The main news items coming out of Landlord Law / Easy Law Training this week is that our Tax workshop went really well and that lots of bookings are coming in for our Conference!
But I suppose I had better turn to more national news items.
The Great Tenant Fee Ban Fiasco
The election has caused not a few problems with the government’s consultation on the proposed ban on letting agent fees for tenants.
The Consultation is due to end on 2 June – but as that is before the Election, letting agents are going to find it hard to lobby their MPs. Not least because they won’t know who their MPs are going to be!
The government has cancelled the workshops that were to be an important part of the consultation exercise and the whole thing is a bit of a mess.
ARLA have called for the government to suspend or extend the consultation date.
Controversy over London Mayor’s ‘Name and Shame’ proposals
London Mayor Sadiq Khan has vowed to set up a new website where criminal letting agents and landlords in London will be ‘named and shamed’.
It sounds like a good idea to me. The databases being set up under the Housing Act 1988 will only be available to Local Authority staff. So a fat lot of good for tenants, landlords and indeed letting agent recruitment staff looking to avoid using criminals by mistake.
There has been a mixed reaction to the Mayor’s proposal, however. ARLA are all for it, David Cox being quoted as saying
“We have campaigned for the Government’s database of banned letting agents to be publicly available as, with no public access to the database, how will landlords or tenants know if they are using a banned agent?
This online database overcomes that problem and means tenants and landlords in London can rent with the confidence of knowing their agent has not committed any offences.”
However the Residential Landlords Association take a different view, RLA Policy Director David Smith saying
“Another database is not the answer. Such lists do nothing to help find criminal landlords in the first place. After all, they are hardly likely to come forward to register to go on it”
I have to say that, with all due respect to David, I am with ARLA on this one.
Gazumping in the PRS?
A sign of the times is that apparently gazumping is starting to be found in the private rented sector.
This is all down (according to Landlord Today) to ‘’dishonest and unethical’ letting agents.
They cite a fresh study among 2,000 private renters by online estate agent LetBritain which has found that 40% of renters dubbed the marketplace across the UK as ‘ruthless and unethical’ with agents allowing gazumping to become a commonplace practice.
Not good.
Let’s turn to a nicer story
Wind and housing – a match made in heaven?
In Scotland two charities, Berwickshire Housing Association and Community Energy Scotland are teaming up with a view to eventually funding housebuilding from the income from windfarms.
It sounds like a great idea although Scotland has an advantage of England – first they get more wind, and second, the right to buy has been abolished. So we may not get this sort of thing south of the border.
But it’s good to see it happening anywhere! Well done.
A new role for landlords – tobacco tax evasion enforcers?
Landlords will soon feel that they are doing more unpaid enforcement work for the government than they are running their own properties. New rules over the past year have given landlords border control duties regarding illegal immigrants via the ‘right to rent’ check regime.
Now it looks as if there are proposals to turn them into enforcers for HMRC in respect of tobacco tax evaders. According to a post from Pain Smith:
A tobacco offence includes the importation and sale of illicit tobacco, which is tobacco that has been imported without the proper declarations being made or duty paid.
… HMRC believes that landlords or landowners are aware of a tobacco offence being committed but turn a blind eye to this to ensure their rental income is maintained. HMRC seems to take the view that by turning a blind eye the landlord or landowner is complicit in the offence.
Hopefully, any legislation to force landlords to assist HMRC with this issue will apply only to landlords of commercial properties but the Pain Smith author seems to think it could extend to private landlords also.
The RLA call for a housing court
The Residential Landlords Association have recently issued a ‘manifesto” (query – are they a political party now?) one of the top requests being a dedicated housing court.
I have to agree with the logic – a specialist housing court would be an excellent idea. However, I have grave doubts that funding will be available.
Still, no harm in calling for it – if you never ask you’ll never get.
What made me smile this week
Rather to my surprise, I have been short-listed for the 2017 Property Press Awards.
Obviously, someone likes my writing! Thank you.