Most radical reforms to planning system since the Second World War

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Build Build Build: Boris Johnson says he will make the most radical reforms to the planning system since the Second World War, making it easier to build where people want to live. New regulations will give greater freedom for buildings and land in our town centres to change use without planning permission and create new homes from the regeneration of vacant and redundant buildings.

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Council hammers landlords with rent repayment orders totalling £100,000 in 12 months

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Tower Hamlets Council in London is warning rogue landlords to get their house in order after recovering £100,000 in rent from them over the past year.

The London borough used rent repayment orders to claim back tenants’ cash from landlords who were caught with unlicensed properties.

It runs two borough-wide property licensing schemes – a mandatory scheme for HMOs with five renters or more and an additional scheme covering flats or houses with three or more renters – along with a selective scheme covering all rented properties within the Weavers, Whitechapel, Spitalfields and Banglatown areas.

Councillor Sirajul Islam, deputy mayor and cabinet member for housing, says that while most of its landlords play by the rules, some put profit ahead of the people who live in their properties.

“We want to work with landlords to ensure that the licensing process is safe, regulated and improves the lives of managing agents and tenants,” he adds. “Given the penalties that can be incurred by falling foul of our regulations, it really isn’t worth the risk of letting an unlicensed property.”

Rent payment orders can claim up to 12 months’ rent back for tenants from landlords who have committed an offence, although they don’t need to have been convicted.

The National Residential Landlords Association has questioned how workable or effective rent repayment orders are but expects there to have been an uptake in their use across the country since the changes made in October 2018.

Deputy policy director John Stewart says: “It’s 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.” 

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – Council hammers landlords with rent repayment orders totalling £100,000 in 12 months | LandlordZONE.

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After forcing tenants to take court action (and losing), DWP brushes off impact of judgement

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The impact of a landmark Universal Credit payments legal case has been diminished significantly by the government after it claimed that only 1,000 people and not the 85,000 originally claimed by campaigners had been affected, and would appear to be why it has decided not to appeal the judgement.

As LandlordZONE reported last week, the Court of Appeal gave its decision on the case of four women who had challenged the government on its Universal Credit ‘fixed assessment period’ payment policy. It was brought as a test case on behalf of the claimants by campaigning group the Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG), and was successful.

The policy was irrational and unlawful, the judges argued, and forced people into debt including rent arrears, causing problems for them and their landlords.

“Between them, the claimants fell into rent arrears, defaulted on council tax, incurred bank overdraft charges, borrowed money and even become reliant on food banks to make ends meet,” says CPAG.

“The threshold for establishing irrationality is very high, but it is not insuperable,” the judge said. “This case is, in my judgement, one of the rare instances where the [Secretary of State’s] refusal to put in place a solution to this very specific problem is so irrational that I have concluded that the threshold is met because no reasonable [Secretary of State] would have struck the balance in that way.”

The four claimants – Johnson, Woods, Barrett and Stewart – said that, because the DWP’s fixed assessment periods often straddle two pay dates, the system then assumes their pay has increased significantly and reduces or cancels their benefits including the housing element.

“We’ve raised this problem with Ministers repeatedly but to no avail and it shouldn’t take four months and going all the way to the Court of Appeal to have this obviously daft policy declared irrational,” said Baroness Sherlock yesterday during a House of Lords debate.

The government’s Department of Work and Pensions representative in the Lords, Baroness Stedman-Scott, replied that her department is now considering retrospective payments to claimants caught up in this red tape loophole.

But she went on to say that the figure of 85,000 ‘did not resonate with us’ and that she believed the figure to be closer to 1,000 people, but nevertheless agreed to keep parliament up to date on progress to prevent claimants being impacted in the future.

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – After forcing tenants to take court action (and losing), DWP brushes off impact of judgement | LandlordZONE.

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ARLA write to Secretary of State for Justice over possessions backlog

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ARLA Propertymark have written to Robert Buckland QC Secretary of State for Justice voicing concerns over how the massive possessions backlog will be handled when/if the eviction ban is lifted on the 23/08/2020 and is calling for government to urgently develop a “robust and co-ordinated strategy to ensure no one is denied or delayed the right to justice”

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Expensive insurance due to sensitive 3rd party information?

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My freeholder is responsible for building insurance for a flat that I own in a building with 8 flats. The insurance premium is 3 times (£450) what I pay for a similar flat about 200 yards away (£175).

When I challenged this

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Justice! Landlord wins battle to have HMO conviction quashed after council’s errors uncovered

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A landlord who was prosecuted for ignoring improvement notices on two HMOs has had his convictions quashed.

Jaswinder Khatkar was fined £19,000 after being found guilty of 11 charges of failing to comply with orders relating to properties in Hartington Street, Derby.

However, an appeal hearing at Derby Crown Court quashed these convictions after his defence cited “fundamental errors and defects” in the council’s case while the process used to prosecute him was found to have not complied with the Housing Act.

During an inspection at the two properties, housing standards officers had found a number of areas for improvement and recommended fitting secondary glazing, new insulation and a new heating system.

Khatkar said he was only made aware of the notice after the 28-day appeal period, which meant he could not appeal against it, but that 99% of the work was done very quickly at a cost of about £30,000.

He said: “The council gave me 12 weeks over Christmas to sort it out. But for all of the works you’re looking at six months to complete. It takes nine weeks for just the glazing to go from call to order because they have to be custom-made.”

Khatkar, who owns a number of properties in Derby, said he had had the property inspected and declared safe by the time he was charged for non-compliance.

He added that the court case had affected him getting an HMO licence. “Given the way I have been treated I will now be considering further legal action for damages.”

A Derby City Council spokesperson says: “Following a re-evaluation of the council’s position, after considering the grounds of the appeal which raised a number of technical points, the decision was taken not to contest the appeal.

This resulted in the appeals being allowed unopposed. At all stages, the council made it clear that its position on the triable issue of ‘reasonable excuse’ remained unchanged.”

Read more about HMO fines.

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – Justice! Landlord wins battle to have HMO conviction quashed after council’s errors uncovered | LandlordZONE.

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BREAKING: Leading organisations urge Ministers to give tenants more help to clear rent arrears

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Three leading organisations representing both tenants and landlords have called for the government to introduce additional financial support for renters when the eviction ban ends at the end of September.

These are Chris Norris of the NRLA, Caitlin Wilkinson of Generation Rent and Ruth Ehrlich of Shelter.

The trio were grilled today by MPs during a 60-minute hearing held by the Housing, Communities and Local Government Select Committee chaired by Clive Betts MP.

This session started with Shelter claiming that 58,000 households in the private rental sector have already left properties at their landlord’s request since March, and that 174,000 renters have already been told that they will be evicted once the ban is lifted.

But despite their different outlooks, the session saw all three witnesses agree on a surprisingly wide range of topics.

This included that arrears are running at approximately twice the normal rate of 2-3% of all tenancies and that none of them supported the concept of ‘rent forgiveness’, a popular #hashtag on Twitter.

Instead, both Shelter, Generation Rent and the NRLA said they are urging the government to introduce more support for tenants who get into rent arrears, something that may appear in next week’s mooted emergency budget.

The NRLA says this could be achieved through ‘zero or no interest’ loans whereas Shelter and Generation Rent said they would prefer to see additional support via the benefits system, and not for tenants to be driven further into debt.

Chris Norris of the NRLA also said that he doesn’t believe there will be a cliff-face of evictions if the ban is lifted in September.

Instead, he said the NRLA favours a selective lifting so the courts can prioritise those tenants who had been served with notices prior to the Covid pandemic due to deliberate non-payment of rent or anti-social behaviour. He also suggested a geographic lifting of the ban to help in areas where court backlogs are the largest.

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – BREAKING: Leading organisations urge Ministers to give tenants more help to clear rent arrears | LandlordZONE.

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Landlord’s ‘bonus’ to student tenants goes viral on social media

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A leading Leeds landlord who rewarded his tidy student tenants with a bonus says he’s overwhelmed by the positive response after one of their grateful tweets went viral.

John Falkingham, who’s run Falham Properties in Leeds for 35 years, returned their deposits with a £50 bonus each as a thank you for looking after his property, telling the seven tenants to ‘buy something nice’ as the shops had reopened after lockdown.

The Leeds University students had lived in the house for three years and were hoping to get their £250 deposit back, says psychology student Maisie Gardner who was shocked when he messaged her saying she would be getting £300 back instead.

She was so touched by the gesture she shared the news on Twitter, saying: ‘A nice student landlord!!! Love you John.’ Her tweet has now been shared more than 11,000 times.

Good tenant relations is second-nature to Falkingham, whose company has previously been awarded ‘Most responsive landlord’ and ‘Best large landlord in Leeds’ by Leeds University Union.

Maybe unsurprisingly he’s also had no issues with students refusing to pay their rent during the crisis.

However, Falkingham tells LandlordZONE he’s been overwhelmed by the feedback and the viral tweet, saying the bonus was deserved as it was important to make sure landlords told good tenants that they’re valued.

He says: “These students were in the house for three years, always paid their rent on time and were good to deal with. I know that some of them have also lost their part-time jobs because of the Coronavirus crisis – I just thought it was a nice gesture as they also left the place very clean. It’s important to recognise all good tenants and I always at least tell them that I appreciate them.”

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – Landlord’s ‘bonus’ to student tenants goes viral on social media | LandlordZONE.

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Rent strikes would hammer 500,000 retirees who count on PRS for their income

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Older private landlords could see their pension hammered, while pension funds might be less keen to invest in new rental housing if more tenants heed calls for a widespread rent strike.

As renters’ unions whip up support for payment breaks and Labour party leader Keir Starmer faces pressure to back a strike, residential consultant Ringley warns this would punish hundreds of thousands of pensioners as well as risk halting investment by UK pension funds which are ploughing billions into creating new homes.

More than 4,000 Labour party members recently signed an open letter backing rent cancellation as a policy. It argued that Labour’s five-point plan to help renters, which includes extending the evictions ban by at least six months and giving tenants two years to pay back rent arrears, doesn’t not go far enough.

Ringley says that at least 500,000 landlords are retired while nearly half of them invest in rental property to supplement their pension, which means any move to cancel rents without reimbursing landlords would see their rental income wiped out entirely.

Group MD Mary-Anne Bowring says cancelling rents is not the answer. “It would represent one of the biggest raids on people’s pension pots in British history,” she explains.

“Hundreds of thousands of retired landlords who rely on income from rental properties would be left massively out of pocket while landlords planning to use the income to supplement their pension will also be hit.”

She adds: “Rent cancellation would be another blow to UK pension funds who are investing billions into creating high quality purpose-built rental homes, as many will be exposed to shopping centres and other commercial property where rent collection rates have fallen dramatically.”

At least 3,693 people have joined the London Renters Union’s Can’t Pay Won’t Pay campaign which encourages tenants in the capital to withhold rent and prevent and resist evictions.

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – Rent strikes would hammer 500,000 retirees who count on PRS for their income | LandlordZONE.

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Commercial Property Insurance during a pandemic…

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When rent and service changes are not being paid, and when shops have ceased trading or when they become vacant, potentially doubling the insurance premium, landlords need to pay attention to their insurance policies.

Service changes are often a thorny issue in the relationship between landlord and tenant and the building insurance premium is a major element of this.

Unlike with residential property, where the landlord has a vested interest in making sure the premium is competitive, as the landlord pays, with commercial the premium is almost always recoverable from the tenant. The landlord is less interested in the cost therefore and more interested in the quality of cover, plus there may even be some sort of an overall premium discount which the landlord alone receives on a block policy.

Commercial property insurance is almost always arranged and paid for by the landlord, recovering the cost from the tenant in the annual service changes bill. Tackling the problem the other way around by having the tenant arrange the insurance has the obvious dangers of the tenant either under-insuring or not insuring at all – a risk most commercial landlords would not be willing to take.

The Lease Terms

It is of course possible to including an obligation in the lease for the tenant to produce evidence of cover at least once a year and to update the cover to the landlord’s requirements which is sometimes used, but this is open to abuse as the tenant could cancel or fail to pay the premium when due, and it’s all a lot of hassle, even though it would be more transparent for the tenant and may simplify claims.

When a new lease is granted landlords and tenants can include whatever clauses and obligations they please so long as it meets both parties’ approval. However, when tenants take over an existing lease via assignment, or landlords buy properties with existing leases and tenant in situ, the parties are bound by whatever the parties agreed in the first place, unless a complicated process of variation is entered into.

Generally, the list of insured risks is not contentious. For example, the risks of loss or damage by fire, storm, tempest, earthquake, lightning, explosion, riot, civil commotion, malicious damage, impact by vehicles and by aircraft and articles dropped from aircraft (other than war risks), flood damage, bursting and overflowing of water pipes and tanks and such other risks as the Landlord from time to time shall decide to insure against. What a landlord cannot do, unless expressly allowed in the lease, is to insure for anything that is not mentioned in the lease; hence the “such other risks” etc.

Insured risks will also usually include cover for loss of rent. In older leases, the period of cover might be one or two years, but more recent practice is three years, or for more flexibility however long the landlords decides: three years is generally considered ample.

Where part or the whole of property is damaged or destroyed by an insured risk rendering the premises unusable by the tenant for the duration of the works of repair, etc, the loss of rent cover entitles the landlord to claim from the insurance company, not the tenant, the amount of rent for the duration up to the maximum period of cover.

It is essential, therefore, that whenever rent is changed, the amount for loss of rent is also adjusted. Even if the cost/time of informing the insurer or broker seems disproportionate, it is important to ensure the loss of rent cover is correct: it is not advisable to leave notifying the insurer until the next renewal date.  

Where a rent review date falls within the policy renewal year, some leases entitle the landlord to increase the loss of rent cover to the estimated rent for the review even before the review rent is agreed or ascertained. Some landlords make the adjustment as a matter of course, regardless of what the lease says; and may not even bother to reduce the cover should the actual rent agreed or ascertained be less than their estimate. Whether their tenants are any the wiser would depend on the tenant and its advisers.

Valuation

Valuation for building insurance differs from other types of property valuation. An insurance valuation is not a valuation of what the property might sell for, the market value, but how much it would cost to rebuild/restore in the event of total destruction. Restoration, as distinct from rebuilding, might be a requirement of the planning authorities, particularly if the property were in a Conservation area or is a Listed building.

The whole of the built structure is valued by reference to building costs for the type of property. Generally, the on-line free calculators for building costs tend to be residential-property oriented, which is inappropriate for commercial property.

An inexperienced approach to an insurance valuation or leaving it to the broker or insurance company to suggest a figure is asking for disaster. It is advisable for commercial property landlords to periodically commission an insurance valuation from an experienced building surveyor, with accurate inflation adjusted increases in the intervening years.

A good building surveyor will inspect and measure the property, including any outbuildings, and calculate the gross external area using industry sources to estimate an accurate rebuilding cost, including site clearance, all professional fees and VAT. Whether to include VAT in the calculation can be tricky because it depends upon whether VAT would be recoverable and by whom and as will all these technical matters, professional advice should be sought.

Estimating building costs is often more of an educated guess because of extraneous factors: generally it is prudent to be over-insured than under-insured. With buildings in Conservation Areas and Listed buildings, frankly it is anyone’s guess just how draconian the restoration policies of the planners and heritage organisations might be.

In a well-drafted lease, the insurance premium falls within the meaning of “rent” as defined by the lease.  By that it does not mean that the premium would automatically mean rent regardless. If it’s not expressly included in the definition of rent then it would be a debt, in which case the procedure for recovery in the event of non-payment would be more difficult and expensive.

Insurance Relationships

With insurance there are two separate relationships: 1) the relationship between the policyholder (the insured) and the insurance company; and 2) the relationship between the insured (landlord) and the tenant. Where the insured and the tenant are one and the same then problems are less likely to arise, unless the insured is a different person/company to the legal tenant.

Within the context of the tenancy (lease), the relationship between landlord and the tenant is contractual, subject to any overriding legislation. Where the tenant covenants to pay the insurance premium (assuming the lease does not entitle the tenant to insure), it is usual for the landlord to insure and then recover the premium from the tenant.

Premium Recovery

The renewal date for the insurance policy will often differ from any other rent payment dates, so it will be necessary for the landlord to renew the policy before the tenant has to reimburse. When the tenant has to reimburse depends on the wording in the lease. There are leases requiring the insurance premium to be paid on the next payment date (as defined in the lease) following the renewal date.

When, as is common, the payment date is a quarter day, the tenant is not obliged to reimburse the premium beforehand, in which case depending upon the insurance policy renewal date the landlord would be out of pocket during the intervening period. A landlord who threatens legal action in the event of non-payment before the tenant’s contractual payment date due would have no grounds to recover.

Where the premium is payable by the tenant for example on demand or within 14 days of the policy renewal date, in an ideal world tenants would honour the covenant. Often that is not the case. Unless the lease so provides, a tenant is not entitled to see the receipt for payment by the insured before reimbursing, but will nevertheless request proof.

Beast practice is to provide the tenant with full details: for example copy policy schedule, confirmation of renewal, and how the premium has been calculated where apportioned. This will give the least cause for complaint and delay. The fact that the payment is for example due on demand is unlikely to cut any ice with tenants whose accounts departments only pay monthly and the landlord’s demand arrives too late for the current month, so will be paid the next month, or maybe the following month if the person that authorises payment is next available! This is in normal times, June 2020 is not normal times!

Arguing about Cost

Generally, tenants fall into two types for insurance premium payments. The first understands that, per business tenancy law, it is not necessary for a landlord to shop around for the most competitive premium provided cover is with a reputable insurer.

The second is convinced they can get the premium much cheaper and has shopped around to prove it.  The first type is, of course, easier to deal with: it’s simply a matter of claiming the correct amount for payment to then be authorised. This second type needs to be educated, not only in the difference between the value of the property for insurance and the value for sale, not to mention the difference between commercial property and residential, but also in commercial reality. This is a task that can be made all the more difficult for landlords by the insurance companies themselves offering special deals to new customers, into which category the tenant would fall when the tenant is making enquiries.

Insurance Risk v Premium

A premium is the amount of money that the insurer charges for carrying the risk. A premium will vary with the type of property, its location, and so on; also the nature of the tenant’s use of the property, and the landlord’s and tenant’s respective reputations. Insurance companies are in the business of making a profit out of risky situations.

Where the proposal would be considered a low risk, based on the information on the application form, and the insurer’s experience, the premium would be commensurate. As businesses, insurance companies have to be competitive which, to them (insurance companies) means either offering special deals to new customers, or if there is not enough profit to be had, then withdrawing from the particular sector of the market. Anyone who has tried to get insurance on empty property will know how few insurers are interested and how much higher the premium is than if the property were occupied.

There is also a difference existing between the landlord and tenant relationship regarding a property that is let but unoccupied (not trading) and the insurer and policyholder relationship in the same situation. This is an important point during a Coronavirus pandemic, as landlords and tenants should be informing their insurers if the business is temporarily not trading – it would invalidate the cover if the insurer is not informed.

Between landlord and tenant, a let but unoccupied property is the tenant’s problem. Between insurer and policyholder, an unoccupied property is the policyholder’s problem. The insurer will require the policyholder to agree to conditions for the cover, which would be passed on to the tenant but which, in practice, the tenant might ignore.  In modern leases, there is often a provision obliging the tenant to comply with the reasonable requirements of the insurer, failing which the tenant would be in breach of covenant.

Claims Procedure

Where the landlord insures and then recovers, in effect the landlord is acting as a go between for any claims even when the landlord simply forwards any claims to the insurance broker or the insurer.

Strictly speaking, the tenant should carry out works at its own expense then recover the cost from the landlord who, as the policyholder, recovers the cost from the insurer per the claim. Whether the landlord has to pass on the whole of the cost, or indeed whether the works have to be done at all depends on another standard condition in leases, namely that in the event of damage or destruction not being remedied within a specified period of time the tenant would be able to terminate the lease. The insurance monies are nowadays kept by the landlord.

A minority of tenants have a habit of claiming for damage caused by the tenant’s failure to repair, rather than an insured risk. Generally, the insurers will process such claims by inspection and are generally quick to reject them. Spurious claims made by tenants however can potentially damage the landlord’s reputation with the insurer.

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – Commercial Property Insurance during a pandemic… | LandlordZONE.

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