Housing law news and comment
The Government Equalities Office has announced that the Public Sector Equality Duty will be in force from 6 April 2011.
The Equalities Office page has links to the following documents:
More on this when we’ve had a chance to digest it.… Read the full post
My word, what a fountain of press releases you have been lately. Quite takes me back to the heady days of John Healey. But it is this press release I want to talk about, the ‘Neighbours from Hell’ one.
You announce that you:
will introduce a new additional mandatory ground for possession, so those tenants with a track record of anti-social behaviour can be evicted from their council or housing association property much more quickly.
Ministers believe this will lead to a faster and fairer courts process – being found guilty of housing related anti-social behaviour in one court will provide automatic grounds for eviction in the county court, removing
A brief trip to the Emerald City, or rather Reading, where the Borough Council may have established a record for a fine for breaches of The Management of Houses in Multiple Occupation (England) Regulations 2006 and the Housing Act 2004 Section 11.
An HMO at 33 London Road was found by Reading BC to be in terrible condition, with a leaking and collapsed ceiling, missing and broken windows, a defective fire alarm and a non-functioning WC. Improvement notices went unheeded and the saga had dragged on since 2007.
Millicent Okumo, the former landlord, was prosecuted and found guilty on 12 charges:
Six offences under Regulation 7 – failure to ensure
News from Mr Pickles and the DCLG
Item 1. The Government is to bring s.318 Housing and Regeneration Act 2008 into force, finally according travellers on authorised sites the same security as those who come under the Mobile Homes Act. Hurrah.
Item 2. Planning circulars regarding construction of authorised travellers sites are being scrapped. Apparently because Councils complained about being forced to build on countryside and undertake compulsory purchase. Actual examples of either are welcome if anyone has come across them – we’d be interested.
Item 3. The regional strategies have already gone.
Item 4. ‘Plans for further powers for councils to combat unauthorised development’. Awaited…
Item 5. ‘New Homes … Read the full post
Goremsandu, R (on the application of) v London Borough of Harrow [2010] EWHC 1873 (Admin)
As many of you will know the definition of an HMO for the purposes of Council Tax is totally different from that used in the Housing Act 2004 (and in relation to planning uses classes). It is, however, an important definition because where a property is an HMO the Council Tax (Liability for Owners) Regulations 1992 require that the owner is the person who has the primary liability to pay the Council Tax, even if they then pass on that charge to the tenants.
In this case G owned a property with a conservatory which … Read the full post
It appears that the Tenant Services Authority is living on borrowed time and is on route to being the shortest lived social housing regulator ever, having got its full powers only in April 2010. There will probably be an announcement at the Chartered Institute of Housing conference, next week.
See this interview with Grant Shapps, Housing Minister, which strongly suggests that the oversight of housing association governance and finances will go to the Homes and Communities Agency, while the tenant services regulatory aspect will go… well nowhere much:
[T]he framework developed by the TSA to ensure the provision of excellent tenant services will remain – indeed, Mr Shapps claims
Housing Minister Grant Shapps has now confirmed that not only the National Landlord Register is finished as a proposal. Also dead in the water are regulation of letting and managing agents, and compulsory written tenancy agreements.
Councils are ‘urged to use the wide range of powers that they already have at their disposal’ to deal with bad landlords. Quite who is to deal with dodgy letting and managing agents is not clear.
No further regulation of the private rental sector is to be expected.
In other news, cuts of £360 million to Criminal legal aid are confirmed. Civil legal aid shivers at the footstep on the stair…… Read the full post
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