Tag Archive for 'Regulation and planning'

A farewell to the pink campervan?

By NL on 18/06/2010. 5 Comments

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

… Read the full post

Posted in Housing law - All and Regulation and planning. Tags: , , .

Pulling the Rugg out from under them

By NL on 10/06/2010. 2 Comments

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

Posted in Housing law - All and Regulation and planning. Tags: , , , .

Extending the role of the TSA

By J on 07/08/2009. 2 Comments

The Government has just issued a consultation paper (available here) on extending the TSAs regulatory role to local housing authorities. Whilst the document is expressed to be a consultation, the tone of the document suggests that the Government is already minded to take such a step. April 2010 is expressly identified as the likely date for the new regulatory function to commence. The headlines include:

  • the TSA being asked to focus on “landlord services” (repairs, maintenance and customer services) and not wider strategic functions;
  • where the TSA has evidence of poor performance, it will be empowered to commission an investigation and require further information to be provided. Conversely, where

    • … Read the full post

Posted in assured-tenancy, Housing law - All, Regulation and planning and secure-tenancy. Tags: , , , , .

Shocking lack

By NL on 24/07/2009. 15 Comments

And I apologise for the pun in the title, which is in dubious taste.

Normally on NL, we restrict putting our view on matters to a few comments or the odd, albeit caustic, remark. But the events and legal requirements that are set out in this story from the RLA newsletter are such that we even had a bit of a discussion about whether and how Nearly Legal could mount a campaign.

In short, atrocious wiring in a private let resulted in the death of a tenant while running a bath. She was found dead by her five year old daughter. Wiring in the property, done 28 years ago, had … Read the full post

Posted in Assured Shorthold tenancy, Disrepair, Housing law - All and Regulation and planning. Tags: , , .

Tales from the pink campervan

By Dave on 19/06/2009. 0 Comments

The Tenants Services Authority (the new regulatory body for RSLs and, from April 2010, local authorities) has been holding a “national conversation” with tenants, touring round in a pink campervan amongst other engagement techniques. The outcome from that, and from broader regulatory conversations one suspects, is Building a New Regulatory Framework: A Discussion Paper. This is destined to be an important document when finalised – comments are due by 08 September 2009 and can be addressed to national.conversation@tsa.dsx.gov.uk – in part because of its (ir-)relevance when thinking about a jr (after Weaver) but, most significantly because of the regulatory standards it will lay down for tenants and landlords (now … Read the full post

Posted in Assured Shorthold tenancy, assured-tenancy, Housing law - All, Regulation and planning and secure-tenancy. Tags: , , , .

Regulating renting proposals

By Dave on 13/05/2009. 5 Comments

I’m just in the process of marking what feels like thousands of coursework essays on proprietary estoppel and constructive trusts.  The thing that gets me – time for a rant – is that my very clever three As students can’t actually write a proper sentence, and split infinitives willy nilly.  It just winds me up.  So I turned to the much pre-publicised DCLoG response to the Rugg review of private renting which was published today. You can rely on DCLoG civil servants, or so I thought, but what lingers with me after reading it is that it could have been written by one of those very same students because it’s … Read the full post

Posted in Assured Shorthold tenancy, Housing law - All and Regulation and planning. Tags: , , , , , .

Green Paper "within 10 days"

By Dave on 05/05/2009. 0 Comments

It’s the little things in life which get me excited and, as a bit of a policy nerd on the side, it looks like a Green Paper is to be expected within 10 days if The Times is to be believed. I’d heard on the grapevine that the GP had been canned because they couldn’t make up their minds what to do. My sources are usually good, but this time (again, if The Times is to be believed) ahem mistaken. According to The Times article, it’s going to suggest mandatory licensing for private landlords on the basis of the Rugg report (discussed by us here) (and the forgotten Jones … Read the full post

Posted in Assured Shorthold tenancy, Housing law - All and Regulation and planning. Tags: , , , , .
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