All posts by National Renters Alliance

Cherie Blair Speaks at Landlord Summit

10/06/2016 National Renters Alliance 1 Comment

Cherie Blair has spoken at an event organized by Landlord and letting agent groups seeking to overturn Chancellor George Osborne’s planned changes to mortgage interest relief for landlords. The Chancellor’s proposals, introduced in the 2015 Budget and Autumn statements, are intended to eliminate tax exemptions which the Treasury claims are not enjoyed by investors in other asset classes such as shares. Under the proposals, landlords operating as sole traders will be less able to deduct mortgage interest payments when calculating their tax liabilities.

Legal Challenge

Mrs Blair spoke at the event as council to a legal challenge brought against the Treasury proposals following the failure of a formal Parliamentary petition. The motion started by the Residential Landlord’s Association fell more than thirty-one thousand signatures short of the required hundred thousand to merit debate in Parliament. The failure to exert pressure on the Government using petitions led to a crowdfunding campaign by landlords to finance a legal challenge to overturn the Chancellor’s measures.

Judicial Review

Acting as legal council to the complainants through Omnia Strategy, the law firm she founded and chaired, Mrs Blair claims that the Chancellor’s proposed changes warrant a judicial review since they discriminate against landlords according to the European Convention on Human rights. This gives one the right to hold one’s property in a way without unfair taxation. Mrs Blair also purports that the tax changes go against European Union competition laws by favoring large institutions over small individual investors.

Also speaking at the event was the Conservative Life Peer and former member of Parliament Lord Howard Flight who had written a letter to the Government “Why the Government is wrong to attack Buy-to-Let.”

The conference, titled the “Tenant Tax Summit” was held on 9th June at the ILEC Conference Center in Earl’s Court. Sponsorship was provided by various property investors and landlord’s organizations including Platinum Property Partners, Velvoir, the Humber Landlord’s Association and the Residential Landlord’s Association among others.

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Housing, Housing Standards

Private Rental Sector has Lowest Property Standards

27/05/2016 National Renters Alliance 1 Comment

Private rental sector has highest percentage of home unfit for human habitation

The private rental sector in England has the highest proportion of poor property standards of any tenure type according to a research published in Parliament. This finding follows the 2014/15 English Housing Survey which found that 29% of private rented properties would fail the Government’s decent homes standard for social housing, compared to 14% of social housing.

Despite numerous regulations in the private letting sector which govern repairs and maintenance requirements such as the Housing Health and Safety Rating System, a risk-assessment based regulatory model introduced in 2006, there are effectively no minimum property standards for rented housing in England.

The parliamentary report on the state of housing in England follows recent failed attempts to establish minimum housing criteria such as a Private Member’s Bill proposed by Karen Buck, the member of Parliament for Westminster North.

The proposed Fitness for Human Habitation Bill sought to amend the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 to require that residential rented accommodation be provided and maintained in a state of fitness for human habitation, was adjourned on its second reading debate on 16th October 2015.

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Government, letting fees

Letting Agent Fee Cap Debated in the House of Commons

04/05/2016 National Renters Alliance 2 Comments

houses of parliament — MPs debate letting agent fee cap

The Conservative MP for Lewes, Maria Caulfield, secured an Adjournment Debate in the House of Commons to discuss the Government’s actions in relation to letting agent fee capping.

Miss Caulfield reported that research from Seaford and Lewes Citizen’s Advice Bureaux which found that letting agent fees can range from £175 to £922 in addition to an average of a six-week rent deposit.

Also participating in the debate was Kevin Hollinrake, co-founder of Hunters Estate Agents and the Conservative MP for Thirsk and Malton who added that agents may choose to decline tenancies to prospective tenants with inferior credit histories if fees were scrapped rather than capped.

The Conservative MP for Thirsk and Malton, Kevin Hollinrake also contributed to the debate adding that letting agents rely on fees for their income, which would probably be obtained from higher rents or landlord’s costs if such fees were prohibited.

Letting agent fees are attracting increasing political attention as the housing crisis deepens with reports of many letting agents insisting on six month rotating tenancy agreements against the wishes of many landlords or tenants in order to charge additional contract renewal fees.

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Affordability

Almost Half of 25-34 Year-Olds Now Rent

05/04/2016 National Renters Alliance Leave a comment

Almost half of 25-34 year-olds in England now rent according to a recent House of Commons research report. The briefing assessing Government initiatives to extend home ownership claims that 48 per cent of the 25-34 year old age group now rent their homes up from 21 per cent in 2003-04. However, given the choice, the report states that 86 per cent of this age category would prefer to own their own homes rather than rent.

London Centrism

The housing crisis is particularly acute in London. According to Alan Holmans of the Cambridge Center for Housing and Planning, the house-price-differential between London and the rest of the UK has climbed to a post-war peak and is currently 85 per cent higher than the UK average. However, the differential between average London household incomes and the rest of the United Kingdom, is only around 32 per cent higher.

Chancellor intervenes

The scale of the housing crisis has lead to a series of proposals in recent years including Chancellor George Osborne’s announcement of a “Five Point Plan to increase home ownership” in his 2015 Autumn Statement and Spending Review. This included a commitment to build 400,000 affordable houses by 2020-21 among other measures. This was soon followed by the launch of the “Help to Buy London” scheme in February 2016 in recognition of higher housing costs in the capital.

Buy-to-let effect

The effect of buy-to-let landlords was also highlighted by the Chancellor as a potential exacerbating factor in house price inflation. Accordingly in his Summer 2015 Budget, the chancellor announced plans to restrict tax relief on landlords’ mortgage costs. This decision is currently being challenged by landlord’s organizations which have hired to the legal firm Omina Strategy, which was founded and chaired by Cherie Blair.

Moreover, in order not to penalize buy-to-let landlords with mortgages against those who buy additional properties in cash through restrictions in mortgage interest rate relief, the Chancellor also announced that a 3% increase in stamp duty which will be levied against purchases of additional properties. The Chancellor argued that the buy to let sector had had a disproportionate impact on the housing market as a whole, and that many buyers had not been affected by earlier tax changes, announced in the 2015 Summer Budget.

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Government, letting fees, Regulation

Government Considers Letting Agent Regulation Adequate

01/04/2016 National Renters Alliance Leave a comment

The Government considers current regulation of private sector letting and managing agents adequate according to a recently published House of Commons Research note.

According to the briefing there is “no overarching statutory regulation of private sector letting or managing agents in England or any legal requirement for them to belong to a trade association, although many letting and managing agents submit to voluntary regulation” despite the rapid growth in the private rental sector over the past two decades.

Furthermore, the Government plans to improve the quality of the rental sector by increasing the range of powers available under consumer protection legislation and has no intention of introducing regulation.

The Government does not intend to introduce regulation in the sector and has pointed instead to the existing range of available powers under consumer protection legislation. However, an amendment to the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act 2013 enabled the Government to require agents to sign up to a redress.

This comes as private motions in Parliament have been heard recently in relation to regulating letting agent fees which one Conservative MP described as “an opportunity to fleece tenants”.

The research note states that the Government considers that the present legal framework strikes the right balance between landlords and tenants and that new regulations would “introduce too much additional red tape”.

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Government, Landlord

Government Responds to Landlord’s Legal Challenge

25/03/2016 National Renters Alliance Leave a comment

Two landlords at the center of a legal challenge to Chancellor George Osborne’s tax changes announced in last year’s budget have confirmed that two government departments had provided an “acknowledgement of service”.

The legal challenge to the Treasury’s tax changes was launched by two landlords, Steve Bolton and Chris Cooper, who used a crowdfunding platform to raise sufficient capital to employ Omnia Strategy, a legal firm founded and chaired by Cherie Blair, to seek a judicial review of the Chancellor’s measures.

The legal battle over the Chancellor’s proposed changes to Mortgage Interest Relief follows the failure of a Petition launched by the Residential Landlord’s Association to attract sufficient support to warrant debate in Parliament.

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London, Regulation, Renters rights

More than 26% of London homes are now rented privately

04/03/2016 National Renters Alliance Leave a comment

The private rented sector in London has grown from 17% of all homes to 26% over the last decade according to a London Housing Committee

However despite the rapid growth in private renting in the capital, the rules governing the sector remain largely unchanged since the 1980s. According to the report which represents the view of the majority of the London housing commitee, the Mayor of London should:

Stimulate the build to let sector by getting government help for landlords competing to develop land;
Set up a London-wide register of landlords to help the boroughs enforce existing legislation and better protect tenants; and
Support London’s low-income renters by lobbying government to review the freeze imposed on Local Housing Allowance levels in London until 2020.

In addition to its consumer protection role, the National Renters Alliance is always open to ideas to present to government. If you have any suggestions to better protect and improve the situation of renting in London and across the rest of the United Kingdom please send us our thoughts.

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Affordability, Housing Standards, Renters rights

Majority of London renters forced to live in unacceptable conditions

14/02/2016 National Renters Alliance Leave a comment

60% of renters in London live in unacceptable conditions according to a survey carried out by YouGov and the housing charity Shelter.

The survey of 739 private renters in London between 13th June and 22nd July 2015 found that around 60%, equivalent to around 1.5 million Londoners, have experienced problems in the past year. According to the survey with vermin and damp commonly reported problems were found to be:

Damp or mould (39% of renters)
Poor insulation or excess cold (26%)
Animal infestations such as mice and cockroaches (25%)
Problems with a leaking roof or windows (18%).

In addition to poor disrepair, a significant fraction of renters had experienced unsafe conditions with 14% reporting electrical problems and 15% living in homes which are poorly secured. Most worrying were the 3% of renters who reported gas leaks. According to the English Housing Survey 2013/14, 16.5 per cent of private rented homes fail the Government’s minimum standard under the Housing Health and Safety Rating System.

The poor state of rental housing stock in the capital stands in stark contrast the the cost of rented accommodation with the average London renter paying just under 60% of their income on rent.

The seriousness of the rental crisis in the capital and across the country as a whole has led renters rights groups to campaign for the introduction of greater council powers to address disrepair in the private rental sector.

Other proposed initiatives include the establishment of landlord licensing to better protect renters from rogue landlords and letting agents. Landlord and property licencing is currently mandatory for large HMOs (homes in multiple occupation) although there are calls to extend this regime to all HMOs irrespective of size and to other private rented accommodation.

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Enforcement, Government, Housing Standards, Regulation, Renters rights

Less than 3% of Housing Disrepair Complaints Enforced

10/02/2016 National Renters Alliance Leave a comment

The lack of resources available to local authorities to deal with housing disrepair in the private letting sector was exposed yesterday in the House of Lords.

According to the Liberal Democrat Baroness Bakewell, housing complaints totaled 62,818 in 2012-13 which resulted in only 31,634 inspections by local authorities. Astoundingly, only 1,645 improvement notices were served over the same period. The most common categories of hazards and faults identified in inspections were: damp and mould, excess cold, crowding and space, falling hazards and fire. The powerlessness of many renters is exacerbated by out-of-date legislation whereby tenants can take action themselves only if their rent is less than £80 a year in London and £52 a year elsewhere.

These findings come as 11 million people now live in private rented accommodation in England, a figure which has almost doubled in the last decade and is set for further increases.

The Baroness claims that Parliamentary research indicated that 30% of private rented properties in England would fail the Government’s decent homes standard. This is almost double the 15% in the social rented sector. Also, despite having the lowest average property standards, the private rental sector is the most expensive housing option. Private renters now spend an average of 47% of their income on rent compared with 23% of the income of people with a mortgage and 32% of the income for those in the social rented sector.

The Baroness’ comments were made during a committee reading of the Housing and Planning Bill which would establish a database of rogue landlords and letting agents and strengthen the enforcement of pre-existing legislation in the private rental sector among other measures.

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Enforcement, Government, Housing Standards

MP Reports only 27% of Poor Housing Reports Investigated by Authorities

09/02/2016 National Renters Alliance Leave a comment

Karen Buck, the Member of Parliament for Westminster North has announced that only 14,000 of a total of 51,316 complaints made to councils about poor housing were subjected to a local authority environmental health assessment in 2014. Ms Buck, has also claimed that on average councils prosecuted only one rogue landlord each year.

The figures were presented in a debate about standards in the Private Rented Sector on February 6th during which Ms Buck asked whether the statistics provided irrefutable evident that local authorities lack the resources to investigate cases of housing disrepair.

On being asked what measured the Government proposes to adopt to tackle rogue landlords, the Government’s Minister for Housing and Planning, Brandon Lewis, claimed that enabling councils to issue civil penalties amounting to up to £30,000 and remedy payment orders for up to 12 months proposed under the Housing and Planning Bill would give councils extra resources to improve housing conditions.

Also participating in the debate was the Labour Member for Hampstead and Kilburn, Tulip Siddiqm who claimed that many of his constituents who rent privately have reported being the victim of revenge evictions despite the banning of retaliatory eviction in 2015.

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