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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Manchester considers city-wide To Let board ban
Manchester is considering a city-wide ban on To Let boards if a voluntary scheme does not work out, its local authority has revealed. City Council chiefs say To Let boards in Manchester are an ‘eyesore’ and accuse many agents of putting up signs ‘all year round’ and making some areas of the city less desirable. Councillors are to prepare plans to introduce a voluntary pilot scheme that will ask letting agents to ‘remove signs’ although the council has not clarified whether this means not using signs at all, or sticking to existing bye-laws about the removal of boards after a property has been let. But either way, if this does not work, the council says it will request a Regulation 7 direction as set out in the Town and Country Planning Regulations, from the Secretary of State to ban To Let boards across Manchester. The pilot scheme will target the mainly students areas of the city including Fallowfield and Withington, as well as areas with the highest proportion of private rented properties. “The high concentration of these signs in some areas of the city creates an unsightly blot on the landscape and can be a real eyesore for local residents,”…
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Here’s what letting fees ban will really mean for tenants and agents, industry tells DCLG
The likely results of a letting fees ban for tenants and agents have been spelled out by the National Approved Lettings Scheme (NALS) in a briefing document produced by its Fair Fees Forum for the Department of Communities and Local Government. As well as highlighting how poor policing of a letting fees ban would lead to an unfair advantage for those who did not comply with the ban, the Fair Fees Forum says there will be “a number of serious disadvantages for tenants”. These include: Rents will rise as landlords seek to recoup the costs of referencing, deposit administration and inventories. The practice of high ‘month one rents’ in lieu of fees will increase. Block viewings rather than individual accompanied viewings will become the norm. Tenancy negotiations will need to simpler and more streamlined and less tailored. Tenants will have to provide their own references plus a lot of the information currently gathered by letting agents. Less help for tenants when Right to Rent enquiries become complicated or with utility bill and transfer problems. Property standards may fall as landlords do fewer repairs or refurbish properties less often. The Fair Fees Forum also makes the point that banning fees may lead…
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TDS courses now cover (much) more than just tenancy deposits
The Tenancy Deposit Scheme has launched a six part training programme for letting agents and landlords. The training expands on its existing courses, which have focused on deposit protection and adjudication workshops. The programme kicks off with the legal issues around setting up a tenancy and the full day course will be led by Solicitor and TDS legal advisor Hilary Crook. The first course starts in March and is available to book now, with future courses being released in the coming months. Commenting on the launch, Steve Harriott, Chief Executive of TDS said; “Customers have really valued our deposit protection training but told us that they want more detail. These courses all tie back to deposit protection, but take a detailed look at key parts of the tenancy life cycle. With such a focus on raising standards in the private rented sector, our training is intended to arm the property professional with the insight and very best practice to stay the right side of the law.” Further dates for the popular TDS Academy Foundation course and adjudication workshop, are also now available. To book, visit https://www.tenancydepositscheme.com/academy TDS wins place in The Sunday Times Best 100 companies Meanwhile, The Tenancy Deposit Scheme (TDS)…
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Nottingham prepares to introduce £600 landlord and agent licensing scheme
The City of Nottingham has begun its consultation on a draconian mandatory landlord and agent licensing system across the city’s private rented sector. First approved in November last year, the scheme is likely to begin in September 2018, assuming approval is gained from the Secretary of State. With a few exceptions, anyone controlling a property – landlord or agent – will have to apply for a £600 licence fee for each property they own or manage, which will be renewable every five years. It’s not the most expensive in the UK, though – Exeter charges £800 with a 15% discount for multiple properties, for example. The council is also proposing to charge an additional £100 a year for those not applying online, £50 for a missed inspection, £150 for a re-inspection, £350 if a landlord or agent is given a caution and further £350 if enforcement action is required. Landlords or agents who are accredited with either of two local schemes will pay a reduced annual fee of £460 instead of £600. The City of Nottingham says the scheme is being introduced because it is concerned about poor standards within the city’s private rented sector following 4,500 complaints by tenants…
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Rogue agent list must be available to all says ARLA as government mulls banning orders
The government’s plans to police letting agents and landlords from the private rental market via banning orders are ‘completely illogical and defeat the purpose of the legislation’, says ARLA Propertymark in its response to the government’s recent consultation. ARLA is concerned that the database of rogue landlords and agents subject to banning orders will only be available to local authorities and the Department for Communities and Local Government. “If there is no public access to the database how will landlords or tenants know if they are using a banned agent and how do agents see if those applying for employment are blacklisted or banned,” it says. ARLA instead wants access to the database granted to industries such as it and the NAEA because “unless we are included we will not know if our members are banned or blacklisted” and be able to take the “appropriate action against any member on the list”. But ARLA is pleased that the government has consulted on which offences by landlords and agents may attract a banning order and agrees with them, although it also says that agents who do not display their letting fees or who fail to sign up to one of the…
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War on landlords
The UK Government’s ‘War on Landlords’ has caused buy-tolet sales to collapse, down by 64 per cent in twelve months.
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BBC says rogue agents stole £1m of tenant deposits last year
A BBC investigation has claimed that 14 agents across the UK were convicted of stealing over £1m of tenant deposits last year including £400,000 taken in the East Midlands and £220,000 in Hertfordshire. The investigation, which was broadcast last night, places the blame for the high value of stolen deposits during 2016 on the insurance-based versions of the three deposit protection schemes, which enable agents to keep tenants’ deposit without having to lodge deposits with a scheme. The programme includes an interview with tenants’ rights campaigner and Conservative MP for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport, Oliver Colville (pictured, left), who said the situation “is appalling and that there needs to be some action taken and some fines placed on people if they misappropriate those funds”. The BBC TV report also interviewed North-East based letting agent Ajay Jagota of KIS Group (pictured, below), who as well as running a four-branch agency in the North East, has launched his own insurance-industry backed alternative to the official deposit protection schemes, and in the programme calls the problem of stolen deposits the industry’s ‘dirty little secret’. The three government-sanctioned deposit protection schemes, on the other hand, say that cash-based deposits remain popular and, in a…
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‘90% of portal juggling has stopped’ claims software expert who helped break scandal
Ninety percent of agents who once engaged in unfair practices in order to manipulate their Rightmove listings and company profiles have now stopped since the portal juggling scandal broke last year, it has been claimed. Robert May, an ex-agent and former Jupix operations director who built the software suite that uncovered the industrial scale on which portal juggling had been taking place, has told The Negotiator that most agents appear to have stopped. “Everyone knows it’s wrong and now those doing it know it’s being detected – a couple of tweets at the right people at the right time made them realise it was serious,” he says. While he was looking at the market, Robert says he discovered there were 11 ways that agents have been ‘gaming’ their listings to the top of Rightmove. These included agents regularly taking all their properties down from Rightmove and then relisting them again to make it look as if they sell within a set period; changing the asking price after a sale has been completed to boost their average ‘achieved asking price’ and ‘double listing’ properties. This enables a single sale to look like two sales. “I admire their spirit but what I…
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Has the CML changed its tune on longer tenancies?
The Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) has backed the government’s recent housing White Paper and says there is an “increased appetite” among lenders to advance mortgages to landlords who accommodate renters on longer tenancies. The White Paper sets out how the government is planning to create more secure, longer tenancies for families that would last up to three years and give people ‘the security they need to plan for the future’, Prime Minister Theresa May says in its introduction. Although the initiative has encountered criticism from some quarters of the property industry including eMoov chief execute Russell Quirk, who described the White Paper as ‘recycled rhetoric’, it has been welcomed by most agents and consumer groups including housing charity Shelter. The CML says it is keen to assist the government as it ‘works towards a market in which those renting can find a tenancy to suit their needs’. “Lenders already contribute to the funding of private and social rented housing, as well as owner-occupation, so we welcome and are comfortable with the cross-tenure approach in today’s white paper,” says Paul Smee, the CML’s director general. “We are now ready to work with the government, and with members and others, on the detailed implementation of…
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NAEA, ARLA and NAVA ‘rebrand’ as Propertymark
The National Association of Estate Agents (NAEA), Association of Residential Letting Agents (ARLA) and National Association of Valuers and Auctioneers (NAVA) have jointly relaunched themselves as Propertymark in a move designed to raise awareness about standards within the industry. All three organisations have changed their names and added Propertymark to their logos as of today. A new website is live at: www.propertymark.co.uk. Agents who qualify to be in the scheme and display the Propertymark Protected logo in their branch window must sign up to a range of regulatory, financial and insurance standards, the three organisations say. This will include participation in a branded client money protection scheme, having properly and regularly trained staff regularly updated on legislative change and best practice, adhering to a code of practice, submitting independently audited accounts each year, being a member of a redress scheme and holding professional indemnity insurance. At present customers don’t know where to go for advice or can’t be sure if they are dealing with a professional. We are changing this.” Agents in most areas of the UK are already Propertymark Protected approved including in London Winkworth, Bairstowe Eves, Pedder, Gales, Cooper Giles, James Alexander, Galloways, Beresford International, Douglas & Gordon…
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