Labour reshuffle: Shadow housing secretary Lucy Powell replaced by Lisa Nandy

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Labour leader Kier Starmer’s chaotic reshuffle has included giving housing spokesperson Lucy Powell the new job of shadow Digital, Culture, Media and Sport brief, it has been announced.

Lisa Nandy, who has been demoted from shadow Foreign Secretary, has been given the job of scrutinising the Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, taking over Powell’s former role.

The reshuffle, which had been expected, took place yesterday, kicking off while the party’s deputy leader Angela Rayner was giving a key speech on parliamentary sleaze, apparently catching her by surprise.

Other departures include Nick Thomas-Symonds, the shadow home secretary who is replaced by Yvette Cooper, Kate Green, the shadow education secretary and Jo Stevens, the shadow culture secretary.

The reshuffle has been reported as Starmer’s attempt to both keep Rayner at arm’s length and reduce the number of left-wingers within the shadow cabinet.

Powell, the MP for Manchester Central since 2012, was appointed to the shadow Housing role in May, taking over from Thangam Debbonaire, who became shadow leader of the House of Commons.

But Powell’s tenure heading up the housing brief has been both brief and relatively unremarkable.

Landlords attacked

Her high point was a keynote speech in September during Labour’s conference in Brighton, during which, as LandordZONE reported, she attacked landlords and holiday homeowners.

“I see no contradiction in us also promoting home-ownership – not for more landlords or second homes, but for ordinary working people – nurses, electricians, delivery drivers and care workers – currently priced out,” she said.

She also said a Labour government would link housing costs to wages and “tackle the thorny issues of quality, affordability and security in private rentals”.

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – Labour reshuffle: Shadow housing secretary Lucy Powell replaced by Lisa Nandy | LandlordZONE.

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Powell loses her shadow housing role in Labour front-bench reshuffle

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Labour leader Kier Starmer’s reshuffle has included moving housing spokesperson Lucy Powell to cover the shadow Digital, Culture, Media and Sport brief, it has been reported.

The reshuffle, which had been expected today, came while the party’s deputy leader Angela Rayner was giving a key speech on parliamentary sleaze, apparently catching her by surprise.

Nick Thomas-Symonds, the shadow home secretary, Kate Green, the shadow education secretary and Jo Stevens, the shadow culture secretary, were all removed from their roles.

The reshuffle has been reported as Starmer’s attempt to both keep Rayner at arm’s length and reduce the number of left-wingers within the shadow cabinet.

Powell, the MP for Manchester Central since 2012, was appointed to the shadow Housing role in May, taking over from Thangam Debbonaire, who became shadow leader of the House of Commons.

But Powell’s tenure heading up the housing brief has been both brief and relatively unremarkable.

Landlords attacked

Her high point was a keynote speech in September during Labour’s conference in Brighton, during which, as LandordZONE reported, she attacked landlords and holiday home owners.

“I see no contradiction in us also promoting home-ownership – not for more landlords or second homes, but for ordinary working people – nurses, electricians, delivery drivers and care workers – currently priced out,” she said.

She also said a Labour government would link housing costs to wages and “tackle the thorny issues of quality, affordability and security in private rentals”.

A replacement for Powell, who is seen as a more moderate member of the Labour front-bench team, has yet to be announced.

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – Powell loses her shadow housing role in Labour front-bench reshuffle | LandlordZONE.

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Licensing scheme delayed after ‘strong opposition’ over costs and enforcement

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A new selective licensing scheme in Southend has been put on hold after councillors complained they lacked details about how it would work.

The scheme got the go-ahead in March and was scheduled to start on 1^st December but has now been referred back to cabinet after a narrow vote at a full council meeting.

Councillors previously voiced fears that the council already struggles to administer its HMO licensing scheme.

Conservative group leader Tony Cox told the meeting: “We haven’t got any detailed recommendations on how we are going to introduce the scheme. What we haven’t got is how the scheme is going to be administered, but if we are going to have a scheme it’s got to be compliant and robust and all the options have got to be looked at.”

Last month, Conservative councillor Meg Davidson told The Leigh Times that she had concerns around costs and staffing of the scheme, which is set to cover all private rented homes within Milton, Kursaal, Victoria and Chalkwell wards.

Inspections struggle

Said Davidson (pictured): “To license and inspect 3,500 or more properties is a huge undertaking and it does worry me that when you look at the HMO licensing scheme, it’s been a struggle to do about 100.”

A public consultation earlier this year garnered an impressive 1,792 responses, two thirds (68%) of which agreed with the proposal. However, 20% strongly disagreed – the majority of whom were landlords/agents (74%).

Many believed the costs would be passed on to tenants or that it would penalise good landlords while allowing bad landlords to operate.

The South Essex Alliance of Landlords and Residents (SEAL) opposes selective licensing and was originally set up to coordinate a response.

This has evolved into a formal partnership with the council to improve the standard of PRS accommodation and reduce anti-social behaviour throughout SEAL managed properties.

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – Licensing scheme delayed after ‘strong opposition’ over costs and enforcement | LandlordZONE.

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Landlord who forgot to chase up HMO licence exemption to pay £25,000

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Campaigning organisation Justice for Tenants has won £25,440 for four renters at an unlicensed HMO after a court ruled their landlord had not tried hard enough to secure a Temporary Exemption Notice (TEN).

Thambithurai Uthayakanthan told a First Tier Property Tribunal that when he found out he needed a licence for the four-bed flat in a former council block opposite the British Library in central London (pictured), he applied for a TEN in December 2019 and again in March 2020.

He believed a licence was not needed as he planned to sell it, while the tenants had also told him they intended to leave.

Justice for Tenants reported that when the four moved in, the flat was dirty with problems including a broken fire detector in the kitchen, broken furniture and boiler.

Sick daughter

It said a letter from Camden Council confirmed it had not received a TEN, while his letting agent had offered to apply for an HMO licence on his behalf in October 2019 but that at the time he was more concerned about his sick daughter.

The landlord explained that the water ingress and damp affecting the property were the responsibility of freeholder, Camden Council, while other maintenance had been done within a few days, including fitting a new boiler in October 2019.

Means of escape

The council confirmed that there appeared to have been no fire risk assessment carried out and when asked about the means of escape from one of the bedrooms which was accessed through the kitchen the landlord said that if there was a fire the fire brigade would be there within minutes and could use a ladder to access the bedroom window.

The tribunal ruled there was no evidence to show that Uthayakanthan had submitted the TEN applications and that he had declined help in making the application.

However, it said it was sympathetic to his family problems and believed he had tried to resolve issues, so gave him a 25% reduction in the £33,919 Rent Repayment Order application.

Read the judgement in full.

Read how RROs are rising in number and value each year.

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – Landlord who forgot to chase up HMO licence exemption to pay £25,000 | LandlordZONE.

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Landlords should ‘wait and see’ before starting EPC upgrades, urges landlord

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A leading buy-to-let blogger says landlords should ‘wait and see’ what extra grants the government offers them as the two EPC upgrade deadlines get nearer, rather than spending thousands on improvements now.

The Secret Landlord, writing in a national newspaper, reveals that their energy assessor advised ‘not to be hasty’ and dive in with expensive wall insulation and boiler replacement spend quite yet.

The blogger, who has so far remained anonymous but has written a book and penned a column for LandlordZONE, tells fellow landlords to consider whether the government is likely to offer more generous grants and modify the current £3,500 ‘cost cap’ as the 2025 deadline looms.

This is likely to happen – landlords are required to ensure their properties reach a minimum EPC grade of C by 2025 for new tenancies and by 2028 for all tenancies.

Huge costs

But some three-quarters of privately rented properties are below EPC Grade C and many landlords, including The Secret Landlord, face huge costs to achieve this.

As the landlord points out, the EPC system of energy assessments is illogical because it measures how much it costs to heat a property, not how much carbon it consumes.

“If [landlords] are banned from renting out their properties by this rule, landlords like me will sell up, creating a crisis in the rental sector that even this buy-to-let-bashing Government wouldn’t want,” The Secret Landlord says.

The weaknesses of the EPC system are well known within both the landlord community and the property industry. As LandlordZONE reported in July, a survey of 70 valuers by Countrywide Surveying Services found that than 30% believed EPCs were not accurate or a reliable source of efficiency, or of high quality.

And the NRLA warned earlier this year that upgrading all rented properties to an EPC ban by 2028 was a ‘pipedream’.

Read The Secret Landlord’s Telegraph piece in full (requires subscription)

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – Landlords should ‘wait and see’ before starting EPC upgrades, urges landlord | LandlordZONE.

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Short-term lets licensing scheme across Scotland to start 1st Oct 2022

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Foreword below by Shona Robison MSP, Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice, Housing and Local Government. Click here to see full details of the consultation

We are legislating to establish a short-term lets licensing scheme across Scotland.

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Is it worth it after CGT?

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It would seem many landlords are selling up, ‘but’ is this where capital gains tax comes in?

As an example:- I have read if a property rises in value to leave £300,000 after taking away purchase price exp’s etc.

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Say yes to DSS – why landlords should let to families on benefits

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Are you blessed with long, trouble-free tenancies with no voids and an amazing agent? If the answer is yes, you may be hard to convince!

But if not, you should look at the growing number of working families who claim benefits and just need an affordable home.

In recent years, there has been steady growth in the number of working families claiming universal credit. Since Covid hit, there has been a big jump in claimants. This has meant many more landlords find themselves with tenants on benefits for the first time.

In Great Britain, half the families with children living in the private rented sector are claiming universal credit, according to an analysis of government statistics by Generation Rent.

In London, over half (56%) of homeless households are in work and just need to be able to find an affordable home.

In other words, there is a growing number of potential tenants who are claiming universal credit and looking for settled homes. Saying yes to DSS is saying yes to a growing market with high demand.

Properties do need to be affordable for families who are claiming benefits. The rent must be at the local housing allowance (LHA) rate, which is set by the government and based on rents in the bottom 30% of a local rental market.

Universal Credit (UC) replaced Housing Benefit and has a “housing element” for the rent as part of the payment. The LHA rate is used to calculate the housing element for tenants renting from private landlords.

Depending on your property and its location, the LHA rate may be closer to your rent expectations than you might think. But there are also other upsides to consider.

Landlords working with Capital Letters can access a significant incentive payment of up to £4,000 when your property is let, which – unlike a deposit – is kept by the landlord. We offer a free tenant finder service, and support new tenants with benefit claims and setting up utilities and managing their tenancy.

Our tenancy sustainment service is also there for our landlords, to ensure that the tenancies are successful and work for both parties.

According to researchers from the University of York, who recently surveyed 1000 landlords and agents, some landlords are seeing a business opportunity in letting to people receiving benefits.

“Landlords who were letting at the bottom of the market tended to pursue cost minimization rather than rent maximization. The most common tactic for reducing costs was minimizing turnover and voids which meant attracting and retaining good tenants through charging a lower-than-market rent.”

We work regularly with one agent who tells his landlords that tenants backed by the benefits system may be a safer bet in uncertain economic times. Admittedly he’s an agent not an economist but he may have a point!

By working with Capital Letters, you can get all the upsides of letting to families on benefits while minimising the risks. Please do give this opportunity your consideration.

Sue Coulson is the CEO of Capital Letters, which works with landlords and two-thirds of the councils in London to find settled homes for families in the private rented sector.

www.CapitalLetters.org.uk/landlords

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – Say yes to DSS – why landlords should let to families on benefits | LandlordZONE.

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Would you have helped? Tenant with two dogs reveals battle to find rented home

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A young renter has told LandlordZONE how offering to take pet damage insurance helped convince a landlord to accept her two dogs, after receiving countless rejections.

Catriona Clarke (pictured) and her partner were beginning to despair of ever finding a pet-friendly home in Cambridge as letting agents told them before each potential viewing that their animals weren’t welcome.

“It was so dispiriting and humiliating to be told ‘no’ all the time,” she tells LandlordZONE. “Our dogs Izzy and Leo are small and well-behaved, and Izzy is Leo’s support dog, who’s blind.”

They finally viewed the perfect house where a landlord had said that pets were acceptable, only to narrowly miss out to another applicanmt – and pet-free – couple.

The agent admitted that dogs had been the deal-breaker and Catriona’s despairing Tweet got a response from AdvoCATS charity boss Jen Berezai, who suggested they create a dog CV with photos and take out the pet damage insurance.

After the other couple didn’t pay the holding deposit, the landlord agreed to offer Catriona the property instead.

“I’m sure doing that helped us,” she adds, “but children would probably cause more damage than most pets.”

A recent NRLA/Battersea Dogs & Cats Home poll found 60% of landlords are concerned about damage but that 42% would be most likely to change their minds about allowing pets if a tenant offered to get their own insurance.

A change to the current capped deposit legislation and demonstrating responsible pet ownership would also help convince 33% and 31% respectively.

Berezai says the survey shows many landlords would be more willing to allow pets provided there was some protection from potential pet damage.

“By amending the Tenant Fees Act to allow a landlord to stipulate pet damage insurance must be held or request a separate, financially capped pet deposit, many, many more rented homes will open up to pets – which benefits both landlords and tenants,” she says.

The AdvoCATS charity has signed up 42 MPs who support its Heads for Tails! Report calling on the government to amend the Act and hopes the proposal will be included in the upcoming Renters Reform Bill.

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – Would you have helped? Tenant with two dogs reveals battle to find rented home | LandlordZONE.

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