Regulation & Law
News articles looking at national legislation and local regulation and the application of law to the residential property industry.
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Faster home purchases promised as Land Registry begins putting councils’ local search data online
The Land Registry is to begin digitising the UK’s hundreds of Local Land Charges or ‘local searches’ registers in a bid to speed up the house buying process, a move it claims will help up to 125,000 house purchases over the next two years. Waiting for local searches to be completed by councils can be both frustratingly slow and, the Land Registry says, varies widely across the UK in speed and cost. This has created a ‘local search lottery’, it claims. Costs vary from £3 to £76 to complete searches which in some areas can take up to 30 days to complete, unnecessarily holding up thousands of home purchases every year. Local Land Charges information, which include checks on restrictions such as tree preservation orders, listed status and conservation areas, will soon be available within an updated central online database that solicitors will be able to access as either searchable PDFs or Excel spreadsheets. “This is a significant step forward in the Government’s ambition to make the house-buying process simpler, faster and cheaper,” says Land Registry Chief Executive Graham Farrant (pictured). The digitisation project has begun at 26 local authorities and the first to offer the service will include Blackpool,…
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Agent behind tenant fees ban e-petition reveals what he thinks of government response
Firstly, thanks to everyone who has supported our campaign so far. It shows the strength in our views and in my opinion outweighs the 4,700 [consultation process] responses on which the draft [Tenant Fees Bill] was based on. Do you think they made the 4,700 people who offered their feedback aware that their rents will be dramatically rising come 2019 (which has been widely acknowledged and wholly ignored)? Perhaps the government should take some feedback from the people who will be losing their jobs/businesses? And perhaps they should take some feedback from the people that will no longer be able to pass references because their affordability no longer meets the higher rents threshold which would you believe, has been acknowledged…and ignored. To say I am disappointed with the response would be a huge understatement and to be honest is a mockery to the hours committed to raising awareness and acquiring signatures. Tenant fees ban At no point does this response consider that a fee cap would be a fair and just solution nor do they make any attempt to explain as to why it would not be a fair and just solution – instead admitting that enforcing a complete ban…
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Government rejects agent’s petition calling for tenant fees cap
The Government has rejected a petition signed by nearly 10,400 agents that proposed a tenant fees cap instead of an outright ban. Started by 29-year-old letting agent Rob Farrelly (pictured, below) who began his own business Friend & Farrelly Property Services eight years ago, e-petition 206569 was signed by agents all over the UK. In its response to the e-petition, the Government has revealed its determination to plough on with its draft Tenant Fees Bill published on 1st November, saying it wants to see a rental market in which landlords and not tenants are the primary customer of agents. As well as reiterating its belief that a fees ban will improve transparency and affordability for renters, and that fees are still not clear or explained, it claims that “many letting agents and landlords acknowledge that fees charged to tenants are currently not at a level that is justifiable and agree that intervention is necessary”. “The Government does not believe that a cap would be effective and is likely to lead to a race to the top in terms of fees charged. A ban is easier to understand and enforce.” Agents are also able to see a glimpse of the future…
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BBC Panorama to put no-fault evictions under spotlight tonight
The darker side of the rental sector is to come under the spotlight this week when the BBC’s Panorama programme looks at Section 21 no-fault evictions. This is to include comments from Landlord Action’s Paul Shamplina that the increase in their use is in part down to the government’s recent tax changes, and that banning Section 21 evictions would only compound the current housing shortage, not help alleviate it. Due to be broadcast today at 8.30pm the programme is to look at whether tenants should be better protected from this type of eviction process, and why so many landlords employ it. No fault evictions The issue has been high on the political agenda for some time – no-fault evictions were effectively banned in Scotland on December 1st last year, and the Labour party has said it will introduce similar, more secure tenancies in England and Wales if it gains power at the next election. The most recent research into no-fault evictions by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation shows that the number of tenants evicted each year was 10,000 more in 2015 than in 2003, and that this increase is “almost entirely” down to the more frequent use of Section 21 notices.…
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Another city council applies to Secretary of State to ban To Let boards
To Let boards in five key student-dominated streets near to Lincoln city centre are to be banned after a survey found that a quarter of all properties featured boards. Describing them as “eyesores”, the city’s council says it has recently undertaken several consultations with residents in the affected areas and that 85 of the 134 respondents said they favoured a total ban. The council has now applied to the Secretary of State for the Regulation 7 Direction to be removed for the streets most affected – Monks Road, the West End, Sincil Bank, Union Road and Waterloo Street – and, if granted the powers, the council says it will ban To Let boards outright. “It’s shocking to think that some parts of the city have around 25% of the properties covered in To Let Boards, and between the years 2004 and 2016 we have seen the number of complaints grow steadily, so we are aware that there is a problem,” says City of Lincoln Council Planning Manager Kieron Manning (pictured, left). “Now we have Executive approval, we can carry out the wishes of the majority of residents and apply to have the boards removed.” Local agents aren’t happy about the…
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Government starts consultation on single housing ombudsman for whole sector
The government is to introduce a single ombudsman to cover the whole of the property industry including for the first time both new homes and rented property, and has announced a consultation. There are currently four different complaints bodies in housing and not all those operating within the industry must join them, a ‘gap’ that the government says it wants to close. The private treaty and lettings sectors have three ombudsman – although one of the recently said it was withdrawing from the market – plus there’s an additional ombudsman for the social housing sector. But private landlords are not currently compelled by law to join a redress scheme or be accountable to an ombudsman. Eight weeks The proposed initiative kicks off with an eight-week consultation which the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) says will help “shape a simpler and better complaints system” and that in future disputes will be “resolved faster” and homebuyers and tenants will be able to access compensation. The MHCLG consultation will look at various aspects of the property market including whether or not a ‘whole industry’ ombudsman is really needed, but also look at whether builders should be included in the scheme; how…
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Rogue estate agent forced to cash in pension to pay back fraud victims
A rogue estate agent has been reduced to living in a caravan and has had to cash in his pension after being returned to court two years after initially being convicted of fraud to pay back the friends and clients he stole money from. Russell Baker, 60, is now thought to have taken £400,000 from people in and around Bovey Tracey (pictured, right) and South Dartmoor in Devon during 2013 to help keep his sales and lettings business, Ashby’s, afloat even though he knew the people he borrowed the money off would not get it back. Baker was a director of three companies which claimed to operate as estate agencies in Devon, all of which have now been dissolved. These are Ashby’s Estate Agents (Devon) Limited, Ashby’s Estate Agents Limited and Baker Lewis Ltd. He had originally told those giving him the money that he wanted to use the cash to buy out a business partner and solve a cashflow bottleneck, but also used classic ‘rob Peter to pay Paul’ tactics to try and keep his business going. This included pocketing one couples’ £22,500 pre-contract deposit for a property purchase, Devon and Somerset Trading Standards Service found during its investigation…
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Leading council has so far fined rogue agents and landlords £100,000
Brent Council, which says it has fined agents and landlords £100,000 since introducing civil penalties last year, revealed it had collected £63,500 of the fines levied and is waiting to collect the remainder under its 49-day payment rules. “When we start the process of issuing a Civil Penalty Notice there is a legal process that we have to follow in order to [firstly] notify the landlord of or intention to issues a CPN and [also] allow a period of time for the landlord to appeal the issuing of the CPN,” a council spokesperson says. “[If a landlord] refuses to pay the civil penalty once the allotted period has expired, Brent Council will pursue the case through to the civil courts.” Brent, along with Hackney and Tower Hamlets, is one of the capital’s most deprived areas and has come down hard on landlords and agents who provide sub-standard accommodation. Nearly 5,000 properties within its boundaries are now covered by two main property licensing schemes. These are a borough-wide licensing scheme for HMOs as well as a selective licensing scheme for rented properties within certain areas, which the borough charges £340 for a five-year license. The fines collection figure came to light…
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Nottingham gets green light to restrict To Let boards again after ‘crime reduction’
The City of Nottingham has been given the green light to continue severely restricting the use of To Let boards by agents for a further five years, after it was claimed that a previous control order led to a reduction in crime. Originally introduced by the council in 2012 via a five-year Regulation 7 Direction order, Nottingham has now successfully applied for a second order from Savid Javid’s Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government The extended scheme will come into operation on 19th February. Boards must follow strict design guidelines and can only be erected from January to September each year. Also, only one board per building is allowed, and agents can only erect one board in a street. Nine roads in a mainly student area of the city will now continue to be policed by the new regime, and any agent wishing to put up such a board outside of its rules will require the permission of the council to do so on a case-by-case basis. The decision follows a site visit by a planning inspector to the area affected by ‘board blight’ who agreed with the council that a further five-year control order was needed. The council…
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Think again about “simplistic” longer tenancies, landlords warn government
The National Landlords Association (NLA) has called on the government to think again about its proposed longer tenancies legislation following a meeting with new junior housing minister Heather Wheeler. The NLA’s CEO Richard Lambert met with her yesterday along with representatives of ARLA, RICS, NALS and the RLA to discuss government priorities for the private residential market ahead of a busy year for the government. This will include widening regulation within the HMO sector, the tenant fees ban, stricter energy efficiency regulations and a consumer and industry consultation on longer ASTs to increase tenant security. It is this last measure that is exercising minds at the NLA. During the meeting, the organisation says it pressed Heather Wheeler (pictured, below) to “think beyond simplistic calls for longer tenancies and look at how best to incentivise landlords to offer a wider range of tenancies to cater for the increasingly diverse range of what tenants may need”. ARLA also made an interesting point on longer tenants recently, which is likely to have also been put the minister, based on research by Capital Economics. It suggests that by abolishing tenant fees, which is scheduled to become law next year, the market will favour those…
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