Where next for the Private Rented Sector?

At the recent CLT Conference I attended, there was an excellent talk by Professor Martin Partington OBE (former Law Commissioner) on possible future developments in the Private Rented Sector (PRS). I set out below a very condensed version of his notes (with his permission).

He started by saying that the PRS is now a key feature of the housing market and one which the government needs to encourage. He looked briefly at the prospect of large scale investment in the sector (most private sector landlords have only a few properties) such as the Kick Start delivery initiative, and concluded that it remains to see if these actually result in any developments, although it could happen.

The Rugg Review
Turning to the Rugg Review, this was commissioned by the government after the Law Commission (under Professor Partington) had spent several years carrying out an extensive consultation and research exercise in the same areas. Needless to say, there is a strong suspicion among many that the Rugg Review was commissioned because the Law Commission’s report did not say what the government wanted!

The Rugg Review recommendations can be summarised as follows:

• A ‘light touch’ licensing system for landlords and mandatory regulation for agents
  
• A new independent complaints and redress system for consumers
  
• Tax changes to encourage good landlords, and changes to stamp duty to help them buy more properties
  
• Look at ways to see how PRS can help lower income families, including support for landlords willing to house vulnerable people
  
• Local Authorities taking steps to better understand the sector and do more to support good landlords, tackle bad ones, and promote tenants rights

The Law Commission was disappointed that it decided against the legal changes recommended in its reports, but it seems that the Rugg approach reflected more closely what government officials were thinking.

The Government’s Response
This was published in May 2009 and was discussed on this blog here. The issues which it looks as if the government will want to take forward are:

• The National Register of Landlords
  
• A requirement on landlords to provide a tenancy agreement
  
• The compulsory licensing of letting agents, and
  
• The raising of the AST threshold limit to £100,000.

The report confirmed that the government are not proposing to implement the Law Commission’s proposed legal changes (note – this recommended two simple tenancy types – one for the PRS and one for social landlords - to replace the current plethora of tenancy types, which many find very confusing) as it could lead to too much upheaval in the market.

However Professor Partington does not agree with this view. In his opinion, for the PRS to achieve its full potential, it is essential that there be a much closer analysis of how the PRS and the social rented sector interact. The Law Commission’s recommendations would have allowed for this.

‘Light touch’ regulation
After its mammoth consultation exercise, the Law Commission did not feel that mandatory self regulation would be appropriate plus it was likely to prove too expensive. However the Government have become attached to the idea of a Landlords’ Register.

The governments paper though, does not appear to address the key question of whether ‘light touch’ licensing will actually be effective in driving out bad landlords. The Law Commission had come to the conclusion that any licensing scheme would either be ineffective or not light touch. This is why they recommended instead, a program of self regulation via landlords associations’ and local authorities working together to promote accreditation and standards.

Tenancy agreements
However Professor Partington was happier with the conclusions on tenancy agreements. The question here however is whether:

1. There will be minimum standards set, allowing individuals to draft their own agreements, based on these standards, or

2. Whether prescribed model agreements will be set out in legislation, which landlords can add clauses to, to reflect individual circumstances.

He suspects the latter, and does not think that the first option would work.

Licensing of letting agents
There is a large body of opinion in favour of this and it is likely that the government will do this, although the paper is short on detail. We will have to see what happens.

Conclusion
Although it looks as if the government are going to do something, it is not entirely clear what this will be. The Conservatives however, in their recent Green Paper have indicated that they will (if they get into power) conduct a review of the PRS to see how it can play an enhanced role in the housing market.

Maybe this indicates that the Conservatives are unhappy with the approach taken both by the Law Commission and the Rugg Review and are looking for a further review to justify a different approach.

(With thanks to Professor Partington for allowing me to use his notes for this post.)

FSA to regulate sale and rent back sector

Homeowners in distress who have sold their property to a 'sale and rent back' company in the belief that they will be able to live their for the rest of their lives, only be to kicked out a year later, will be pleased to learn that this sector is now to be regulated by the Financial Services Authority.

An interim regulations period (while they work out how to regulate it properly - although the draft rules are said to be 'near final') will start on 1 July 2009 and firms will be expected to apply for 'interim permission' between this date and 1 August. A consultation paper is expected for September, with full regulation from the end of June 2010.

During this interim period, firms will need to meet FSA threshold conditions including the requirement to have adequate resources and to be run by fit and proper people. Firms will also have to comply with the Principles for Businesses and meet a number of systems and controls and conduct of business rules.

You can find a bit more in policy statement and in the FSA's statement of the 3 June here.

Landlord licensing and agent regulation – impact assessments now published

Those interested in the governments consultation paper issued in response to the Rugg Report, will also be interested in the impact assessments which have now been published by the Department for Communities ands Local Government .

Impact assessment for regulation of Landlords
This is available to download from here. This shows that there are two options under consideration. The first is full licensing, which would involve a five year fee of £500 per property. The second is a web based national register. This will involve an annual fee of £30-50 per landlord.

Although both options are discussed in the report, it is clear that it is just the second option, the web based register, which is being seriously considered. All landlords will be required to sign up to this, although landlords who are members of existing organisations (presumably landlord associations) will be passported into the register. In return for signing up to the register, landlords will be offered benefits such as free documents e.g. tenancy agreements, and property advertising.

The report analysis is on the basis of 1 million landlords with 3 million properties.

Impact assessment for regulation of Agents
This is available for download from here. There are only two options discussed in the report, doing nothing and mandatory regulation. Regulation is the favoured option.

The report states that there are around 8,000 letting agents, only half of which are members of a professional organisation (such as ARLA or RICS). The large number of unregulated agents is undesirable as they are not compelled to have any client money protection or undergo any training on property management. Apparently some 60% of landlords use letting agents to manage their properties, so many landlords are at risk of poor practice by unregulated agents.

The report estimates that existing members of professional organisations will be passported into the scheme. Others will have to pay a joining fee in the region of £180 pa, and all agents will then have to pay an annual fee in the region of £120 pa.

Implementation of this (which has been widely called for across the industry) will protect both landlords and tenants from fund misappropriation, and will provide a more 'level playing field' for those agents who are currently operating properly (with the associated costs which this involves).

Note that I have set up an answer form for those wishing to respond to the governments consultation paper here. This now provides links to these two impact assessments.

Landlord Licensing - tell the government your views!

The Government recently published their response to the Rugg Review, which was reported by me here. In particular the report proposed mandatory licensing for landlords and regulation for all letting agents. The report is also a consultation.

As before with important consultations, I have prepared an online answerform to allow people to give their views easily.

On my form, I have reproduced the whole of the government paper (less the footnotes and appendix) and have provided form fields in context so you can read the report and write your response there and then. Your answers can then be sent to us easily by clicking the submit button at the end. We will forward them on to the relevant department.

After the end of the consultation period (7 August) I will be preparing a consolidated report of all answers (annonomised) so people can see what the general consensus is.

You will find the online form here.

The Rugg Report – the governments response

Note - the Landlord Law Blog has now moved to www.landlordlawblog.co.uk.

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The government published a consultation paper yesterday in response to the recent Rugg Report and the other various reports that have been published over the past few years.

Supporters of the Law Commissions long project and reports, will be pleased to see that this is acknowledged and referred to in the response which confirms that many of the Law Commission’s ideas are being considered. However it also states that they do not think the time is right for the extensive changes in tenure proposed in the Renting Homes report.

No doubt further comments on the paper will be made later, but on a preliminary reading, the following points stood out for me.

The report acknowledges that most tenants are satisfied with their landlords and that the majority of landlords provide a good service. The main thrust of the proposals therefore are intended to support good landlords, improve standards generally across the sector, and drive out the persistent bad landlords.

National Register
The paper proposes a national register for landlords. This will be 'light touch' and mostly web based. Landlords will need to register their name and address, and details of their property holdings, and pay a small fee annually. They would then be given a number which would have to be used in all landlord related paperwork such as tenancy agreements, tax forms, benefit claims, and court proceedings etc. The register would be run by an independent organisation.

The benefits of the register for government is that it would give them accurate statistics, and they could use it as a way of disseminating information to landlords (such as regarding energy efficiency standards). It would presumably also (although this is not specifically stated) help the revenue with tax collection.

Landlords who fail to comply with the regulatory regime or where there are 'persistent abuses' will be removed from the register, be unable to let out property by themselves, and will probably be ineligible to receive housing benefit.

Tenancy agreements
They are considering introducing mandatory tenancy agreements, as suggested by the Law Commission, and are seeking views on how this should best be implemented.

Rent Limit
They propose increasing the limit above which tenancies are not longer ASTs to £100,000 pa (currently it is £25,000 pa)

Regulation of letting agents
The paper concludes that voluntary regulation of the letting agency sector has not worked, and propose full compulsory regulation of all letting agents. This would include

• entry requirements
  
• a code of practice
  
• business and consumer protection (e.g. indemnity insurance, client protection schemes, complaints procedures)
  
• monitoring of compliance by an independent body
  
• enforcement powers and sanctions

Dispute resolution, Courts, etc
The Law Commissions proposals put forward in their Proportionate Dispute Resolution paper are being considered in conjunction with the Ministry of Justice.

Encouragement of investment
They are considering setting up a Private Rented Sector Initiate to encourage institutions to invest on a large scale and in the long term

Support for tenants being evicted by landlords mortgagees
They will be looking to change the law to ensure that tenants in this position are given at least two months notice to find alternative accommodation.

Tax changes
Significantly the report simply says that the treasury is aware of changes proposed (e.g. by the Rugg Report) to the tax system to support the private rented section, and will keep them under review. Which presumably means that nothing will happen.

Local Authorities
They discuss how local authorities can better engage with local landlords, perhaps by dealing with them through their small business unit rather than via environmental health, and by giving better training to staff. Many local authorities are of course already doing this sort of thing.

Accreditation
They would also like to build on the various current accreditation schemes for landlords, perhaps with a view to developing a national standard.

There is a lot more in the report (which runs to 37 pages) but the above gives a flavour of what it says.

The full report can be found here

The paper is also a consultation and various questions are asked at various stages for feedback on particular points. These should be submitted to the department by Friday 7 August. Note that I hope to be able to set up one of my online answer forms for this shortly, so watch this space.

LHA direct payment e-petition

After my earlier post giving details of an e-petition against the governments licensing plans, I have now learned of another one here requesting Local Housing Allowance be paid direct to landlords.

Petitions seem to be taking off - it is a shame therefore that the government is no longer supporting them, according to this report on the parliament.uk blog.

NLA calls for changes in housing benefit/local housing allowance rules

The National Landlords Association (NLA) has recently started a campaign to change the rules for the payment of housing benefit/local housing allowance (LHA). As has been described elsewhere in this blog, LHA cannot normally be paid direct to the landlord in the way that housing benefit was. The NLA consider that this is unfair, particularly in view of the fact that LHA is paid direct to social landlords and local authority landlords.

LHA can be paid direct in limited circumstances, these are (1) if the tenant is deemed to be ‘vulnerable’ or if (2) he is in arrears of rent of over 8 weeks. However benefit offices are not acting consistently in interpreting these rules. For example many are refusing to accept that rent can be in arrears if it is payable in advance (benefit is paid in arrears) which means it can be well over three months before benefit starts to be paid direct to landlords where tenants are in default. Landlords are finding this unacceptable.

The NLA have recently carried out a survey of their members which shows that over 52% say they are less likely to take on tenants in receipt of benefit and 59% say that they are concerned about rent arrears or local authority maladministration.

They are asking for the following:

• an ‘automatic trigger’ for direct payment to landlords after one month’s rent arrears (as opposed to two months/8 weeks as now)
  
• Better local authority administration of LHA
  
• Better determination of the vulnerability of tenants by local authorities, with clear guidelines being laid down
  
• the creation of local authority links with local deposit guarantee schemes so each new LHA application is accompanied by a deposit guarantee bond.

You can read more about this on the NLA website here.

e-petition against landlord licensing

I have been informed that an e petition to No 10 has now been posted by Mark Horne of Property Hawk. The reasons on the petition are

Mandatory licensing would:
1. Undermine the private property rights of a citizen to do what they choose with their property including letting it to a willing tenant.
2. Not drive up standards in the residential letting sector as suggested.
3. Would duplicate existing methods of control and therefore is unnecessary.
4. Restrict the supply of rental accommodation.
5. Be a tax on the rental sector.
6. Be costly to implement and an added financial burden to the citizen.

If you are against licensing you will find the petition here.
Mind you personally I think licensing is probably a good idea (but then I am a solicitor and not a landlord). I provide details of the e-petion in the interests of democracy! There is no reason why those who feel licensing is important should not post their own petition.

Fast Facts on new licensing plans

The Times in an article today has listed six 'fast facts' on the new licensing plans which are expected to be announced formally in a new Green Paper shortly. They are as follows:

• A new licence-to-let which is expected to cost landlords £50
  
• An independent body which will mediate in disputes between landlords and tenants
  
• A government agency which will find new homes for affected tenants
  
• Landlords who flout basic accommodation standards to be banning from letting
  
• A national watchdog to monitor all lettings agents
  
• A lettings register which will name all agents who have signed up to ARLA industry guidelines

It will be interesting to see how correct these are when the green paper is finally published,

New plans for landlords

Two reports in the press this morning on landlord regulation. The Times reports that ministers are considering introducing licensing (as recommended last year by the Rugg Report). They anticipate that the costs will be covered by the licensing fee, provisionally put at £50, plus there is also a suggestion that the scheme will help the revenue track tax evasion.

The BBC site reports that The Association of Residential Letting Agents (ARLA) is introducing a licensing scheme for its UK members and a code of practice for landlords.

In my previous post on the Scottish scheme (commenting on problems highlighted by Shelter), I suggested that funding implications might put the government off introducing any new schemes England and Wales at this time. However if the scheme assists with the collection of tax, this puts a different light on things.

We are told to expect a Green Paper shortly.

Landlord registration scheme in Scotland not working, says Shelter

According to a report on the Shelter Scotland web-site, one in four rented properties in Scotland is not covered by the Scottish registration scheme, which came into force three years ago today.

It is not all bad news. The report says that the registration scheme has been an impetus to set up landlord training and advice services. However it is of concern that a quarter of Scottish properties still appear to be outside the scheme.

The Shelter report has a number of recommendations, which include more money to Local Authorities and a campaign to raise awareness.

Although we do not have a registration scheme as such in England and Wales, this was recommended by the Rugg Report which was published last year. However this may be kicked into the long grass now, if ministers that the view that results from the Scottish scheme show that more funding will be required than was originally anticipated. Particularly in view of the current financial crisis.

Tenants - the forgotten victims of repossession

Note - the Landlord Law Blog has now moved to www.landlordlawblog.co.uk.

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I was delighted to read a report that a campaign is being launched to help tenants who get evicted through no fault of their own, because their buy-to-let landlords have not kept up their mortgage payments. You can read more about it on the Citizens Advice Bureau site here.

Long term LandlordLaw Blog readers may remember several cases reported here in the past, in particular the distressing case of two tenants whose landlord rented their property to them after the possession order had been made, which you can read here.

Although in many cases the reason the landlord is unable to pay his mortgage is becuase the tenant has failed to pay his rent, there are many situations where this is not the case, and where the tenants are entirely innocent.

At present the court have limited powers to protect innocent tenants. The organisations are calling for a change in the law which would mean courts would have the power to defer the possession to allow the tenant to find other suitable accommodation. This is only fair.

If you agree with this, I would suggest you contact your MP and ask him/her to support the campaign. You can do this via the Write to Your MP web-site.

In the meantime here is some advice for tenants:

- Always open mail addressed 'To the Occupier'. This may include notice of any possession hearings.
- If you're thinking of moving into a new property, make sure the landlord has permission from the lender to rent it out. Otherwise, the lender does not have to recognise the tenancy at all.
- If you were already living in the premises at the time when the mortgage was taken out, the lender may take you on as a tenant and allow you to pay rent to them directly. If you think you may be in this position, contact a Citizens Advice Bureau or Shelter.
- Try to find out as much you can about your prospective landlord and his/her mortgage status before taking up a tenancy - although in practice this isn't always very easy.

Responsible Renting - the final report

After having got back from holiday, settled back in, and dealt with the back log, etc, I have finally got around to reading what is the final report from the Law Commission on their housing projects.

The new legal team on Nearly Legal got in ahead of me with a rather depressing report, taking the view that the proposals are basically ineffectual, and the government probably won’t take any notice of the report anyway.

There does seem to be a deafening lack of action by the government on the Law Commissions proposals. In particular the Renting Homes report which has been out for several years now. However there are I suppose a number of excuses for this. For example:

• The fact that on the whole the private sector is not working too badly so maybe action here is not as necessary as elsewhere in the economy
• The need for the private rented sector to grow to provide much needed housing and therefore a desire not to 'rock the boat' which may discourage investment, and
• The need for recent initiatives to bed themselves down.

The last of these is I think particularly important. In the space of a couple of years we have had three major changes, the new Housing Health and Rating System, the HMO licensing scheme and the tenancy deposit scheme. Very shortly there will also be the need for landlords to provide environmental performance certificates. These changes all need time to settle down and for landlords to get used to them, before anything else new is brought in.

For example it has taken Local Authorities some time to get to grips with the new licensing scheme which came into force in April 2006. The first year was taken up with setting up the new schemes from scratch, dealing with the initial rush of registrations, and getting used to things. The second year was building on this, so it is only now that Local Authorities are starting to do more enforcement work. I am pleased to see many more reports of enforcement action for landlords default, and no doubt this will continue. It will probably take quite a few more years (bearing in mind the limited staff resources available to most Local Authorities) before they dig out all the recalcitrant landlords, and are able to say that they have most of the HMO landlords in their area properly licensed.

Likewise with the Tenancy deposit scheme. As set out in my earlier post, it appears that many landlords are still not compliant, so again this will take some time to work through.

In the circumstances I think that the Law Commission are right not to go for major change, but to seek to strengthen the existing initiatives. Their main proposals are:

• To make landlord accreditation available everywhere rather than in just a few areas, as now
• To set up a housing standards monitor body to carry out further research, develop a single code of practice, and trial initiatives (such as a scheme for home condition certification)
• To have all letting agents regulated (Everyone agrees with this! Apart from the cowboy letting agents of course)
• And to carry out proper evaluation of any new reforms introduced

This all sounds pretty sensible to me. It will lay a foundation for further work, won’t rock the boat too much and discourage new landlords just now (particularly important in the present economic climate), and probably won’t cost too much. The Law Commission also make the point that there is a cost in doing nothing, as poor housing creates costs elsewhere in the system, and therefore (taking a wider view) expenditure in the field of housing could result in significant savings elsewhere in the economy.

There are a number of other reports which have been published recently (which are set out in the Law Commissions paper), plus there is the report commissioned by the government on the private rented sector being undertaken by the University of York which is yet to be published. It may be that once this is out, and now that the commission has completed its housing project and the government is able to look at it as a whole, together with the other reports, government may now decide to do something. For example take steps to bring the Rented Homes Bill onto the statute book.

If you are interested in housing, it is probably worth getting hold of the report – which can be downloaded from the Law Commission web-site here and in the Landlord-Law Law reform section. As usual it is well written and readable (bearing in mind that it is a legal report). I was pleased to see that Landlord-Law was mentioned favorably (page 17), and also interested to see that the responses via the Landlord-Law answer form provided nearly 30% of the total. There is a very interesting appendix where they report on what people responding to the consultation actually said.

Interesting times ahead!

Responsible Renting – have your say

I have already mentioned in previous posts that the Law Commission are undertaking a massive review of housing law and practice. This started with their Renting Homes project, now completed, and continued with their project on Proportionate Dispute Resolution. The final stage is the project on Encouraging Responsible Letting.

Both the dispute resolution and the responsible letting projects currently have consultation papers out, with closing dates respectively of 28 September and 12 October. The proportionate dispute resolution consultation is the second one in the project – this one is specifically on the role of tribunals. We did an online answerform for the previous consultation on Landlord-Law but sadly got very few responses, so we have decided not to do another one this time. If you want to respond you will be able to download an answerform on the Law Commission web-site.

However the consultation on responsible letting is very relevant to the majority of users of Landlord-Law so I have once again, with the agreement of the Law Commission, set up an online form (which they have approved). As with our other online forms, this gives sufficient information to allow the reader to answer the questions without having read the full report, although if you have time this is always better. The answerform can be found at www.housing-law.co.uk.

The reasoning behind the responsible renting project is that we have a lot of law aimed at protecting tenants and ensuring that properties are in good condition. However it does not seem to be working, as so many properties do not meet the legal standards (which themselves are fairly basic). The paper also covers unlawful eviction and harassment, but the main thrust of the questions relate to ‘how can we ensure that property which is made available for renting is in a proper condition?’

The paper puts forward a number of suggestions upon which it seeks feedback, ideally from practicing landlords. The two main suggestions are:

1. That landlords should be required to join a landlords association or accreditation scheme which would take on a regulatory role, and take steps to ensure that their members comply with the relevant law, and/or
2. That landlords be required to obtain a certificate certifying that the property is in a proper condition before being allowed to rent it.

It is not as simple as that of course, and the Law Commission recognise that there are problems with both suggestions. However they also point out that the nettle of enforcing standards against landlords really needs to be grasped, as there is a substantial cost in doing nothing. Poor quality housing leads to increased illness, underachieving children, and generally less socially cohesive and problematic communities.

The cost of these problems may indeed be greater than the cost of improving the condition of the housing. So there is an incentive for government to sink some money into housing for the greater good. Thankfully we now seem to have a prime minister who is taking the issue of housing seriously so we may see some action.

However if you are a landlord or are involved in the private rented sector, I would urge you to read the consultation paper (either in the original, or in my condensed version) and submit your views to the Law Commission. They are very anxious to hear from you. This is your chance to have your voice heard and to influence policy! Do not waste it!

PS See our poll on the right - closes 27/08/07

Housing more important now

An interesting snippet from the afternoon press briefing from No 10 for 28 June:

"On the role of the Minister for Housing, whilst the breadth of her responsibilities would stay the same, clearly the fact that she was in Cabinet sent a very clear message about the much greater importance of the Housing Minister and the role of Housing more generally in the Government's agenda."

It will be interesting to see how that works out. It will also be interesting to see if the new government takes up the Rented Homes Bill so carefully drafted by the Law Commission and published in May 2006.

The tenant's dilemma

The tenant’s dilemma, a new report from the Citizens Advice Bureau, states that tenants are put off complaining about their landlords failure to keep their property in proper repair because their landlord might retaliate by evicting them under the section 21 ‘loophole’. Government figures indicate, they say, that nearly one million private rented homes fail the Government’s decent homes standard and therefore need repair. It asks for a change in the law to prevent landlords being able to evict under section 21 where tenants are trying to enforce their repairing rights.

Although I do not agree with landlords being able to evict in retaliation to their tenants requests to make their homes meet basic standards, we do have to be careful about interfering with the landlords right to evict under section 21. This has been one of the main reasons for the buoyant private rented sector we have today. If landlords perceive that their right to recover their property is being interfered with, this may result in many selling up or discourage potential new landlords. It is important that there is a good supply of rented accommodation if only because local authorities need to have properties available in the private sector to place people in priority need (who they have a statutory duty to house), as much of their own housing stock has been sold under the right to buy.

As the report points out, the right to evict under section 21 has already been made unavailable to those who fail to get a license for a (mostly HMO) property subject to licensing, or who fail to protect damage deposits under the new statutory tenancy deposit scheme. This could be extended to properties in disrepair, but care must be taken so that ‘devious tenants’ cannot take advantage of it.

However, if the HMO licensing regime is extended to more, or even to all rented properties (as many suspect it may be), the problem may well be solved in that way. All licensed properties need to be inspected at some stage during the 5 year license period, and if it fails to meet the statutory standards, and landlords fail to carry out the necessary work to bring the property up to those standards, licenses in future should be refused. As this will have nothing to do with the tenant, landlords will not have any reason for (or obtain any benefit from) carrying out retaliatory section 21 evictions. Indeed if they are unable to obtain a license because of the condition of the property they won’t be able to use section 21 anyway!

I think that this or something similar, is probably the best way to go. To make the request for improvement work come from the local authority rather than the tenant, so the tenant cannot be blamed for it. Also, once a property has been identified as being in poor condition, this should be noted in the local authority files, and a check kept upon it until the repair work is done. So that if it is then let to another tenant, action will be taken without the tenant having to do anything about it.

The report suggests at the end that the right to use section 21 could also be limited to landlords who are members of an accreditation scheme or other similar organisation. However I think that this would probably be a step too far. There is no point in having a strong scheme to protect tenants, if because of it few people are prepared to be landlords any more. This will benefit no-one, tenants least of all, as there will be fewer properties available for them to rent.

Which UK law is most in need of reform?

There is an interesting article in The Times online today, where members of their law panel nominate the area of law they consider to be most in need of reform.

I like the answer given by Professor Adrian Briggs, who suggests that law which affects ordinary people should be written in a language which is easy for them to understand. This is also reflected in the response of Andrew Arden QC who says that some legislation almost looks as if it were deliberately designed to be unintelligible to those whom it most affects, citing the Housing Benefit Regulations as an example.

I would add that if the Law Commission has spent a considerable amount of time working on a much needed piece of legal reform, for example the Renting Homes Bill, carrying out huge amounts of public consultation, it seems madness not to use it. But maybe it will be included in the next Queens Speech.

What piece of legislation do you think is most in need of reform?

Another unfair decision against a landlord

I did an advice today for a lady who had brought proceedings for possession (acting in person) on the basis of over £12,000 in arrears of rent. However the Judge put back the date for possession for over seven weeks (during which periode of time it is virtually certain that the tenant will pay no rent) because the daughter of the tenant was due to take her 'O' levels and he did not want her to be disturbed.

I have seen a lot of unreasonable decisions, but I have to say that this takes the biscuit! Why should my client be responsible (effectively) for the cost of housing her tenants daugher during her 'O' levels? Bearing in mind that even once the date for possession arrives, it will then take up to six weeks or more to actually obtain a bailiffs appointment.

No wonder the Law Commission in their Renting Homes consultation (see last post) received so many complaints from landlords about Judges use of their discretion in possession claims!

They propose to solve the problem, by the way, by making the exercise of a Judge's discretion statutorily structured. This means that the Judge will have a checklist of questions they must answer before coming to a decision. Let us hope (if it happens) that it helps them come to more sensible decisions.

Mind you, if my lady had used our repossession service instead of going alone, we would have made sure that the claim form was drafted properly, which would have ensured that the very most time the Judge could have given would have been six weeks - and I expect my barrister would have made sure that the period was actually much less than this. But if landlords will act in person ....

Renting homes - the final report

For the past four years, the Law Commission has been working on a project called 'Renting Homes' which is looking at housing law in England and Wales with a view to making it less complex.

Two consultation papers (with over 400 responses) and over 70 public visits later, they have now produced a final report and draft 'Renting Homes' bill. So what does it say?

Here are some of their recommendations:

• Replacing the 13 or so types of agreement with just two - one for social landlords and one for private landlords
  
• Making tenancy agreements (or rather occupation agreements as they will be used for licenses as well as tenancies) more comprehensive, including all relevant law. They will be much longer than most current agreements, and most of their content will be prescribed (ie will be compulsory)
  
• Landlords will be under a legal duty to to provide an agreement in the proper form - if they don't occupiers will be legally entitled to withhold up to two months rent, plus landlords will not be able to evict them for six months after the agreement is finally provided.
  
• It will be possible to add a new occupier to an agreement without having to draft up a new one
  
• One of joint occupiers will be able to end their liability under an agreement without affecting the other occupiers
  
• There will be a new procedure landlords will be able to use if they think tenants have abandoned the property, to recover possession without having to get a court order
  

However it is a long report so if you are interested you should download a copy and read it for yourself. It can be found at the Law Commission web-site and via Landlord-Law at www.law-reform.co.uk.

If the draft bill becomes law it will be a major piece of legislation affecting millions of people - some 1/3 of all property in England and Wales is rented, approximatly 10% being with private landlords.

The only current types of tenancy which (as the bill is currently drafted) will not be affected, will be protected/secure tenants under the Rent Act 1977 and tenancies under the Rent (Agriculture) Act.

Why not tell the Law Commission what you think about the courts?

Further to my earlier post on tbe Law Commission's issues paper and consultation on housing dispute resolution, I have now placed an answerform online to allow members of the public to respond easily.

So rather than having to read a ginormous paper, and then painfully draft your anwers with paper and pen, all you need to do it go to www.law-reform.co.uk, and read and answer the form online. If you want to check what the issues paper says about one of the questions, the form helpfully gives the relevant section numbers so you can look it up. Needless to say you will find the issues paper online both on my web-site and on the Law Commission's web-site.

If you are at all unhappy about the way housing disputes are currently dealt with in this country, do use the form and let your views be known. The Law Commission cannot take you views into account if they do not know what they are. This is democrary in action - use it!