Industry news


Government offers ‘greater protection’ for private tenants


protections – including tenancies of at least 12 months duration. The measures would force all landlords to join


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an ombudsman redress scheme, as well as giving tenants more power to challenge rip-off fees and poor treatment. The Government also wants to bring in new


laws requiring all letting agents to be registered, ending the current rules that allow people to operate in the role without any qualifications or professional oversight. The new rights could be protected by a newly


established housing court, as the Communities Secretary, indicated he plans to work with the judiciary to establish a specialist housing court, partly based on suggestions from the Residential Landlords Association. RLA policy director, David Smith, said: “We


called for housing courts to speed up and improve access to justice for good tenants and landlords. This is a welcome sign the Government is ready to listen to practical proposals to improve the working of the sector.”


INCENTIVES Tax incentives are expected to be included in the Budget to ensure landlords offer tenancies of at least 12 months, providing greater security for tenants. This comes after Jeremy Corbyn used his conference speech at Brighton in October to promise a future Labour government would bring about a renting revolution, including the use of rent controls. Javid told delegates at the Tory Conference:


“For too long, tenants have felt unable to resolve the issues they’ve faced, be it insecure tenure, unfair letting agents’ fees or poor treatment by their landlord with little to no means of redress. We’re going to change that. “We will insist that all landlords are part of a redress scheme and we will regulate letting agents


ommunities Secretary Sajid Javid has revealed plans to give private sector tenants a range of new rights and


who want to operate. Everyone has a right to feel safe and secure in their own homes and we will make sure they do.” He also said that ‘Tory failures’ over housing


were putting Labour within reach of Number 10. He criticised his party’s previous housebuilding record, which he said was a “national outrage” for young people, and declared war on “Nimbys” who, he said, “will never accept development”. Javid told the conference that, for his


generation: “Home ownership was something that, if you worked hard enough, you could afford. Now, in every high street, you see young people with their faces pressed against an estate agent’s window, trying, and failing, to find a home they can afford. The opportunity my generation took for granted now seems lost to many. This is a national outrage.


PLANNING REFORM “For decades, our planning system has failed to plan for the number of homes we need. There has been too much control given to those who will never accept development,” he added. However, before the last general election he made similar promises about tackling volume builders and forcing them to speed up construction of new houses or to hand sites over to smaller builders. The House Builders Association (HBA), the


house building division of the National Federation of Builders (NFB), doubts that the additional funds will have a significant impact in solving the housing crisis. Rico Wojtulewicz, policy advisor for the HBA,


said: “More money for new council homes is good, but the Government is only scratching the surface of the problem. Removing the borrowing cap on local authorities would certainly enable them to invest more in their local communities, but only radical planning reform will allow us to tackle the current housing crisis. “The current planning process remains a


considerable barrier to many house builders and developers and we can only assume councils will


© Creative Britain


“For decades, our planning system has failed to plan for the number of homes we need. There has been too much control given to those who will never accept development,”


Communities Secretary Sajid Javid


fall foul of the same barriers. Overhauling the planning system is vital to building more homes and ultimately solving the housing crisis.”


Right to Buy sales in decline


Sales of council homes have fallen in recent months to their lowest level for four years, the latest Government figures reveal. In the same period starts on new houses rose above last year’s figure but they still lag behind sales. There were 2,601 homes sold between April and June this year, a 23 per cent drop from the 3,382


sold in the same three months in 2016. However, a number of councils with large numbers of homes did not report their sales figures. The Department for Communities and Local Government estimated these councils had around 350 sales between them taking the total sold to 2,951 – a 13 per cent drop on last year.


12 | HMM November 2017 | www.housingmmonline.co.uk


Councils have now sold a total of 57,521 homes


since the maximum discounts available to tenants was increased to £100,000 by David Cameron in 2012. Annual sales were 5,944 in 2012/13, but had risen to 13,164 in 2016/17 before the recent fall. In the same quarter, councils started building


903 replacement homes, a 27 per cent increase on the 714 homes started in the same three months last year, but a decrease on the last three quarters. Annual starts were just 581 in 2012/13 but had reached 4,624 last year.


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