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TODAY'S OTHER NEWS

May 11 - is this when we’ll know about abolishing Section 21?

The State Opening of Parliament will take place on Tuesday May 11, with many expecting this to be when the government confirms its Renters Reform Bill is to enter the Commons on the road to becoming law. 

The Queen’s Speech will set out the government’s agenda for the next session - there has been widespread expectation that this will include the controversial Bill, which will scrap the power of landlords to execute Section 21 evictions, and will apparently beef up Section 8 powers in return.

The Bill is also expected to outline the government thinking on so-called ‘lifetime rental passports’ whereby deposits can be shifted from one property to another, making it easier for renters to move home.

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So far it has not been confirmed that the Renters Reform Bill - first mooted back in 2019 - will be part of the government’s agenda, but it is known that the Queen’s Speech will confirm the continuation of a number of bills carrying over from this parliamentary year, including the controversial Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, the Environment Bill and the Armed Forces Bill. 

The government has also already confirmed it will introduce legislation to improve the building safety regulatory regime, reform the asylum system and to repeal the Fixed-term Parliaments Act.

In light of the pandemic it is expected that the May 11 State Opening will be adapted, with reduced ceremonial elements and attendees to ensure it is Covid-secure.

As is usual, the current session of Parliament will be prorogued ahead of the Queen’s Speech and this time will be used to enable logistical and security preparations for the State Opening of Parliament.

A No10 spokesperson says: “While we are still in the middle of a pandemic this Queen’s Speech will look quite different, but it is important we take forward our plans and deliver policies to improve the lives of people across the country through a new Parliamentary session.”

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  • Matthew Payne

    Well if they dont, they will have to extend the section 21 notice period once again, otherwise on 1st June there is going to be a watershed moment that has continued to build and build and the government can't now afford for it ever to happen. Had successive governments over the past 20 years not opted to fatten developers profits to sweeten the deal of mass housebuilding at the cost of the social housing sector it wouldn't be a problem, but it's a bit late to magic 1.5m affordable homes out of thin air. The only other option is to keep them locked in the PRS until those landlords choose to sell up.

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    No doubt the 1.5m "affordable homes" will be lost when developers say that they are no longer able to build them as agreed at planning as they have no funds to do so.
    Affordable homes will not get built any quicker than they have in the past few years.

     
    Matthew Payne

    No of course, nothing is going to change, and in fact it might have actually got worse if the PMs proposed changes to the planning system hadnt faced scrutiny. In the small print was lifting the affordable unit threhold for developers to make medium size sites easier to build out 100% private.

     
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    ...and at the same time driving away Landlords to invest in less punitive businesses. Talk about making matters worse. You really couldn't make it up.
    The answer is to devolve the building of social housing to local government and give them the power / finance to do so. Oh....and stop meddling in the PRS, who provide an excellent product for transient professionals. The PRS has tried to support some of the most vulnerable in society over the last 25 years, when others have turned the other cheek. This continuous slap in the face for their troubles is wearing thin!

     
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    SECTION 21 IS VITAL FOR SHARED HMO'S

    Having met my local MP at his surgery I’d encourage all Landlords to do the same - voice your concerns and impact over scrapping section 21!!

    The student and young professional shared HMO rental market needs fixed term tenancies and the vehicle of section 21 to accommodate this, plus give sufficient swift support to deal with antisocial behaviour and other matters if occurring in a HMO. Otherwise the other decent tenants would be continued to be affected and ultimately their safe enjoyment compromised by their antisocial housemate, leading to all sort of other issues.

    Fixed term tenancies and the great benefit they bring to all parties in shared HMO are too long to list here, but fundamentally provide good quality accommodation to young professionals at a competitive price point, allowing them to save and getting on the property ladder themselves.

    S21 is vital for safe and professional management of shared HMO's. Without this a problematic tenant will be able to cause total havoc and destress to their fellow housemates. A lot of anti-social behaviour by problematic tenants would be very difficult to prove in court and it is not fair to the decent housemates that the landlord will not able to deal with matter fairly and swiftly.

    The government need look at the very different rental demographic, all across the UK and not as they have done with the tenant fee ban, role out “one size fits all” changes.

    The proposed changes will again have a detrimental effect on decent tenants in fairly managed shared HMO’s and completely go against the governments goal of providing good quality shared and safe rental accommodation as a fair price!

    The recent S21 consultation completely ignored the HMO shared rental sub market and the Ministry of Housing actually advised that it was more targeted at "single household rentals" and HMO shared rental Landlords would be best to use the "other" box to feed back their response.

    In a government document, there were an estimated 497,000 HMOs in England and Wales at the end of March 2018. How is it possible that so many HMO have not been recognised, or their landlords even encouraged to reply to the consultation?

    This is fundamentally a flawed consultation and strongly suspect that the HMO shared rental students and young professional market will not be excluded from the abolition of S21.

    The Ministry of Housing Confirmed the process would be:-

    1) 12 week consultation
    2) Info analyses and report written to government
    3) Government would decide if to raise a bill
    4) As primary legislation, would require a vote my MP’s in parliament.


    Would urge HMO landlords to contact their MP and also these parties (subject to who currently resides as Housing Secretaries):-

    Robert Jenrick – Housing Secretary

    House of Commons, London, SW1A 0AA
    Tel: ‪020 7219 7335‬
    Email: robert.jenrick.mp@parliament.uk

    John Healey – Shadow

    Parliamentary
    House of Commons, London, SW1A 0AA
    Tel: ‪020 7219 6359‬
    Email: john.healey.mp@parliament.uk

    Plus copy in the NRLA, who currently support this for studenst lets


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    The SNP ignored (as usual) advice on shared student and joint tenancy flats when they outlawed fixed term tenancies in December 2017, causing chaos when one joint tenant wants to leave, or gets kicked out of University, and the others want to keep the joint tenancy going.

    Edinburgh no longer has enough self catering flats for summer visitors, who used to subsidise term time rents for student flats which were also kept in pristine condition for the tourist market. Monthly rents went up by 30% when landlords could no longer rely on higher summer rents paid by tourists.

    A lose lose all round, which was totally predictable and predicted by those who weren't blinded by political dogma. England is poised to make the same mistakes.

     
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    Robert,

    I've read it's been a nightmare in Scotland and the lack of understanding by Governments is frightening.

    Looks like the NRLA are coming around to realising (and campaigning?) that shared student rentals are a very different animal to a single occupancy/family rental - but my question is why don’t there also see shared professional HMO rentals in the same light, there is really no difference in how these are successfully and safely run (with S21), providing well priced and fair shared accommodation!

    nrla.org.uk/news/blog-renters-reform-student-lets

    Professional sharers don’t want a tenancy 'for life' they want a well-priced decent place so they can maximise their savings to buy their own place, or it’s a stop gap till settle down and move in with partners.

    The Governments and landlords associations really need to wake up.

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