NLA urges victorious Tories to temper possession law changes…

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Section 21:

Following his landslide victory in the General Election the National Landlords’ Association is urging Boris Johnson and his strengthened Tory government to protect landlords’ rights of repossession when it comes to the planned legal changes to Section 21.

Having averted even more radical changes to buy-to-let from a defeated Labour, with their threats of rent controls and more, landlords are still fearful of the threats to their investments from a no-holds-barred removal of the shorhold tenancy, in force since 1980, and the no-fault eviction process known as Section 21.

Landlords fear that under present government plans, the current system which has given them confidence they can get their property back when things go wrong, their Section 21 protection would be replaced by what they see as a totally inadequate system (Section 8).

The NLA says, “the Conservative government must start a new housing court and reform Section 8 “fault-based” evictions to end the logjam of repossession cases that will follow the abolition of Section 21 ‘no fault’ evictions”

Having promised to
strengthen landlords’ rights of possession, the NLA calls on the
new Boris Johnson-led Conservative government to take urgent action
to deliver by reforming the law courts, which it says would otherwise
lead to a full blown crisis in the private rented sector.

There is already
evidence that some landlords are selling-up in the face of these
threats, and given the demand for rental accommodation in the country
at present, any reduction in supply would inevitably lead to hardship
for tenants.

A recent
NLA-commissioned study carried out for them by the international
consultancy, Capital Economics, concluded that if the government’s
planned abolition of Section 21 is carried through without additional
safeguards, then the supply of private rented houses in England would
fall by 20 percent (960,000 dwellings).

In addition, there
would be a 59 percent reduction in the number of private rented
dwellings available to households which claim local housing allowance
or universal credit (770,000 fewer dwellings) because landlords would
choose not to rent their property to people with an unreliable record
on paying their rent

Also, the number of
homes facing rental increases would amount to 600,000 homes (13
percent of the sector) because the reduced supply of rented housing
would force up rental costs.

The Conservative
Party had already committed in its election manifesto to go ahead
with plans to abolish Section 21 if it were elected, but it also
pledged to at the same time “strengthen” landlords’ rights of
possession. However, landlords are fearful that relying on the
existing under-resourced and overworked court system, and a few
tweeks to the Section 8 grounds for possession, would not be enough
to re-assure landlords and prevent a new crisis in housing.

Richard Lambert, the
NLA’s chief executive, said:

“We congratulate
Boris Johnson on his return to No. 10 Downing Street as prime
minister of a new Conservative government. We now stand ready to work
with him and his team on the reform of housing regulations in a way
that does not do long term damage to the supply of private rented
housing.

“No-one should be in any doubt about the dire consequences for the supply of private rented housing in this country if the government abolishes Section 21 without any effort to reform the law courts and strengthen landlords’ rights of possession. There would be nearly 1 million fewer houses available for rent and the people who would be hardest hit would be some of the most vulnerable in our society: those in receipt of state benefits.”

A new deal for renting: resetting the balance of rights and responsibilities between landlords and tenants

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – NLA urges victorious Tories to temper possession law changes… | LandlordZONE.

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Conservatives need to get PRS reform right

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Landlords are calling on the government to ensure comprehensive reforms are made to the way good landlords can repossess properties in legitimate circumstances. Whilst the Conservative Party pledged in its manifesto to end Section 21 repossessions in the rental market, it also promised also to strengthen the rights of good landlords to repossess properties where […]

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Yields – Long term let vs holiday let?

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I have inherited some money and am looking at advice about the best investment vehicle for it. I was initially interested in buying a place in North Wales / Anglesey (we live just over an hour from the area) with a view to renting it out as a holiday let with us having the option of using it during quiet times.

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Labour plans to buy back £1bn of social housing from landlords

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Social Housing:

As well as its plans
to build thousands of council homes, Labour says it’s setting aside
£1bn to buy back properties which have been sold to private
landlords, through right to buy.

Homelessness housing
charities such as Shelter, dealing day-to-day with people who are
struggling with unaffordable and unsuitable housing, have long argued
that there’s a desperate need to build social housing on a big
scale. This is something that even previous Labour governments under
Blair and Brown failed to do.

Many blame Margaret
Thatcher’s right to buy council houses scheme, and all local
councils’ failures to replace these homes when sold, for causing
Britain’s current housing crisis, but the problem is a complex one.

Many years ago, the
UK housing sector began to rely more and more on the private rented
sector (buy-to-let landlords) to take up the slack when social
housing provision declined. Enticed into the market by increasing
demand and growing market rents, due to under supply, private
landlords invested and provided much needed rental accommodation.

But the resulting
structural change in the housing market, with steadily rising rents,
coupled with a cap on the local housing allowance (LHA), meant that
many low income families were finding it an increasingly difficult to
keep a roof over their heads.

Shadow Housing
Secretary John Healey says this will change, that when Labour takes
power there will be a “housing revolution”: “We need all parts
of the housing industry firing on all cylinders.”

Alongside the Lib
Dem promise to build 100,000 homes for the social sector, Labour’s
plan is far more radical: setting aside £75bn over five years, they
say they will build 100,000 new social homes every year for five
years. These policies contrast sharply with the The Conservative
Party policy of increasing private sector home ownership.

Labour’s
proposals, billed as “social housing for the many” by those
charities and providers in the social housing sector, have been
universally welcomed by all its stakeholders: the offer would bring
council housing to the fore again, as opposed to the social housing
which is currently seen to be delivered by the housing associations.
Councils would once again have a big role to play in house building.

Strongly critical of
the Conservatives’s free market model, Mr Healey, who was briefly
Housing Minister under Gordon Brown, says that what is needed is
that, “…instead of government stepping back from these problems,
its a government that’s willing to step up.”

The biggest question
surrounding the solving of these problems at the bottom quartile of
the housing market is not so much the difference in the various
party’s proposals and doctrines, but whether Labour really can
afford the vast sums of money involved, given all the other promises
and commitments they have made.

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – Labour plans to buy back £1bn of social housing from landlords | LandlordZONE.

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RLA Wales host General Election Hustings event

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With just days to go until the UK general election, RLA Wales policy and public affairs officer Calum Davies writes about a general election hustings event the RLA hosted in Cardiff, recently. Last Thursday, RLA Wales hosted a hustings event to discuss the issues that matter to private landlords, at Cornerstone in Cardiff last week. […]

The post RLA Wales host General Election Hustings event appeared first on RLA Campaigns and News Centre.

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Call of the Week-Christmas decorations and winter letter for tenants

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Christmas is only a few weeks away, and many people will soon be putting Christmas decorations up. This week, a member got in touch with us about some outdoor Christmas decorations their tenants had put up at the weekend. Their tenant had put up several lights and small structures in the front garden, including a […]

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Wales regulations revoked after RLA campaign

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New regulations demanding landlords in Wales give comprehensive information packs to prospective tenants before accepting  holding deposits have been pulled. Landlords were told that from Friday (December 13) they would have to provide a list of data to prospective tenants, despite the regulations only being confirmed just weeks earlier on November 15.  However, the Welsh Government […]

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How do I get away from my awful letting agents?

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I’ve been using a letting agent on a fully managed service for over 2 years now. They’ve never been great – considering the service is fully managed I end up doing an awful lot of stuff myself, having to remind them of certificate renewals

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ICO demand – is it a scam?

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Our Ltd company has just received a demand from ICO (Information Commissioner’s Office) claiming that we are not registered with them. That is true…. I have never heard of or from them before.

They say our customers, clients and tenants expect us to take our data protection obligations seriously like the many real estate companies that have paid their fee on time.

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Just a Criminal

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George Lindsay aged 55 from Erdington was successfully prosecuted by Birmingham city council and sentenced to pay a fine of £19,970 and only got away without jail time, because the guidelines did not permit the judge the option.

Lindsay was found guilty of failing to obtain on HMO licence and 13 infringements of HMO regulations that included:

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