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Fingers crossed for this piece of legislation


Patrick Mooney, News Editor


Statistics do not always provide you with the whole picture and context can be all-important, but figures from the English Housing Survey do present us with a bleak picture of the housing conditions in which millions of our fellow citizens are living today.


While the number of private renters continues its exponential rate of increase, we see that tenants in the private sector are spending more than a third of their income on rent. In high demand areas the proportion is even higher, rising to between 45 and 50 per cent of income in London.


Many of these private tenants are young adults who are giving up on dreams of home ownership. To make matters worse, their homes are often not in a good condition and increasing numbers of them are at risk of eviction either because they have fallen into rent arrears or their landlord simply wants the property back – either to sell, or to re-let to someone else at a higher rent.


LICENSING An increasing number of councils are bringing in licensing schemes to improve conditions in the private rented sector and many schemes are supported by landlord organisations, who have a shared interest in weeding out the rogue landlords who blight the sector.


However, there are still too many tenants having to put up with unsafe living conditions such as faulty electrical wiring, unserviced gas boilers or excessive damp and mould. By complaining they run the risk of losing their home.


It is for this reason that we should applaud the efforts of Karen Buck MP, who is trying to improve living conditions with her private member’s bill – the rather snappily titled, Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation) Bill. It has had its first reading and we await news of its progress early next year. But for many, it can’t get onto the statute books soon enough.


CONSCIENCES So we hope it has more success than the last time she attempted to get this law passed as it was defeated back in 2015. The shocking thing about that defeat was that many of the MPs who voted against it were themselves private landlords and they were free to vote down laws that would have made them ensure properties they let out were decent enough for people to live in.


A recent study by Channel 4 found that at least 123 MPs (from all the major parties) have declared making an income from letting out property. Let’s hope that their consciences ensure that this time they do not block the bill and tenants win the right to sue their landlord if they are expected to pay rent on an unsafe and unhealthy property. Rogue and criminal landlords need to be rooted out and we need all of the tools at our disposal to make this happen.


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Patrick Mooney


HOUSING MANAGEMENT & MAINTENANCE


09.17


Homeless crisis grows


Rising tenant dissatisfaction


Rent fraud hits £800m


Regulatory changes disappoint


On the cover... The September issue of Housing Management & Maintenance features Wellington Road © LMH


Wellington


Road Liverpool Mutual Homes’ bold transformation of an off-colour building into a bright neighbourhood landmark – See inside


Wellington Road is the Housing Design Award-nominated refurbishment carried out by Liverpool Mutual Homes that gave a1960s building in Liverpool a new lease of life through energy efficinecy upgrades and comprehensive soft and hard landscaping works. Read the report on page 25.


4 | HMM September 2017 | www.housingmmonline.co.uk


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