department of housing
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Latest property news
New housing minister is former pensions under secretary Kit Malthouse
A new housing minister has been announced just hours after Dominic Raab left the post and his name is Kit Malthouse, Tory MP for North West Hampshire. Malthouse was until today Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Family Support, Housing and Child Maintenance at the Department of Work and Pensions. One of his key responsibilities has been to oversee the implementation of Universal Credit. The 51 year-old-has former accountant has limited experience of property or the housing market. His previous political jobs have included being a councillor in Westminster during the late noughties, rising to be deputy leader of the council. During his time there he became famous for agreeing its deal to extract £12.3 million from its former leader Shirley Porter. He was then elected onto the London Assembly until 2012, during which he became Deputy Mayor of London for policing under Boris Johnson, and then Deputy Mayor for Business and Enterprise until 2015. housing minister Malthouse was then selected to be MP for the safe seat of North West Hampshire, which he won by nearly 24,000 votes in the 2015 election. Despite working for former foreign secretary Boris Johnson, Malthouse is from the centre of the Conservative Party and…
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Latest property news
Lettings sector to face huge reforms designed to weed out rogue agents
A new compulsory code of conduct for agents backed by mandatory qualification for at least one member of staff and a new independent regulator have been announced for the lettings and property management sectors by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (DHCLG). The details of the new code will now be thrashed out by a working group of lettings, tenant and regulatory representatives, with proposals nailed down by early 2019. The DHCLG announcement, which was released during the Easter break, revealed that it wanted to protect the UK’s nine million private renters from the unexpected costs, vague bills and poor quality repairs offered by rogue agents. “Most property agents take a thorough and professional approach when carrying out their business, but sadly some do not,” says Housing Minister Heather Wheeler (pictured, left). “By introducing new standards for the sector, we will clamp down on the small minority of agents who abuse the system so we can better protect tenants and leaseholders who find themselves at the end of a raw deal. Other measures outlined by the DHCLG include the promised reform of leasehold including a new system to help leaseholders challenge unfair fees, help to switch managing agents…
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