HMO first: Coventry landlord to pay back £11,000 rent to tenants in unlicensed property

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A rogue Coventry landlord had been ordered to pay back £10,982 in rent for not having an HMO licence – the first case of its kind in the city.

The First Tier Property Tribunal has ordered Mrs Parvinjot Nagra to repay the cash after her seven tenants applied for the rebate, as part of a Rent Repayment Order.

A council investigation found that she had failed to licence the suburban detached house in Cannon Park near Warwick University between October 2018 and June 2019 and failed in her management of the property.

Councillor Tariq Khan, cabinet member for housing
and communities at Coventry City Council, says: “It is not fair for landlords
to evade compliance and benefit financially from operating illegally while most
landlords are complying.

“This first Rent Repayment Order should serve
as a stark warning to the minority of landlords who continue to be unlicensed.

“They face not only prosecution for non-compliance, which if successful will result in a fine and a criminal record, but if convicted, they could also be handed a Rent Repayment Order to hit them in the pocket.”

Two years

John Stewart, deputy policy director for the National Residential
Landlords Association, says the fact that it took Coventry Council two years to
secure a successful Rent Repayment Order raises serious questions about how
workable or effective they are. 

He adds: “While figures for such orders are not collated
centrally, we would expect there to have been an uptake in their use across the
country since the changes made in October 2018.

“It is vital however that funds raised are properly used to root out those criminal landlords wilfully ignoring their legal obligations, whilst much greater support is provide to the vast majority of landlords who are doing the right thing and providing safe and secure housing.” 

Read the tribunal documentation in full.

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Sadiq Khan awkwardly refuses to endorse tenant rent arrears being written off

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During a heated debate in the London Assembly, the mayor three times avoided giving a definitive answer after being grilled by Green Party leader Sian Berry.

Mayor of London Sadiq Khan has refused to back calls for struggling tenants to have their rent arrears written off when the Coronavirus crisis is over.

Although Khan cannot be described as landlord friendly, under close questioning by the Green party in the London Assembly he avoided at all costs committing to a rent ‘forgiveness’ programme, as it is known.

His comments came at the end of a debate about homelessness and were made during an excruciating few minutes of cat and mouse with Sian Berry, who heads up the Green Party in the London Assembly.

She repeatedly called for Khan to endorse rent forgiveness in the capital, but after three attempts gave up when the debate ran out of time.

“I asked you about extending the eviction proceedings ban and forgiving arrears that have been built up so far,” said Berry.

“As far as I can tell, your ‘triple lock’ merely extends the period of repayment for arrears.

“The principle here should be that renters should not be shouldering the burden of these arrears and that the Government should be helping small landlords in the way it helps any other small business.”

Khan again ignored her request for clarity on his approach to rent forgiveness, saying instead that the government should support both tenants and landlords.

“You are still saying [tenants] should pay [their rent arrears] back. I am not sure that that is the answer that I was hoping for, but hopefully we can persuade you to change your tune in future weeks,” said Berry.

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Is the policy of moving the housing market in favour of first time buyers failing?

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Successive governments have said they want to see fewer landlords and more first-time-buyers, using taxes and legislation to achieve their aims. But today’s lending figures show this may not be working.

The latest UK mortgage lending figures show heavy
taxes and red tape have failed to curb buy-to-let growth, much to the likely
annoyance of ministers.

Trade organisation UK Finance’s mortgage
lending analysis for the first quarter of 2020 shows buy-to-let (BTL) lending
up 7%, while lending to first time buyers continues to decline – despite the government’s
expensive Help to Buy scheme.

Its drive to reduce the private rental market
and free up stock for first-time buyers looks to be stalling, as the report
states: “While we had seen purchases within the BTL sector improve considerably
over the past year, following a decline due to tax and regulatory changes that
started in 2016, we had seen material growth in this sector from December 2019
onwards.

“This recent growth in BTL purchase has helped to offset first-time buyer numbers, which have been declining slightly since October 2019.”  

Buy-to-let market

John Goodall, CEO at Landbay, says his
company saw an even greater increase in the buy-to-let market.

“While the Coronavirus lockdown from
mid-March has hampered this, there is still a notable demand from landlords and
investors. The figures showed a drop in first-time buyers even before Covid-19
hit and following the pandemic it’s highly likely that people will be renting
for much longer, so the need for private buy-to-let will be greater than ever.”

However, the
National Residential Landlords Association warns that one set of figures
shouldn’t be taken out of the longer term context.

Deputy policy director John Stewart says: “According to the
Government’s data between March 2018 and 2019, the number of private rented
homes in England fell by 49,000.

“We need to end the approach of picking winners and losers in the housing market. The Government needs to develop pro-growth policies to boost the supply of homes in the owner occupied, private rented and social rented sectors.”

Use our buy-to-let jargon buster.

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No signs yet of rents sliding during the Coronavirus crisis as many areas experience RISES

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Research by lettings platform Homelet reveals extraordinary resilience within the rental market despite the lockdown.

Rents are holding up well around the UK
despite the market uncertainty created by Coronavirus, with some regions
showing hefty year-on-year increases.

Average rents for new
tenancies rose by 2.7% last
month to £959 compared with
May 2019, according to the latest Homelet Rental Index figures.

But rents in the capital
dropped by 0.2% in May compared
to the previous year; the average London rent now stands at £1,598 a month – 67% higher than the rest of the
UK.

Homelet reveals that rents rose in the last year in 10 out of 12 of the regions, with the North West seeing the largest annual change, up 7.5% to £758, followed by Wales, up 5.7% to £613.

Price movement

Chief
executive Martin Totty says the mixed findings are not easy to explain, which
makes it hard to predict rental price movement in the next few months.

“Rents may go up or they may go down and
defaults may follow the same pattern. Nobody can be sure other than there is
one certainty…and that is there is now more uncertainty.” 

“It’s surprising that in
many regions of the country, especially away from London and the South East,
rents have generally held up well month on month and are commonly ahead over
the year.

“Not so surprising is
evidence of a softening in rents in the short term in the higher average rent
regions and, for the first time in almost three years, a negative movement in
London compared with a year ago.”

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LATEST: Pressure grows on government to make a decision on evictions ban extension

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Housing secretary Robert Jenrick has until June 25th to decide whether evictions can restart, but the mood music points to possession hearings recommencing with a robust pre-action protocol system in place.

Pressure is growing on the government as landlord, tenant and consumer groups call on ministers to make a decision on extending the current three-month evictions ban past June 25^th, when it expires.

The government has less than 14 working days to make the decision, but Shelter has already claimed that it has seen growing number of renters contact its helpline who are worried about paying their rent, and has called for evictions to be suspended until the economic situation stabilises.

Also, Shelter has been backed by the Chartered Institute of Housing, several leading Law Centres and Generation Rent, while four Labour MPs today wrote to housing secretary Robert Jenrick calling on him to write off tenant rent arrears and freeze rents.

“We can’t leave tenants to rely on the charity and good will of their landlords,” said one of the four, Bell Ribeiro-Addy. “We need binding legislation and stronger financial support to make sure people aren’t left facing homelessness or bankruptcy.”

Rent arrears

But the National Residential Landlords Association (NRLA) says it has yet to see hard figures on whether rent arrears are becoming more common, and is undertaking its own research into rent arrears, the results of which are due to be published soon.

As we reported last week, leading lettings agency Belvoir found that only 3% of its tenants had fallen behind with their rent.

The NRLA’s CEO Ben Beadle reckons that the most likely outcome on June 25^th is that the courts will be allowed to re-start possession hearings but that a robust pre-action protocol will be put in place to ensure that court action is the last, rather than first, resort.

This would not go down well Shelter, Citizens’ Advice, Generation Rent and Acorn, all of which are pushing for a heavier hand to be employed to control evictions.

This includes banning Section 21 notices, modifying Section 8 mandatory evictions to exclude non-payment of rent, or extending current ban extended until the end of September.

The Coronavirus legislation enables the government to do this, but the preparations under way at many county courts for a possession hearing re-start on June 29^th suggest an extension is unlikely.

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Who needs a holiday when you can rent in Liverpool for 3 months?

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The average person in the UK spends £826 on a week of sun, sea and sand each year, however, with many travel restrictions still in place, a trip abroad is looking increasingly unlikely in 2020.

With an average of 2.4 people living in each household

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TMW 1year 1% existing customer BTL switch product

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The Mortgage Works (TMW) yesterday launched a Buy to Let switch option for existing customers coming to the ending of their initial deal product terms.

To support their existing customers during the emergency lockdown they are also expanding the whole range of switcher products to offer landlords more options to manage their cashflow through the emergency

The product is:

• 1 Year 1.00% Fixed until 31/08/2021

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