The government has once again declined to give any meaningful timetable for the introduction of the Renters Reform Bill.
At the end of a very sparsely attended debate in the House of Commons, Felicity Buchan - a newly appointed under-secretary of state at the Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities - agreed with the sentiments of almost all those MPs who had spoken.
However, she simply said there would be progress on the Bill “in due course” - and have no indication of what that meant.
This is despite the legislation being pledged three years ago, in the Conservative manifesto for the 2019 General Election.
Buchan, who has been in post for only a few weeks, made a number of general statements summing up for the government at the end of the short debate.
She said: “The Government are determined to deliver a new deal for tenants and landlords in the private rented sector … Everyone in our society deserves to live somewhere decent, warm, safe and secure. The Government are determined to make that vision a reality.”
She also said: “I am proud of the action that the Government have already taken to put things right. We have strengthened local authorities’ enforcement powers by introducing fines of up to £30,000, extending rent repayment orders and introducing banning orders for the most serious and prolific offenders.
“We have introduced new regulations, which require landlords to install smoke and carbon monoxide detectors and ensure that the electrical installations in their properties are safe.
“We are concluding our overhaul of the housing, health and safety rating system, which is the tool used to assess hazardous conditions in rented homes. That will make it more accessible to tenants and landlords and allow more efficient enforcement.”
The Conservative MP Natalie Elphicke and Labour MP Lloyd Russell-Moyle lead the debate in the Commons.
Other MPs who spoke were those with long-standing criticisms of the private rental sector, short lets, holiday homes, landlords and letting agents.
However, Russell-Moyle was the most outspoken in his criticisms of one landlord in particular.
In the debate he declined to give names of agents or landlords he criticised but he said: “One of the many replies I received was from a young couple who said that before they moved in the landlord agreed to carry out a deep clean, but when they entered the flat they found that it had an insect infestation and it had not been cleaned for months.
“Both the agent and the landlord refused to do anything. Later, the couple found that two windows were broken and so they asked for repairs, but, again, there was a refusal to do anything.
“They contacted the council, but it did not carry out an in-person inspection—we all know the pressures on councils—and in the end, on the balance of things, it just accepted the landlord’s word against that of the tenants.
“At the first possible instance, in November 2021, the couple were issued with a section 21 notice. They had a three-month-old baby and they were homeless.”
He then added that he had “countless other examples.”
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Insect infestation- that will be the flea eggs hatching Lloyd double barrel you know the one where MPs are campaigning to make it illegal to disallow pets.
Renting for both parties Landlords and tenants has got worse due to gov and council interference- prove me wrong
Spot on Jahan! The flat can be very clean and still infested with cat fleas due to the eggs hatching; the eggs can be stuck in cracks and crevices even if the carpet has been vacuumed and shampooed. One flea lays up to 50 eggs a day, so very difficult to get rid of an infestation once the cat has gone. A nightmare for the next tenant.
Kahan that's a good point. Over zealous pet lover and you can smell it from here!
This current crop of incompetent politicians are scrabbling around trying to keep their jobs…. Legislation of any kind is a secondary concern.
So the council already have the powers to investigate and determine if it is genuinely a bad landlord and tackle the problem but did nothing. It would be interesting to know if that council has a licensing scheme on place. And yet the Govt, shelter and Gen Rant etc still insisting that the abolishment of S21 is a magic pill to fix what is wrong with the PRS. How much more difficult will it be for that young couple to find a decent home when even more landlords exit stage left?
The example above is dreadful - but how does the bill help? The Council declined to intervene even though they have powers to.
No-one wants rogue LLs but this bill is driving out the good ones not the rogues.
What Rental reform we have had far too many rental reforms this last 10 years now you have the fruits of your bad deed’s .
How many times did I say it would cause a Recession no one listens when properly was still going up.
What rubbish been spouted a fairer deal for Tenants they had a great deal already and far too much power over the owner.
I hope they are pleased with themselves they now Bankrupted Tenants / Landlords, and first time buyers that’s some levelling isn’t it.
Scrap your stupid vicious WHITE PAPER now you have already Bankrupted the Country, Scrap S24, Reinstate S21 fully the very foundation of the Private Rented Sector. Mr Michael Gove are you listening drop your dead donkey.
Well said. I am leaving due to rental reform. All of it not just S21. My tenant has far too much power over me damaging my property, sending fraudulent solicitor’s compensation claims and arrears. I will not cede any more ground.
Gove is involved with the cladding scandal. He’s trying to make all the developers fix all of their buildings. Moved the goalposts for their responsibility back for 12 years back to 30 years too! It wasn’t all the developer’s faults. He has issued contracts to them that are so onerous none of them will sign them! Why? Because he’s gone far too far and made them impossible to sign. A bit like rental reform.
Catherine. How right you are the Council already had all the Powers they even needed to deal with any issues concerning landlords and Tenants as far back as 1992 I have that in Print. So they have just wasted 30 years of Legalisation and Parliamentary time.
I guess the government have finally realised the Renter's Reform Bill is nowhere even close to oven ready.
In the meantime there are already numerous laws that could be enforced if Councils wanted to do so. The problem is the logistics. There needs to be a supply of vacant properties, either Social or PRS, for anything meaningful to work. With the government trying to get Local Authorities to house their share of Ukrainians, migrants and address the rough sleeping homeless issue every time they get access to an empty house they could fill it many times over.
By now the penny must have dropped that if some of the proposals in the Rental Reforms White paper are adopted there will be a massively reduced PRS. Even if some of us could see a way of working with the proposals we can't charge enough rent for the finances to work with the new higher interest rates to be able to buy more houses. There won't even be many new build Social houses entering the system now interest rates have gone up and house purchases have fallen off a cliff. Developers certainly won't be rushing to build houses they can't sell for top money and so the delivery of so called "affordable housing" will also slow down.
Why is it always the rare cases of bad practice that are cited? Even then not enough detail is provided. What type of insect infestation? Bed bugs, fleas, ants, spiders, something else? The cause and treatment are different. Cleaning is a variable concept. Some properties will be fully redecorated and deep cleaned to show house standards, some to a decent DIY standard, some just the bits that can be reached without moving any furniture and a few are completely gross. I had one tenant whinge because they found one human hair in a drawer!
In what way were the windows broken? Presumably they meant that hinges needed oiling or had bent or the handles had snapped, not that panes of glass were missing.
So while properties should be in a better state than the example used (and the overwhelming majority are) it may well have been a case of spending less than £50 on insecticides, window parts and cleaning products to vastly improve the property.
Were the couple in question just doing what it took to be prioritised on the Housing list. Managing to get a Section 21 eviction with a 3 month old baby is a very effective way to jump a very long way up the list.
I would say that your last 2 sentences sum up the truth perfectly Jo
Jo, you should be Housing Secretary they keep putting people in charge that knows little or nothing about the job in hand. Bent windows hinges they push window open to the
max then pull it in by one corner instead of central as for broken handles it has to be mid use also, my teacher told me almost 70 years ago when I damaged something, he said what did you do, I said it broke Sir, he said it didn’t you broke it you blithering fat head.
Bed bugs they travel the World and bring them back but then it LL’s problem £1’000.for fumigation don’t believe me get one of those Companies in !.
London is blighted with dumped mattresses no hope of getting 8 years out of those, no Deposits anymore only ponzi Schemes
Nearly 70 years ago Michael wow. You still in this game I’m inspired
Jo don’t about been over ready but it’s over done, throw it out.
There are already hundreds of pieces of legislation available for councils to act upon, they choose not to. If Gov add more, will anyone act upon it or will it sit on the shelf gathering dust?
Every day I read in my local paper of drivers of cars stopped by police and prosecuted for having no driving licence, no insurance and no MOT, it has been a legal requirement for drivers to have a driving licence since 1934 yet thousands disregard it every year. Just proves that having legislation doesn't stop the problem!
I had a meeting with my MP a couple of weeks ago to have a good old moan about the renters reform bill. Not that I'm getting my hopes up (at all!), but he said there was a lot of discussion in Gov't behind closed doors and a lot of the issues were recognised. Clearly, Gov'ts are very capable of implementing bad legislation, but there is some comfort from at least acknowledging the flaws.
I'd encourage all Landlords to lobby their MPs and highlight the issues. Mine said they need more info to forward on to the Dept of levelling up.
Good on you Chris, I have tried writing to my MP, but our words are falling on deaf ears, all they are interested in is their monthly pay cheque, something that a large number of Tory MPs know only too well they'll be losing in a couple of yrs
Andrew - just insist on a meeting at their surgery. I don't think you'll ever get a fair response in writing. At least with a face to face they feel more comfortable saying what they really think.
Mine specifically said that as a member of the Gov't he has to toe the party line but then went on to agree with everything I said.
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