because, on both counts, we don’t know how long the virus will be around.”

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – BREAKING: Scotland ‘actively considering’ ban on evictions during pandemic | LandlordZONE.

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Enforcement – a thankless task

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The other week, I had the opportunity to shadow the Harrow Council Housing Enforcement Officers, who feature with me on for Channel 5’s ‘Nightmare Tenants Slum Landlords’.

Whilst my day to day job revolves around
helping landlords take back possession of their properties, I’m also acutely
aware of the lack of enforcement that exists to rid our industry of the rogue
landlords.

I wanted to learn more about what Harrow
Council’s team of Housing Enforcement Officers do on a daily basis and what
challenges they are up against.

The overarching challenge was glaringly
obvious from the moment I arrived – resource!

A local authority may designate the whole
of their district or part of their district to be subject to selective
licensing. In Harrow, different wards go through a consultation process to
determine what measures are necessary.

Harrow Council’s selective licensing aims
to tackle a significant and persistent problem with anti-social behaviour (ASB)
associated with private rented homes. Research by the council found that some
wards within its borough suffer from high levels anti-social behaviour, above
average rates for serious crime, high levels of fly-tipping and noise nuisance.
The schemes are designed to make a difference to residents, community,
businesses and the vulnerable.

However, with 1750 properties requiring
licenses but just four Housing Enforcement Officers and one person dealing with
licence applications, the backlog is extensive and the task ahead thankless.

I followed Ozzy and Andrew, Housing
Enforcement Officers for Harrow Council on two property inspections. The first
was to a property where bed sheets had been hung as curtains and was suspected
to be an unlicensed HMO. It turned out to be false alarm as it was occupied by
the owner. The second visit was to a property in Edgeware, following up on a
previous visit to ensure the landlord had abided by instructions to fix
disrepair issues.

At the moment, councils have the power to
hand out civil penalty notices of £5000 (although half of London councils did
not issue any fines last year) or even place a banning order on landlords. The
problem is without resource there is little enforcement of these. Ozzy and
Andrew told me that a lot of the time, councils don’t want to slap notices on
straight away as they want landlords to be given the opportunity to comply. To
a certain extent, I agree, but it’s important that tenants have a safe
environment to live, so any opportunity for landlords to make improvements MUST
then be followed up which requires time and head-count.

They also told me that banning orders,
which are generally issued to the worst offenders, were very hard to enforce,
very convoluted and resource intensive which is why there have been very few.

Councils have the challenging role of going
to numerous properties to enforce against naive and criminal landlords but
problem is every borough has a different budget and different resource
constraints. In Newham, for example, they have approximately 30 officers
compared to Harrow’s four. From speaking with team, they desperately need more
help but budget restrictions mean they are using agency staff rather than
employing full time officers and they often don’t have the knowledge or skills
required to be able to carry out work alone.

It is quite clear from sitting with the
team at Harrow Council that they care passionately about their job of
protecting tenants, but they are so overwhelmed with work, it’s easy for them
to become demoralized. I asked the head of the Housing Enforcement team, Jo
Smith, what would be your wish list, and she said:

–             Simplifying enforcement
notices
–             Making the procedure less
onerous
–             Having a an up to date
database
–             Most crucially, more trained
officers

For me, it was a real eye opener shadowing
the team and the barriers they are up against. 
With the growing private rented sector their roles are more important
than ever before. However, enforcement of measures designed to protect tenants
and weed out rogue landlords are inconsistent from borough to borough, it’s a
postcode lottery. It’s all very well regulating landlords, and the good guys are
happy to comply, but if its enforcement is inconsistent from one borough to
another due to resource constraints then it’s ineffective as a whole.

Obviously the first issue is resource, but
where possible, councils do need to put greater emphasis on ensuring those
properties which should have licenses, do have them.  This would then provide funds that can be
ringfenced and re-invested into enforcement so that the standard of properties
improves.

With 1200 properties still to investigate, the
team of four at Harrow Council really are unsung heroes.

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Today in politics: Coronavirus, residents cladding survey

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Our politics update today takes a look at a call from Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn MP for landlords to offer rent payment holidays to tenants in response to the Coronavirus, and a new HCLG residents survey on cladding. Growing calls for rent payment holidays for tenants as a result of Coronavirus Several MPs including the […]

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How to address loss of income from car parking space?

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We own a flat, with underground car park, which we let out (independent of the flat) as most of the tenants do not have a need for parking space, since the property is close to offices and lots of public transport.

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Coronavirus has crashed my tenant’s business

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My tenant is an European national who has a holidays business across Europe. He tells me it has crashed due to Coronavirus and he is struggling to pay the rent and it is already 30% short this month. My agent has already started their automatic debt chasing process which used to include interest charges..

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Coronavirus: Pressure builds for landlords to give tenants rent holidays

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Tenants who contract the coronavirus or who are forced to self-isolate and therefore cannot work should not have to pay their rent, say leading campaign groups.

Landlords are facing increasing pressure from poverty campaigners and tenants’ groups to offer vulnerable renters who are unable to work after contracting the Coronavirus to be given rent payment holidays.

National tenants’ union Acorn has gone the furthest, calling for landlords to also halt evictions while the pandemic sweeps through the UK, while a leading Scottish tenants’ union has said that tenants should be given rent holidays if landlords are allowed to suspend mortgage payments.

Lettings platform Apropos has called on landlords with mortgages to contact their lenders as soon as possible to negotiate payment holidays “which many of the banks have already agreed for individual borrowers so this may be available for landlords,” says its MD David Alexander.

Several leading lenders have already announced financial support packages for their borrowers including the Halifax, which is offering to temporarily abolish fees for customers who miss their mortgage payments, and mortgage holidays.

Three months holidays

Richard Murphy, a
leading poverty campaigner and tax accountant, has called for tenants who
contract the virus or who choose to self-isolate to be given a three-month rent
holiday.

“I
would suggest that the grant of that extension should be automatic to anyone
who does not make a due payment of rent on the required date during the period
of the epidemic,” he has said in a blog.

“They
should be automatically granted this extension by the landlord without having
to make any further application or to complete any additional paperwork.”

The debate about rent holidays is also raging on Twitter. One tweeter, a Northern Ireland lecturer calling herself Elaine Crory, tweeted: “I’m just throwing this out there as a 40 year old renter who supports a family of four on one income; if mortgages can be suspended during Coronavirus, but landlords continue to collect rent (thereby *making money* from this), I WILL RIOT.” Her comment has been ‘liked’ by over 68,600 people so far and retweeted nearly 10,000 times.

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Coronavirus – How it affects HMO Landlords

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Coronavirus COVID-19 will affect HMO Property Landlords, buy to let property investors and the property market in the UK.

In the video below, Ranjan considers how HMO Property investors and the HMO Property Investment Market in the UK is going to be impacted by the onset of Coronaviris COVID-19.

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