industry news
Fixed term tenancies extended but questions remain
T
he Government’s decision to relax its decision to replace ‘lifetime’ tenancies with fixed term tenancies is not as
generous as it first seems. Faced with strong and vocal opposition
during the passage of the Housing & Planning Bill, Ministers decided to allow social landlords to offer tenancies of up to 10 years, rather than the five-year term which had been planned. Opponents of the move to phase out
lifetime tenancies initially celebrated the climbdown thinking they had secured an important victory. But their cheers soon turned to jeers when details of the amendment started to emerge. It became clear that the Government still
expects five year tenancies to be the normal maximum term when new tenants sign up to a home with a council or housing association. The ability to issue a 10 year tenancy is restricted to families with school age children and to families with disabled children.
Hollow victory
While the full details of how the fixed term tenancies should be used are not expected until later this year campaigners were left feeling they had secured a hollow victory. But the Government said the change was important and necessary to secure benefits for the wider community. In its published equalities impact
assessment, the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) said “While it is
possible there may be some negative impacts on some members of protected groups, for instance increasing concerns about future security of tenure where their housing need is marginal, this is outweighed by the wider benefits to protected groups as a whole. “All the protected groups should benefit
from better use of the social rented stock and from the regular assessment of tenants’ circumstances that should ensure a better fit between the household and their social home.” The Government conceded there could be
a negative impact on individuals who are forced to leave their home, but: “The policy will not have a substantial impact on discrimination overall. The policy should have benefits for the wider community by ensuring a fair distribution of a limited, subsidised resource.”
“Faced with strong and vocal opposition during the passage of the Housing and Planning Bill, Ministers decided to allow social landlords to offer tenancies of up to 10 years, rather than the five-year term which had previously been planned”
Council housing numbers falling
The Government’s determination to force councils to sell higher value homes in order to subsidise voluntary sales discounts for HA tenants will see the diminishing stock of council houses fall even further. The Housing & Planning Bill includes a
requirement on councils to sell a proportion of higher value homes when they become empty and to pay the proceeds over to the Treasury. This money will then be used to refund housing associations for the discounts given to the tenants buying their homes. Right to buy sales, voluntary sales and
demolitions have already seen the stock of council homes fall to a post-war low of 1.6 million. The biggest stock reductions in the last couple of years have come in large
metropolitan cities like Birmingham, Nottingham and Sheffield, as well as in the London boroughs of Lambeth, Greenwich, Southwark and Tower Hamlets. Although many councils are planning to
build replacement homes, they are questioning their ability to replace all of the recently sold properties and the new sales, on a like-for like basis. This has led to strong lobbying of Ministers and CLG officials during the passage of the Housing & Planning Bill. The latest figures show the number of
council-owned homes dropped by nearly 10 per cent between 2009 and 2015. There were 1.6 million council-owned properties in 2015, a 1.5 per cent decline on figures from 2014 and a 9.7 per cent drop from 2009.
Private rented fitness standards ruled out
An attempt to enforce fitness standards for private rented homes was rejected by the Government as being expensive red tape. Earlier this year the English Housing
Survey found that 1.3 million homes in the private rented sector failed the Decent Homes Standard. During discussion on the Housing & Planning Bill in the House of Lords, an amendment was tabled to place a duty on landlords to ensure homes are fit for human habitation and that they remain so while tenanted. The amendment, tabled by Labour peer
Lord Roy Kennedy, would have amended the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 as well as giving tenants the power to obtain a civil injunction to force landlords to carry out necessary works.
Rogue landlords
Lord Kennedy said: “The updating of the law will, in the end, be used only against those landlords who do not play fair. The bill features a series of new measures against ‘rogue landlords’ and the additional proposal failed to attract sufficient support. When peers voted on the amendment, it
was defeated by 170 votes to 64 with the Government pointing out that councils already had the necessary powers to enforce decency standards. Baroness Natalie Evans, a Government
Whip, said the amendment would create “unnecessary red tape and expensive bureaucracy” with the cost passed on to tenants.
Damp problems
She added: “The amendment risks letting rogue landlords off the hook by expecting tenants – sometimes very vulnerable tenants – to accurately inspect the condition of their property and go to the expense and stress of taking their landlord to court where there are failings. This will not tackle rogue landlords and will not help vulnerable tenants who do not have the knowledge or resources.” The English Housing Survey showed that
29 per cent of the private rented sector were non-decent with problems linked to the age of the stock and long periods of under- investment. Private rented dwellings are more likely to have defects to the damp proof course, roof covering, gutters or down pipes, which can lead to problems with rising or penetrating damp affecting at least one room in the property. Commenting on his proposed
amendment, Lord Kennedy had said: “This is a sensible and much-needed device to give tenants the power to ensure that the property they rent is properly maintained and fit for human habitation.”
www.housingmmonline.co.uk | HMM May 2016 | 5
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