City of York Council looks set to join forces with non-profit organisation Justice for Tenants to allow renters in the private sector to apply for a rent repayment order, which forces a landlord to pay a refund of up to 12 months’ rent.
According to Justice for Tenants, a rent repayment order is awarded in three cases.
+ If the property someone is renting does not have a licence
+ If the landlord has not complied with a council notice
+ If the tenant has been harassed or evicted without the correct court paperwork.
The partnership was discussed in a housing executive decision session this week.
Anthony Dean, health and sustainable homes manager at York council, said: “Justice for Tenants will provide an ability for tenants to make a rent repayment order application which often is a timely and costly process for individuals.
“Justice for Tenants provides initially a free service for individuals to get that information support and advice and if they are successful Justice for Tenants takes a cut of the money that is repaid through the courts’ tribunal process.
“From the local authority’s perspective, it will assist us in terms of identifying properties that are problematic and try to encourage local residents who live in poor quality accommodation…to make a complaint because they’ll have the financial recompense should they be successful in the application.”
The executive member for housing Cllr Michael Pavlovic welcomed the new partnership.
He commented: “As a ward councillor with a lot of HMOs in my ward, one of the things that we rely on, frankly, are residents to be our eyes and ears effectively,” he said.
“To say ‘this family house has now been sold, it seems to now be an HMO, can you investigate?’
“But they can’t check whether it’s on a register.”
He added: “I think this is an excellent initiative.
“I think it will be a huge benefit.
“I would like to see though once Justice for Tenants and the City of York Council are working together that we do whatever we can to make sure that tenants know that this exists.
“It’s great having it as a system but if nobody knows it’s there, they can’t have recourse to it.
“And if we are trying to encourage landlords who are not aware they have to licence – there may still be some – this might be a prompt for them to register.”
That’s gonna help renters isn’t it.
I’m sure more Landlords will come flocking in to help the Council & tenants & rents will reduce.
Well done Council & renters groups. You’ve just lost another 100 Landlords in your area who’ve had enough of hearing all this tripe.
One tenant wins £6000 on a RRO.
Another 100 tenants now can’t get a house.
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As they say there’s no fool like an old fool. The duty should be on Councils and Local Authorities to make sure landlords are advised a year ahead of any licensing scheme to give them a chance of compliance and fees for a license should not exceed £100 for any building to encourage compliance. Driving out landlords is not the solution; which I guess they might eventually realise – may be !
“Justice for Tenants provides initially a free service” Then we must assume the full ambulance chasing fee structures no doubt kick in? It all sounds like a politically driven scheme by a council with what would appear to be predatory. Results will be landlords will leave the market and the council will increase their housing shortage – as they well deserve. The poor old tenant will of course bear the brunt of the Councillors political ambitions whilst they believe the council are wonderful. Just a personal view of course.
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Nailed it Will2.
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Yes duty should be on them.
Some Landlords genuinely don’t know if there is Selective Licensing on their house. They live out the area, they don’t talk to other Landlords. This plucked out of thin air Tenant tax wasn’t there when the Landlord bought the house, so how would they know?
I know a lot us thought when it came in
What? Hang on a minute, I’ve got new boiler, new windows, new kitchen & you charging me £890? For what? Ooh and I’m charging the tenant cheap rent. Well u know what’s happening with that cheap rent now don’t u.
And all cause the Landlord down the road has got a bad house, so u charging me & my good tenant? U r crackers.
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Whilst having an effective way for a tenant to get compensation from a bad Landlord is a good thing, to help them realise that there actually is no profit in cutting corners and ignoring the law, this should be down to the Council and the Court, not some company with a hidden fee-structure.
If needs be, the Council can offer this service, with 5%, or whatever, of the money awarded being kept, and ring-fenced, by that Council for the funding and continuation of the service, with a set budget and only a certain % of that budget allowed to be held as an excess. So if the budget is £100k p/a, they can’t hold more than £120k p/a. Funds over that are to be placed into the ‘account’ of whatever PUBLIC service has the lowest budget, so police, bins, parks etc. Not Council offices or staff salary. For the good of the public only. This would then stop it being a money making scheme by the Council as it has to be self-financing and they can’t use that money for whatever they want.
But also, they HAVE to offer a service for Landlords who have been taken advantage of my Tenants, whether that be for unpaid rent, damages or whatever.
Sauce for the goose and all that…
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So the council join forces with ambulance chasing lawyers. What is the saying? Birds of a feather . . .
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I can’t help but wonder how this myriad network of NGO / quango / charity / lobby outfit groups originates from, and who is funding it .
It also feels ethically dubious for local government to be forming and implementing policy at the say so of a third party lobby outfit.
If a council can’t afford to make dubious policy on its own steam, it is perhaps for good reason.
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