Hello Readers,
Before I pen the rest of this week’s article, I thought I’d point your attention to a piece that has just been released from The Guardian which highlights how there may be as many as 32,000 hidden and often overcrowded large houses in multiple occupation across the country.
Entitled: ‘Bedsit Britain: 160,000 people in England crammed into unlicensed housing’ the article is an interesting read and certainly shines a light on the fact that there are still a significant number of rogue HMO landlords out there.
My belief is that it’s because of individuals like this the Rental Reform Bill is needing to change the sector, however sadly it’s the majority of good landlords who will be affected.
Onto this week’s article and I wanted to do something of a headline roundup because there’s been a lot to digest ahead of looking at the autumn budget (which I will be covering soon).
Superior landlord rent repayment order to be overturned
Back in June 2022, I wrote an article about the Rakusen v Jepsen test case, where the supreme court overturned a ruling that found the superior landlord to be responsible for a significant rent repayment order.
This decision was due to a rent-to-rent landlord being in breach of regulations and a big deal in the rent-to-rent space (which is something I always caution against).
This change is due to an amendment under the rental reform bill, with implications for rent-to-rent meaning tenants will be able to go after superior landlords (whether property owners or leaseholders) when seeking redress and repayment of rent.
Of this change, levelling up minister Jacob Young commented:
“In Jepsen and others v Rakusen the Supreme Court decided that a rent repayment order could not be made under Chapter 4 of Part 2 of the Housing and Planning Act 2016 against a superior landlord.
“This new Clause, which is intended to be added to Part 3 of the Bill, will allow such orders to be made against superior landlords, will extend the period that can be taken into account when calculating payments due under such orders and will make provision about how payments are to be calculated and made in cases where there are multiple landlords or multiple orders.”
This is a really interesting one as it could turn out to be the yet another nail firmly driven into the rent-to-rent model.
MoJ says evictions are taking over six months on average
This is something I am very aware of following conversations with landlords and investors, however it’s interesting to now see the data in black and white.
Here’s the sting in the tail; this data is just for ‘legitimate evictions’ which I presume must mean that more complex cases are taking even longer.
Commenting on this, LandlordZone explains how:
“…repossessions by landlords are taking on average 29 weeks, the Ministry of Justice has also noted that such long lead times are ‘higher than the legal guidelines’.”
“The National Residential Landlords Association (NRLA) says 29 weeks is far too long particularly given many committing anti-social behaviour or deliberately getting into arrears are aware it will take months to evict them.”
It’s positive to read how the government is pledging to reform the courts before section 21 is abolished, however whether this will happen and how long the reforms will take is certainly food for thought.
What do we think of these headlines? There’s certainly a lot swirling around at the moment and the uncertainty is something that’s definitely hampering the property market as we move towards the end of the year!
Hasan,
