If you are based in Wales, you need to know that there are big changes coming in the law.
The Housing (Wales) Act 2014 is due to bring in mandatory licensing and accreditation later this year. This means that landlords who are not accredited will be unable to manage their own properties and will need to use an accredited agent.
The recently published Renting Homes (Wales) Bill is expected to be passed in 2016 and will be coming into force either later in 2016 or in 2017. This will bring in further big changes including the requirement that prescribed forms of tenancy agreement be used for all tenancies.
To help landlords and agents in Wales, a conference is being run in Cardiff on May 15, by Easy Law Training Ltd, whose Eye-supported Landlord Law Conference in Cambridge recently sold out.
Speakers will include:
- Professor Martin Partington CBE QC who was in charge of the Law Commission Project which inspired the new developments
- Professor David Cowan of Bristol University who has been involved in the development of the new laws
- Anne Rowland of the Welsh Government who is in charge of the implementation of the new licensing and accreditation laws
- Solicitor (and Eye columnist) David Smith
- David Cox, managing director of ARLA, and
- Douglas Haig, vice chairman of the Residential Landlords Association
All have had direct involvement with the new developments and will be able to bring delegates up to date with what is happening.
This conference is being held at an interesting time, just one week after the General Election.
Attendees will have the opportunity to ask questions of the speakers and there will also be some very interesting exhibitors, including the main sponsor of the event, TDS.
For details of the conference and also for a video where speakers talk about the developments which are coming, please click here
Comments (2)
The Welsh Housing Bill is very much a labour party manifesto is it not? The government only this week advised that selective licensing is to be outlawed, it should be no surprise that the labour controlled Welsh assembly who voted the bill through last spring/summer are waiting for after the lection if you read through it. It has all the things that have failed to go through the house of commons private members bill, which most agree is a nightmare for landlords. It will be interesting to see how many English landlords will drop Wales, which considering needs the English investment will rebound on the housing stocks, particularly social housing which I am told is in crisis in Wales.
Shame that there a cost for Landlords and that education and raising standards comes at a price. There’s far more landlords than could possibly or potentially attend an event that need to know the content of this days input.