Minister calls for landlords to end ‘No DSS’ discrimination following court judgement

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Minister for Rough Sleeping and Housing Luke Hall has today urged landlords and letting agents to play their part in ensuring discrimination against tenants in receipt of benefits is stamped out.

The minister’s comments follow news from housing charity Shelter that it has won a landmark ruling that found the ‘No DSS’ practice unfairly discriminated against a single mum-of-two with a disability, on the grounds of sex and disability under the Equality Act.

“Everyone should have the same opportunity when looking for a home and discriminating against someone simply because they receive benefits has no place in a modern housing market,” says Hall (pictured, above).

“That’s why we have been working with landlords and letting agents to help ensure prospective tenants are treated on an individual basis and that benefits are not seen as a barrier to giving someone a place to live.”

Although the government says the vast majority of landlords provide a fair and professional service, it has been working with landlords and tenant groups, letting agents and websites, and the mortgage and insurances industries to discuss how to tackle the issue of ‘No DSS’ adverts.

Major lettings portals including Zoopla and Rightmove agreed last year to stop the use of ‘No DSS’ adverts on their websites, and several major lenders agreed to remove restrictions on mortgages which prevented landlords from letting to tenants on benefits.

But the practice is far from stamped out. While the three main property portals now prevent agents from using terms like ‘No DSS’ in their adverts, the practice remains rife if you trawl through agency websites or some of the more peripheral classified listings portals.

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Belvoir Group expands estate agency business through strategic alliance with The Nottingham

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Belvoir is delighted to announce the development of a strategic alliance with The Nottingham, offering franchisees within the Belvoir, Northwood, Newton Fallowell and Lovelle networks the opportunity to significantly increase estate agency services in new locations.

Under the new agreement, the vast majority of The Nottingham’s estate agency and lettings activity will transfer over to the Belvoir Group, with The Nottingham ceasing trading for new estate agency and lettings operations at the end of August.

Dorian Gonsalves, CEO of the Belvoir Group said: “This strategic alliance represents an exciting and mutually beneficial opportunity for both the Belvoir Group and The Nottingham, and is expected to pave the way for further joint initiatives in the future.

“Franchisees within the Belvoir Group will have an opportunity to offer The Nottingham’s members high quality estate agency services, either from existing building society branches or from Belvoir’s stand-alone offices throughout the UK. In the first instance this opportunity will be extended to a number of our franchisees to increase their footprint by taking a presence in up to eleven of The Nottingham’s branches and working together in Nottingham, Leicester and Cambridgeshire.

“I am confident that this innovative alliance will prove to be a great success, as Belvoir and The Nottingham already share many core principles, including a determination to ensure that the customer remains very much at the heart of all aspects of the business.”

David Marlow, CEO of The Nottingham said: “We are confident that the Belvoir Group will be a first class partner for the Society. Belvoir offers an extremely good strategic fit with our existing building society network, enabling us to maintain estate agency services in a number of locations where we currently offer these services and providing future potential for us to extend services into locations where we haven’t previously had an estate agency and letting presence. In addition, we are looking forward to supporting customers who are buying or renting through the Belvoir Group with our extensive range of building society services.”

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Once in a generation opportunity to reboot the market in favour of tenants!

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In a letter to the Housing Secretary, the London Mayor, Sadiq Khan has expressed his concern at the prospect of the current eviction ban coming to an end on August 23rd. and wants to prevent private landlords from serving section 21 and section 8 notices where tenants have accrued arrears as a result of COVID-19.

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Landlords warned not to discriminate against benefits tenants

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The NRLA warns landlords should not have blanket policies that discriminate against those in receipt of benefits. Responding to a court case in York which has ruled that it is unlawful for landlords to discriminate in this way, Chris Norris

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Landmark ‘No DSS’ ruling is nail in the coffin for landlords who refuse benefit claimants

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Landlords and letting agents risk prosecution if they will not allow housing benefit claimants to rent their properties, following a landmark court case.

A ruling at York County Court has found that the ‘No DSS’ practice unfairly discriminated against a single mum-of-two with a disability, on the grounds of sex and disability under the Equality Act.

The woman – represented by homeless charity Shelter – works part-time but had been turned down by a letting agent who refused to rent her any properties because of its long-standing policy of not accepting housing benefit. This made her homeless and she was forced to move into a hostel with her children. 

The charity says ‘No DSS’ policies have stopped hundreds of thousands of people from renting and points to its research that shows 63% of private landlords do not let, or prefer not to let, to people receiving housing benefit. 

The only way that victims of DSS discrimination can currently seek formal redress is through a county court claim which, according to Shelter, have so far all resulted in the defendant agents or landlords agreeing to change their practices, apologising and offering compensation to their clients. But it believes this does not go far enough.

Nail in the coffin

Shelter chief executive Polly Neate, says the momentous ruling should be the nail in the coffin for ‘No DSS’ discrimination.

“It will help give security and stability to people who unfairly struggle to find a place to live just because they receive housing benefit. It will change so many lives,” adds Neate.   

The National Residential Landlords Association agrees that landlords shouldn’t have blanket policies that discriminate against those receiving benefits. 

Policy director Chris Norris adds: “No landlord should discriminate against tenants because they are in receipt of benefits. Every tenant’s circumstance is different and so they should be treated on a case by case basis based on their ability to sustain a tenancy.”

Read more about the ‘No DSS’ issue.

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Landlords ‘very unlikely’ to face sanctions over EPC rating breaches

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Landlords are very unlikely to face prosecution for leaving tenants in cold and draughty homes, according to new research into energy efficiency regulations designed to protect renters across England and Wales.

Fewer than 6% of councils have taken any enforcement action against landlords illegally letting out properties with the lowest energy efficiency ratings, data obtained by the i newspaper reveals. But councils in England and Wales are set to receive a toolkit to help them enforce the regulations next year.

In April 2018, the Government introduced the Minimum Energy Efficiency Standard (MEES), barring landlords from starting new tenancies for properties with an Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) of F or G, the lowest gradings.

In April 2020, this was extended to cover all tenancies and should mean that 290,000 rented homes – almost half of which house tenants living in fuel poverty – should receive improvements.

The Government estimates it will cost about £1,200-£2,000 to bring an F or G rated property up to standard, and landlords can claim an exemption if costs exceed £3,500.

Flouting rules

But there are fears that thousands are flouting the rules and going unpunished; of the 268 authorities which responded to a Freedom of Information request from i asking for details of MEES enforcement, just 17 had taken any action. Since 2018, 449 compliance notices and just 17 fines totalling £65,600 have been issued for breaches of MEES.

The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy has been working with seven councils to test bottom-up, local authority-generated solutions to monitoring, compliance, and enforcement of the regulations.

A spokesman tells LandlordZONE that this helped develop a best practice enforcement toolkit of case studies, templates, and off-the-shelf tools to help streamline the process and make it less resource intensive.

He says: “We’re now conducting a second round of pilots to road-test and refine it with a new, wider pool of English and Welsh local authorities before we publish the final toolkit to all local authorities in England and Wales in 2021.”

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London mayor: eviction pre-action protocols will NOT prevent ‘river of homeless’ on streets

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Government plans for a pre-action protocol to help regulate possession proceedings within the private rented sector will fail to prevent a cliff edge in evictions once the ban is lifted, London mayor Sadiq Khan has claimed.

This pre-action protocol would require private landlords to meet the same rules as social landlords before issuing possession proceedings at the end of the moratorium.

They would then have a duty to reach out to tenants to discuss their situation, and to try to agree an affordable repayment plan. Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick has previously suggested that this will allow tenants to stay in their homes, and to deal with rent they haven’t been able to pay.

Overwhelmed

But Khan claims local authority housing services could be overwhelmed in a matter of weeks when the current eviction ban ends on 23^rd August, if the Government doesn’t step in to help London’s two million private renters.

He believes it has failed to protect those who have run up rental debts during the pandemic from eviction proceedings and homelessness, and warns: “The capital also faces the impending prospect of a tsunami of evictions.” 

Khan has suggested measures including emergency legislation to prevent landlords serving eviction notices to tenants affected by COVID-19 and a boost to the welfare benefits system to cover any rent shortfall.

In a letter to Jenrick, he says: “The imbalance of power between renters and landlords means that the Government’s reliance on them agreeing ‘affordable repayment plans’ is unrealistic, particularly in London where the shortage of housing creates competition amongst tenants and gives them little option but to agree to a landlord’s terms.”

Read more about Sadiq Khan.

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Yes another N5B query – still no guidance notes from government?

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Well I thought I’d finish the damn (new extended) form N5B, but I’m not sure I interpreted /answered question 15 correctly.
Well question 15 itself is simple enough that’s a definite NO but after that I’m not sure if i’m supposed to disregard questions 15c-15i .

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Labour calls for ‘landlord bung’ stamp duty decision to be reversed

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The Labour party has labelled Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s announcement that landlords will benefit from a reduction in stamp duty a “bung”, which will only worsen the housing crisis by reducing the supply of homes.

Labour’s shadow housing secretary Thangam Debbonaire wants the Government to reverse its decision to give landlords and second home owners a tax break and has written to Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick asking him for the reason behind the decision.

Last week, the Government raised the stamp duty threshold to £500,000 on transactions including second properties. Although property investors and second homeowners will still pay a 3% stamp duty surcharge on purchases, they won’t pay any further duty on the first £500,000 of the property’s value. 

Debbonaire says: “It’s unacceptable that the Chancellor tried to sneak out this huge bung to second home owners and landlords while millions of people are desperate for support. He should be targeting support to those who need it, not helping people invest in buy-to-let properties and holiday homes.”

Second properties

She points out that 34% of homes bought in 2019/20 were second properties, meaning that this policy could cost the exchequer £1.3 billion, which could instead fund the immediate gap in local council finances.

Debbonaire adds: “At a time when we have an acute local government funding crisis, I question how the Government can justify giving a tax break to people already fortunate enough to own an existing property rather than giving councils the funding they need.”

Labour believes that with more than one million people on council waiting lists, the money could be much better spent on affordable housing to buy or rent.

Read more about Labour’s rental sector policies.

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Shadow housing secretary accusing Sunak of massive ‘Bung’ to Landlords

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Labour’s shadow housing secretary, Thangam Debbonaire, has written an open letter to Robert Jenrick accusing the Conservatives of sneaking out a £1.3bn bung to second home owners and landlords in the Summer Economic Update.

This is despite the 3% surcharge still being applied to all second homes and residential rental property.

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