From 6 April 2022, changes to Right to Rent legislation will come into force, affecting checks for some groups of tenants.   You can see the draft guidance which will come into force from 6 April 2022 on the GOV.UK website. Please note that the existing guidance remains in place until then – as outlined on our resources page.  End of physical checks for biometric card holders  All tenants with a Biometric Residence…

A landlord was shocked to find a boa constrictor, tarantula and scorpion in his property, in one of the most dramatic examples of a nightmare tenant to hit the headlines in recent years. Landlord Phil Tewkesley said the tenant couple, who also had a child, used Covid as an excuse to prevent him from inspecting the property in Kendal, Cumbria, for the past two years. Following a period where they…

The benefits minister has apologised for contradicting experienced landlords about how UC rent arrears are paid and has moved to improve the system. Benefits landlord Mick Roberts had long been frustrated by the fact Third Party Deductions – taken from a tenant’s Universal Credit payment to cover UC rent arrears and prevent them from being evicted – has been paid to landlords at completely different days and dates to the…

The UK Government has today announced its Homes for Ukraine scheme, calling for sponsors to register their interest in providing accommodation to those fleeing the conflict. Sponsors are asked to provide homes or a spare room rent-free, for as long as they are able, with a minimum stay of six months.  The government is offering a £350 per month ‘optional thank you payment’ to UK households who provide Homes for…

London needs almost 85000 new private rented homes a year to meet its housing needs, a new report has found. The report, authored by economics consultancy Capital Economics and commissioned by the National Residential Landlords Association, reveals the stark shortage in the supply of rented homes across London. These conclusions are based on government targets which state that 340,000 homes a year must be built across the UK by the…

The Government has announced that temporary changes to Right to Rent rules, first introduced to minimise face-to-face contact, will remain in place until the end of September 2022. Adjusted checks were originally introduced in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, in March 2020.  They allow for Right to Rent rules checks to be carried out online. The end date for the temporary measures has been extended several times, to give landlords…

Councils are seeking to reclassify HMO properties as multiple single dwellings for council tax purposes to raise additional revenue, it has been reported. Conservative MP and former cabinet member Penny Mourdaunt has criticised the wave of revaluations in comments to The Telegraph newspaper, saying that: “This is a growing problem, and it is arbitrary. It is stopping homes from being built because developers’ business models become unviable.” Many of the…

External auditors win review of selective licensing in Nottingham following a complaint about whether it provides value for money. One of the city’s landlords has made a formal objection about the scheme which charges them up to £890 every five years for each rental property. John Gregory, from auditor Grant Thornton, spoke to councillors at the last review of selective licensing and the issues raised, reports Notts TV. He said: “It…

The government has now entered the fray into encouraging private sector landlords with suitable properties to help Afghan families by submitting offers through an upgraded housing portal. Across the UK private sector landlords are receiving requests from numerous councils to help ‘house’ families who escaped from Afghanistan with many who had helped our troops during the ill-fated Afghanistan campaign. The government has just announced its new upgraded housing portal so…

A leading Conservative has called out the continual demand by some MPs for the introduction of rent controls as “heavy-handed and economically illiterate”. Janet Finch Saunders, as member of the Welsh Parliament, wrote an article for the National news website saying that the introduction of rent controls “have been proven time and time again to not only be ineffective at combatting the issue of affordability, but have actually been detrimental…

A recent survey has found that one in four landlords say they are completely confounded by the ever changing PRS regulations. According to the survey one in four landlords acknowledged they were bewildered by the ever changing regulations and amendments ‘lumped’ onto the PRS. Of the quarter of landlords who admitted to their lack of knowledge, a little over a third of them said it is extremely challenging to keep abreast of the…

Landlords have been warned it is simply not worth their time raising benefit complaints with the government’s Independent Case Examiner (ICE) or Ombudsman, and in doing so there is every likelihood it will disappear into the morass of similar complaints. A Universal Credit expert Bill Irvine says landlords are continually exasperated with having to make repeated applications for direct rental payments through an Alternative Payment Arrangement (APA) for Universal Credit…

One in four landlords don’t feel on top of changing regulations, with some saying it is giving them sleepless nights and is making them consider quitting the market altogether. New research by Direct Line business insurance found that of those who didn’t feel on top of the changing regulations, 36 per cent said it is difficult to cope with the speed of change.  The buy-to-let market has seen massive changing…

Boris Johnson’s policy team has held talks with the NRLA on its proposals for reform of the private rented sector. The Government’s long-awaited Rental Reform White Paper, which will include plans to ban Section 21 repossessions – so called ‘no-fault evictions – is due to be made public this spring. Ahead of it’s publication the NRLA produced its own comprehensive document, outlining its proposals for reform of the private rented sector, which…

New research published by the National Residential Landlords Association (NRLA) reveals that a majority of local authorities in England do not accurately record the number of prs complaints which they receive. These NRLA findings, based on Freedom of Information Act requests, indicate that, in all, 56% of councils do not accurately record the number of complaints they receive concerning private rented sector housing. This figure rises to 61% for those…

Government plans to end the cladding plan scandal are based on lazy and false assumptions that individual landlords are property tycoons. That’s the warning from the National Residential Landlords Association following comments made by the Housing Secretary, Michael Gove, to the Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Select Committee yesterday. Speaking to MPs on the Committee, the Secretary of State has reiterated that private landlords who rent out more than one…

Landlords are welcoming an amendment to new laws that would end the injustice of there being worthy and unworthy leaseholder able to access support to tackle dangerous cladding. Government plans mean individual landlords who are leaseholders renting out more than one property will be excluded from proposals pledging that no leaseholder in a building over 11 metres in height will have to pay for the removal of dangerous cladding. An…

Boris Johnson’s policy team has held talks with the NRLA on its proposals for the private rented sector reform. The Government’s long-awaited private rented sector reform White Paper, which will include plans to ban Section 21 repossessions – so called ‘no-fault evictions – is due to be made public this spring. Ahead of it’s publication the NRLA produced its own comprehensive document, outlining its proposals for reform of the sector,…

New research commissioned by the landlords’ trade body shows that the UK needs almost 230,000 new rental stock homes a year to meet government housing targets. The analysis for the NRLA was undertaken by business consultancy Capital Economics and is based on government targets for 340,000 new rental stock homes a year across the UK by the middle of the decade. Capital Economics says that if owner occupation and social…

The Mayor of London Sadiq Khan is introducing a new qualification and training for borough council housing enforcement officers to clamp down on what he calls ‘rogue agents’. He wants the amount that tenants can claim back if their home isn’t up to scratch doubled, to two years’ worth of rent, for the worst properties which pose a risk of death or serious injury.  For London tenants paying the average…