Provision of housing

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According to Richard Bilton in the Panorama Programme there are ten million tenants of Private Sector Landlords. I take that figure with a Pinch of Salt! However, for the purposes of this article I will leave it like that.

Shelter’s Chief Executive

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Developers are exempt Money Laundering Regulations, estate agents are not

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Aniti-money
Laundering:

Developers selling homes through their own on-site sales
offices are exempt Money Laundering Regulations (AML), whereas if an agent is
selling, then they would not be.

Property Industry Eye
reports that this situation would seem anomalous, but HMRC has confirmed to the
Eye that this is indeed the case.

It seems that developers, as far as HMRC is concerned, are classed
as private sellers of peer to peer sellers, and like them, they are not
expected to be compliant, they are not caught by the AML regulations.   

A query about this emerged after a buying agent, purchasing
a property from a developer on behalf of a client, was told that AML applied to
him, whereas not to the developer.

HMRC told the Eye:

“If an individual or company sells property they own to an
individual that they find themselves, this is a private sale and does not
involve an estate agency.

“If it is a different company that introduces the parties
for sale/purchase, then this business is classed as an estate agency and must
be registered for AML supervision.�

The full response from HMRC was this:

The Money Laundering
Regulations are about supervising certain specific businesses conducting
relevant activity. This includes estate agencies.

The definitions of
estate agency businesses and what is relevant activity are defined in the
Estate Agents Act 1979. This legislation is owned by NTSELAT (the National
Trading Standards Estate and Letting Agency Team). Owners of property and peer
to peer sales of said property are not covered in this definition.

If an individual or
company sells property they own to an individual they find themselves, this is
a private sale and does not involve an estate agency. If it is a different
company that introduces the parties for sale/purchase, then this business is
classed as an estate agency and must be registered for AML supervision.

A new EU directive from June 2017, cited by the Eye, states that agents entering into a
business relationship with both sellers and buyers requires agents to scrutinise
buyers’ finances. This would include auctioneers who are required to check out
all potential purchasers before giving them a paddle so that they can bid for a
property – but developers, it seems, are exempt when they use their own sales
teams.

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Errors in English Private Landlords Survey and English Housing Survey

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I have sent the following email to the ehs@communities.gov.uk and also my MP along with the current Housing Secretary and Housing Minister

Please can anyone who is able please also send this, or something like it to their MP and generally try to highlight the problem with the survey questionnaires.

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Liverpool landlord harassment – Shocking and horrific!

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Some time back the Alliance was contacted by one of our members based in London. This landlord has a substantial portfolio in Liverpool.
Mr Mxxxx was very distressed and angry and informed us that Liverpool city council were engaged in a campaign of harassment against him and his tenants.

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Cooking a meal now a problem?

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I am the landlord of a 3 story block of 12 flats. Today it was brought to my attention that the fire alarm has become an issue as a result of someone simply cooking a meal, the flat is let as a holiday rental.

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Gas Safety Certificate appeal set for January 2020

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Serving Notices:

Following recent
cases of judges refusing possession claims when landlords failed to serve a gas
safety certificate prior to the start of a tenancy, landlords will be relieved
to learn that an appeal to these rulings has been allowed and is scheduled for
January 2020.

As it stands,
landlords failing to serve a gas safety certificate at the start of an AST are
barred from using the Section 21 no-fault evict process indefinitely. This may
or may not be important long-term as the government has committed to abolishing
s21, but given all that’s going on with the political situation, Parliament may
not be in a position to do much about this in the short term.

A recent county court decision in Caridon Property Ltd v Monty Schooltz, circuit judge HHJ Luba QC held that a landlord’s failure to provide the gas safety certificate before the tenant occupied the property was a breach that could not be rectified later.  As a result, the landlord was prevented from using the section 21 procedure to regain possession. This decision was later verified by HHJ Carr in the Trecarrell House Limited v Rouncefield county court appeal.

The decisions’ reasoning revolved around the interpretation of the legislation set out in s21A of the Housing Act 1988 and the Assured Shorthold Tenancy Notices and Prescribed Requirements (England) Regulations 2015 under the Deregulation Act 2015. This linked Section 21 to a landlord’s gas safety obligations under the Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations 1998 (the “Gas Safety Regulationsâ€�).

However, a grant of permission to appeal has been given in the case of Trecarrell House Limited v Rouncefield and has been set for January 2020.

The appeal will be based on a landlord’s right to peaceful
enjoyment of his property contrary to Article 1 of the First Protocol of the
European Convention of Human Rights.

Solicitors Anthony Gold say:

“We understand this is the first case where a senior court
will consider the human rights implications of the regulations and how they
have been interpreted. The decision is therefore likely to have significant
consequences for landlords, tenants and judges who have been grappling with
these issues in the county courts.�

Specialist property solicitors, Anthony Gold are acting for
the landlord who is being assisted by the Residential Landlords’ Association
(RLA). Justin Bates and Brooke Lyne of Landmark Chambers will be representing
the landlord before the Court of Appeal.

Government to stand by Gas Safety Certificate ruling

RLA campaign to challenge gas safety notice ‘breach’

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Rent to Rent Tips, Advice and Case Study

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We first published this article back in 2013. It has been resurrected because the information provided within it is just as relevant today as it was back then and the Rent to Rent strategy continues to be a hot topic of discussion at many of the UK’s property networking Events.

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Courts now take 22.5 weeks for possession claims

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New statistics show that it now takes private landlords an average of 22.5 weeks from making a claim to the courts for a property to be repossessed to it actually happening – up from 21.6 weeks since the beginning of the year.

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Higher SDLT refund via selling property to limited company?

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My hubby and I were unable to sell our residential property A before buying new main residential home B in Aug 2017, so we paid an extra £25k in stamp duty because of the second home tax surcharge of 3%.

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Courts failing ahead of radical repossession changes

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Repossessions:

With the imminent demise of the no-fault Section 21 eviction
process, landlords are concerned about what will take its place.

Government has announced that it is committed to stopping
landlords using the no-fault process to regain possession of rented properties,
but the court repossession statistics for the first quarter of 2019, released
this week, present a worrying trend.

The new figures show that it takes private landlords, on average,
22.5 weeks from making a claim to actually getting possession. This compares to
the 21.6 weeks figure for Q1, 2019.

The Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government is
currently conducting a consultation about how best to replace Section 21s with
something that’s “fair for tenants and landlords�.

Have your say, contribute here – A new deal for renting: resetting the balance of rights and responsibilities between landlords and tenants

Despite claims from landlords’ representatives that the only
way to make the system fair is to introduce specialised “Housing Courts�, where
swift and fair justice can be settled, the government seems intent on merely “tweaking�
existing legislation and court processes. Few landlords have faith that such a
move will make a major difference, or that it will be anywhere near enough to
prevent “landlord flight�.

Admittedly, not all evictions take 22.5 weeks, and as has
been suggested in the consolation, by eliminating mistakes on claim forms,
digitising the process, and introducing clearer grounds for possession, average
times may well be reduced significantly.

But there’s no getting away from the fact that by removing
the assured shorthold tenancy and Section 21, leaving only a modified Section 8
process, this system moves from a mandatory eviction (when certain conditions
apply and no court hearing is required) to a discretionary and adversarial one.

That means that in each case the onus of proof will be on
the landlord: to bring into court rock-solid evidence that a significant breach
of contract or misdemeanour has occurred, or has been occurring over a period
of time. That process is not only difficult, time consuming and expensive, calling
for professional representation, the outcome is always uncertain because judges
will often be swayed and sympathetic to arguments put forward by the most “vulnerable�
party, invariably the tenant.

Whatever the arguments, it would seem the die is cast as far as the removal of Section 21 is concerned, and there will be significant changes to the tenancy laws in both England and Wales following broadly the model introduced in Scotland in 2017. What is put in its place is perhaps of greatest concern now, and that whatever it is it does not tilt the scales of justice too far.

A press release put out by the Residential Landlords
Association (RLA) draws attention to the new repossession statistics and the
wider concerns: 

Responding to these new statistics, John Stewart, Policy
Manager for the Residential Landlords Association has said:

“Today’s figures show that the courts are unable to cope
when landlords seek to repossess properties for legitimate reasons.

 â€œWith proposals to scrap Section 21 repossessions set
to lead to a significant increase in cases brought to the courts, it is now a
matter of urgency that the Government brings forward its plans for court
reform.  This requires a fully funded, properly staffed, dedicated housing
court that can bring rapid justice for landlords and tenants. Tinkering with
the existing system will not be good enough.�

See the Ministry of Justice’s Mortgage and Landlord Possession Statistics (Excel Spread Sheet download) for the second quarter of 2019 here – see table 6a “Private Landlord� tab

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