The Renters Reform Bill has not been been delayed and is course for its second reading in parliament, despite growing speculation that it is likely to be postponed.
Housing secretary Michael Gove has suggested that the next reading of the Renters’ Reform Bill is likely to take place this Autumn.
In a speech to the Centre for Policy Studies forum and a Shelter Gove did not specify a date but with the Kings Speech only a few weeks away a date for the second reading is now expected to be revealed in the coming weeks.
Gove told the Conservative Party conference that a “thriving private rented sector is vital to ensuring an effective housing market”.
Gove went on to explain: “You can’t have an effective housing market, or provision of the homes we need, without having a variety of different types of tenure. A route to homeownership, a private rented sector that facilitates labour mobility among other things, and socially rented homes in order to help people who are, for whatever reason, eligible for, and deserving of, that level of support.”
He continued: “Actually, the overwhelming majority of landlords want a relationship with their tenants where their tenants stay. Easily the best thing is to have a long-term relationship with someone who pays the rent, looks after the property and where there are those ties.”
“Obviously in the rental market you need to take account of movement, particularly amongst students and so on,” Gove added.
Ben Beadle, chief Executive of the National Residential Landlords Association, was understandably pleased that the housing secretary acknowledged the importance of a thriving rental market alongside all other tenures. But he pointed out that future policies must secure the confidence of the vast majority of landlords in order to work.
He said: “When section 21 repossessions end, landlords need certainty that the courts will more swiftly process possession claims where there is good cause.
“Alongside, this, we need to reform a tax system which is penalising the provision of the very homes renters are struggling to find.”
Comments (8)
I’m considering taking two joint and several guarantors for the last of my properties. Ultimately if the tenants don’t know 2 house owners to trust them why should I, and obviously this is fault of Gove and Shelter.
It isn’t helpful when the landlords’ voice accepts the end of S21 as a fait accompli, and instead lobbies for the robust court system that we all know can never exist.
What Mr Gove and most politicians fail to recognise – and probably never even think about – is that landlords are involuntary creditors. If someone does not pay their supplier, the supplies stop. If a tenant does not pay rent or damages the property or refuses access to allow maintenance and repairs the tenant continues to enjoy the benefit of the property. Landlords needs to be able to obtain a remedy quickly. Quickly means days or weeks, not months or years.
Furthermore, numerous obstacles are thrown in the path of landlords to scupper their legal claims and make them start the legal process again. For example, why should a tenant who is 8 months in arrears and is not looking after the property be able to ambush his landlord because of a mistake with the Prescribed Information two years previously? The “punishments” for minor breaches or mistakes by landlords are Draconian. If a landlord is in breach, let the courts determine the loss to the tenant caused by that breach and compensate the tenant for it. In many cases the tenant’s loss is nil but the landlord may be faced with the loss of thousands of pounds.
Unless and until the courts can deal speedily with claims, all Mr Gove’s pronouncements are just hot air. Indeed he ought to look at what his draftsmen have been doing. The RRB will make it harder for landlords to deal with bad tenants, the opposite of what he has been told. I wish Ben Beadle and the NRLA would call him out. Nothing this Government is doing is giving landlords confidence they will be treated fairly.
Spot on.
He makes some good points, landlords want a tenant who pays the rent, looks after the property and stays for a long time. That’s obvious. The problem is that a lot of the things they are trying to push through will stop that! Landlords won’t be able to get rid of the bad ones, so they won’t rent. Bad tenants will know that they are harder to get rid of which will mean they don’t even attempt to hide the problem behaviour, so when the Landlord has had enough, they will market it for sale, but the tenant will cause issues and either delay a sale by painting a bad picture to the prospective buyer, or by trashing the house.
RRB helping to turn an 80 seat majority into a disaster at the next election.
Apart from taking the job Michael Goves greatest flaw is his inability to listen but as he said recently he does not respect experts so he will continue to cause havoc in office given the opportunity.
He has not learned any lessons until he learns to listen.
This will completely ruin the PRS.
I mean, there are some ‘experts’ I think are id0ts, but if someone is widely seen as an expert in a subject, maybe look at why and listen to them before deciding? An expert isn’t infallible, but they generally do have more knowledge than you, so can bring up things you haven’t thought about.