Labour conference: big on landlord bashing, thin on new ideas for rental sector

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Shadow housing minister Lucy Powell (pictured) set out Labour’s stall at its conference in Brighton yesterday, presenting it as the ‘party of home owners and tenants’ but proffering few ideas for the private rented sector (PRS).

Much of the speech was spent attacking the Conservative’s track record within the PRS, its house-building efforts, withdrawn Green Homes Grant scheme and the ongoing fire safety and leasehold scandals.

This included fierce criticism of fast-rising house prices and the dwindling number of affordable homes available to first time buyers, the reduction council houses but also the expansion of what she called an ‘insecure’ rental sector.

“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.

New policy?

The only hints of new policy from Powell came half way through her speech, during which she said a Labour government would link housing costs to wages and “tackle the thorny issues of quality, affordability and security in private rentals”.

But Powell made it abundantly clear Labour was no friend of landlords, portraying the Conservatives as treating “housing as a commodity: to be traded, profited from, part of an investment portfolio, a pension pot, not as the bedrock of stable lives and life chances”.

Powell revealed few initiatives during her speech, save for a plan to launch a ‘great housing challenge’ to learn from Labour councils, mayors and the Welsh government in order to “develop a housing plan together”.

She also took a shot at the new housing secretary, saying: “I hear we have Michael Gove coming to the rescue! Do me a favour. Ask the teachers! Less a knight in shining armour, a wrecking ball more like!”.

Read her speech in full.

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Kent landlord is banned for life from contacting local council

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Controversial landlord Fergus Wilson has been banned for life from contacting his local council directly after losing a High Court battle.

Multi-millionaire Wilson has been slapped with an injunction after the court heard he had sent hundreds of letters and emails and made needless phone calls and formal complaints against officers, councillors and legal representatives.

He sent one letter to council leader Gerry Clarkson’s home address, encouraging him to ‘do all the young people in Ashford a service and commit suicide’. 

In another, Wilson referred to a female member of staff as an ‘objectionable fat lady’ and ‘Michelin lady’ when calling for her to be fired. 

In his judgment, Daryl Allen QC said: “The defendant’s conduct repeatedly went far beyond merely irritating and annoying, it was deliberately offensive. It included numerous unfounded allegations of professional misconduct and criminal conduct.”

Interim junction

It supports the previous interim injunction which Ashford Council was awarded in July 2020 and means the landlord will now only be able to contact it through a named legal advisor. A council spokesman says: “The judgement has vindicated the council’s decision to take the unusual step of resorting to litigation in order to protect its staff and councillors.”

Wilson admits that he called a staff member ‘Michelin Lady’, after receiving a letter which he took gross offence to, when Ashford Council failed to respond to his Freedom of Information request. He then decided to stop letting properties in Ashford when the council issued harassment proceedings.

He tells LandlordZONE: “All properties were either sold or spoken for before the outcome of the council’s application was known. I am sorry for all the tenants who had been with us for many years. They are totally innocent victims.”

Wilson recently offered to sell some of the remaining 150 houses from his 970-strong portfolio to the Home Office or Kent County Council to help address the issue of homeless asylum seekers, as he plans to retire and leave himself just 10 houses.

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Labour the party of home ownership?

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Before the Labour Party conference, Lucy Powell, Shadow housing secretary said: “Labour is the party of homeownership, the Tories are the party of speculators and developers. They treat housing as a commodity, not the bedrock of stable lives and life chances.”

Labour has announced plans to:

Give councils powers to force landowners to sell vacant sites to build new housing at lower prices than the compulsory purchase system currently allows.

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Say goodbye to gas, electrical and EPC paperwork, new platform promises landlords

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An online platform has officially launched that helps landlords eliminate one of their most tiresome admin headaches – getting EPC, electrical and gas safety certificates completed on time.

Called Symple, it enables landlords so register their rental property and then flag up when each of the three mandatory certificates were last completed and the platform does the rest each time they become due.

Founder Simon Dresdner says his service guarantees that the work will be completed and that each certificate will be sent to the landlord in time and, if not, the certificate is provided for free.

Best described as a cross between birthday card website Moonpig and a property maintenance platform like Fixflo, Dresdner says rather than landlords having to do the chasing his team ensure the work is taken up by its army of 700 local service providers, who are then chased if they fall behind schedule.

“Some 80% of jobs don’t require chasing, but we ensure that the 20% that do aren’t allowed to lag behind – for example if an electrician picks up one of our EICR electrical inspection jobs and has hasn’t booked an appointment to visit the property within 24 hours, we chase them,” he says.

“We are also unique because our service covers all three types of certificate and also all of the UK.

“Most importantly, we’ve focused on taking the faff out of landlord lives when it comes to electrical and gas safety inspections and EPC compliance.”

Symple has been under development for several years and soft-launched a few months ago with around 200 landlords already using its service.

Dresdner says the service will eventually offer non-mandatory services such as boiler repairs and maintenance and electrical PAT testing. Symple charges £50 for gas and EPC certificates and £125 for an EICR certificate.

Read more about the mandatory certificates needed for a rental property.

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – Say goodbye to gas, electrical and EPC paperwork, new platform promises landlords | LandlordZONE.

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Local council is offering to lease my flats?

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Hi everyone, My local council is offering to lease my flats on an interim lease agreement, whereby they would use the properties as temporary accommodation for households owed a duty under S188 or S193 of the Homelessness Reduction Act.

Can I ask if anyone has done this with their properties and let them out on this basis?

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Planners error lands council in court – Your proposal is whack!

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Planners Error Lands Them in COURT! What steps you can take if you have a planning refusal

Linda and I discuss a bizarre mix-up ‘Your proposal is whack’: Chaos as ‘junior worker’ who thought he was testing a dummy council website rejects and approves REAL planning applications with BONKERS reasons such as an approval with the condition Incy Wincy Spider

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ANALYSIS: Why leasehold rules mean millions of tenants will never be allowed pets

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Pet-loving apartment block tenants are beginning to rail against leasehold rules banning pets in blocks of flats, with at least one case potentially heading for the courts.

LandlordZONE has heard of a pending legal action concerning a leaseholder who bought a pet after moving into a London block; her lease outlined how the management company would usually approve requests, but because she did not officially get permission, the case is now going through mediation. If a solution cannot be found, the leaseholder faces losing her home.

Most leasehold flats, especially those in large blocks, specifically ban pets in the lease and so far, legal battles to overcome this have failed, as have other initiatives and legal attempts to challenge landlords who refuse pets.

David Smith, property solicitor at JMW, says landlords would find it hard to turn down a pet on disability grounds, but that they retain the right to say no for any other reason.

“One recent legal challenge from a tenant who wanted to live with his dog because he said it would benefit his mental health, was thrown out by the court,” Smith tells LandlordZONE.

Communal harmony

Nigel Glen, CEO of the Association of Residential Managing Agents (pictured), suspects the majority of leases forbid pets but says the standard clause aims to try to protect communal harmony.

He tells LandlordZONE: “I don’t believe this is meant to be a killjoy or a way to charge fees for licences – instead I suspect it is a feature of communal living.

“I’m a zoologist by training so animals fascinate me. But not everyone likes pets and people with allergies, phobias or simply easily disturbed have to be taken into consideration.” 

The latest attempt to solve the conundrum of keeping pets is Petscore, a scoring-based platform that lets pet owners build up a profile for their pet to show landlords and letting agents.

It follows Andrew Rosindell’s scuppered private members’ bill to give tenants the right to live with their pets if they proved they were ‘responsible and caring’, while animal charity AdvoCATS is pushing for the Tenant Fees Act to be amended to allow landlords to either take additional deposits off tenants seeking to rent with pets or require tenants to take out extra insurance.

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – ANALYSIS: Why leasehold rules mean millions of tenants will never be allowed pets | LandlordZONE.

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£58,000 fine for a first-time offence despite ‘naïve mistake’ – judge

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A landlord family have been slapped with a £28,000 rent repayment order (RRO) and combined fines of £30,000 for a first-time offence of neglecting to licence their HMO.

Colin and Jacqueline Cain were ordered to pay £4,000 each to seven former tenants of their house in Wiggington Road (pictured), York, by a First Tier Property Tribunal after property manager Victoria Cain was fined £20,000 by York City Council and Colin Cain was fined £10,000.

But the fine could have been much worse – the couple were given a 30% discount on the RRO after admitting their ‘one-time’ mistake in not applying for a licence, that they had been badly advised, had tried to reach a settlement with the tenants and that they lacked funds to repay the penalty.

The tribunal also heard that there had been no complaints about the accommodation or management from the tenants or council, and that the Cains were the “very opposite of serial offenders” flouting the law.

One-time offence

“This one-time offence occurred by mistake, through naivety as to legal requirements,” it said.

The seven tenants had sought a rent repayment order of £40,350 for rent paid during the 12-month tenancy from 1st July 2018.

It ruled: “The respondents were not professional landlords with a wider property portfolio. The above findings concerning the respondents’ good conduct and clean history justify a discount to the rent to be repaid.

“The tribunal considers a discount in the order of 15% in each of these areas to be appropriate, giving rise to a repayment of 70% of the total rent.”

LandlordZONE has approached York City Council for comment.

Read the full decision.

Read more about HMO management.

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BREAKING: Leading property educators gather to launch self-regulation scheme

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An initiative to bring in self-regulation of the property education sector has been launched, recognising that its reputation faces ‘major issues’ as more and more ‘get rich quick’ operators join the fray.

Called the Property Educators Accreditation Scheme or PEAS, it is backed by key members of the educator sector.

This includes John Howard, Mark Lloyd of Property Master Academy; Ranjan Bhattacharya of Succeed in Property and property consultant David Temple, all of whom have been through a rigorous and six-month long vetting process.

It also has the backing of evictions expert Paul Shamplina; Sean Hooker, Head of Redress at the PRS; Kirsty Roberts of Asset Academy (pictured), whose husband and Home under the Hammer TV presenter Martin is also a property educator; compliance consultant Julie Ford, David Sandeman of the Essential Information Group and David Smith of JMW Solicitors.

PEAS is operated by the Property Investors Bureau headed up by Cyril Thomas (pictured), who also runs his own property management firm.

Enforcement

Thomas told a launch gathering at the offices of Hamilton Fraser (main pic) that the PEAS scheme is designed to help future students looking for a property educator to discover ‘the good guys’ who have signed up to be ethical and transparent, and that it will strike a balance between cooperation and enforcement.

 “Anyone looking for property education that sees the PEAS badge on training/marketing materials, can feel confident that the educator has been through a thorough and varied accreditation process and that they have a transparent money back guarantee amongst other things,” says Thomas.

Decent honest

John Howards (pictured) says: “In my view the property education industry has been calling out for an organisation that distinguishes between the genuine decent honest property educators and others who will not be accepted into PEAS.”

Lloyds adds: “Our industry has been under scrutiny for a number of years and we believe this will help improve standards and transparency for those looking to invest in their property education.”

Tim Frome of the PRS, says: “We at the Property Redress Scheme are pleased to support PEAS as we share the same objective of increasing standards in the property industry and providing consumers with suitable redress if they have an issue with a provider of a service”.

For more information about PEAS or the Property Investors Bureau, email on info@pibuk.org or call on 01206 700 123.

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The Launch of Self-Regulation Within The Property Education Sector

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The Property Investors Bureau is pleased to have hosted its first physical event for the Property Educators Accreditation Scheme’s members and key stakeholders.

It was a launch event held at the prestigious Hamilton Fraser offices on 22nd of September and was attended by influential figureheads from within the property investment industry.

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