Section 21 Summit Success

What needs urgent reform is the way a tenant can sublet .. get a section 21 and then continue to sublet shamelessly while not paying rent knowing the slowness is the court process (6months onwards ) while the legal owner of the property is powerless .. with proof of subletting a tenant should get thrown out in 24 hours

Being a landlord seeing how heavily legislation is in favour of tenants then as this country is suppose to be non-discriminatory then why not have "laws"equal for both tenants & landlords alike? There has to be some sort of redress.

Has it been highlighted the major impact that scrapping section 21 will have on the student and young professional share accommodation market, where joint tenancies with fixed set tenancies (blocks) are the only way these can be managed?

Listing to the RLA webinar yesterday, a Scottish representative said the student market in Scotland has been very difficult to manage, following their version of section 21 being scrapped.

The RLA representative noted that maybe a dispensation for the student market would be given in England – however frustratingly no mention of the shared young professional market which operates on the same business model.

Well done Larry and Ian Narbeth, thank you for your efforts on our behalf. Let’s hope that the Landlord voice will be heard on S21 and perhaps gain traction on other anti Landlord matters.
Larry: please stop slamming Shelter in the way that you do - we get the message that they don’t house anyone etc., but in my opinion, your continued anti Shelter rhetoric diminishes the bigger Landlord message that we want the public to hear - ie we are not all rogue landlords and we are a valuable and much needed resource, who will disappear if the government et al don’t stop messing about with the PRS. Shelter are widely known and accepted as a charity, and whilst we may agree with your sentiments about them and the ignorance around their (lack of) constructive contribution to the housing crisis, there is a bigger picture to address. Once Landlords have found their voice and achieve a credible platform, we may be able to deliver a bigger better and more powerful message to the general public, which can then include our views on Shelter. Until then, I fear our protestations appear to lack impartiality and will fall on deaf ears. Let’s keep the bigger goal in mind.

I would like to highlight and suggest a suitable approach for Shared Student and professional rental market - should there not be a U turn on scrapping section 21

1) For all standard tenancies, only scrap section 21, if the whole housing courts system is reformed to provide sufficient safe guard to landlords, as I'm sure has been campaigned for already.

2) However for the student and young professional shared market, falling into the following criterion, continue with section 21 or another suitable vehicle to allow fixed term tenancies, with a 2 month notice period at the end. With the HMO regulations and definitions this would be easy to establish and police if the following criterion apply:-

- Shared tenancy agreement - joint and severable liable
- HMO, defined as 3 or more unrelated tenants. This could be a licensable HMO or not as required by the HMO act

This is a very clear cut definition and different requirements between a standard tenancy and the student and young professional shared market. By considering and implementing this clear definition it would allow decent student and young professional landlords to continue to provide well priced and quality accommodation to tenants on a fixed term basis, which all parties are happy with as its benefits all parties and keeps rents down.

Yes I find it strange how Shelter won't talk to us to find solutions.
About 10 years ago I had someone in Shelter who used to ring me & was interested in how benefit tenants were managing & the problems etc.
And now the problems are MASSIVE, I've sent Shelter the problems of last 7 years or so, Benefit Cap, Licensing, UC, restricting rent to under 35's, Section/Clause 24 etc. and explained how I've only took HB tenants for 22 years & now I can no longer take them cause of all these problems, simple one to solve the direct payment under UC, & Shelter not picked up the phone nor emailed back the once.
Extremely strange that they wouldn't want to work with someone who DOES HOUSE THE HOMELESS. Bonkers in fact that there is no communication.

Not so vocal now, are we Annie Landlord...? Just take a moment for it to sink it that this is the first time ever that landlord groups have both formed a coalition and presented a united front. This stemmed from a request by the Landlords Alliance to the NLA/RLA. I'm sure you'd gladly accept the fruits of anything we may achieve, but can you bring yourself to admit you were wrong that we'd not get anywhere...?

What was it; "The NLA and RLA would have to be mad to align themselves with the Alliance. Not going to happen."

Or this pearl of wisdom...

"I find it difficult to envisage a meeting with government ministers, where the NLA and RLA introduce themselves and explain their stance and then the Alliance explains that its prime focus has been to tweet daily insults about the biggest homeless charity in the country, call for its 'overpaid' CEO who has 'trousered' a big salary to be sacked and accused the charity of failing the victims of Grenfell by not providing sausage rolls."

Thanks Freda Blogs. We have made great progress. Unfortunately Shelter have demonised the PRS and were instrumental in calling for s21 to be abolished
We offered to speak to shelter and we tried to get them to bond benefit tenants, to no avail.
Shelter claim to offer advise but so do CAB. We intend to organise another coalition to have this organisation disbanded unless they seriously start addressing the homeless issue and stop their unwarranted attacks on the PRS. Shelter started this anti landlord campaign so we say to Shelter that the Alliance is in town and we are on your case. Start providing financial assistance to the homeless and do not try to drive a wedge between landlords and tenants, otherwise we will call you out.

Reply to the comment left by paul robinson at 05/06/2019 - 10:41
I don't understand why the "young professional share" market should be a special case.

(I do understand the student let market, because it is tied to academic years)

Reply to the comment left by Michael Barnes at 06/06/2019 - 14:43
It’s basically the same business model as students groups and If the government are looking for decent landlords to continue to provide well priced shared professional accommodation, allowing those professionals to live in a homely and group style arrangement, splitting shared bills across a full group of housemates, so giving as much opportunity to save for their 1st home, then fixed term tenancies (blocks) are essential.

A group of 4 or 5 Young professional tenants are very happy to sign fixed term tenancies as it provides the group reassurances that they will have the above arrangements for that period and won’t be subject to 1 tenant in the group bringing the tenancy to an end with just 1 months notice.

With this arrangement landlords can have reassurance that all rooms with be full and so comfortably include services such as communal cleaning, windows and gardening services in the rent, without having to add any conform margin in rent to covered empty rooms. Busy professional tenants really appreciate these services and it avoid conflict and issues within a shared house.

Those and other benefits to the parties, plus other reasons are somewhat unique to the student and young professional shared market and are not really applicable, or indeed needed to other demographics, a family or a couple or individual that is renting.

I’m not supporting any changes to section 21, however by doing so if the governments goal is to provide affordable and secure rental accommodation, then scrapping section 21 and fixed term tenancies will have a considerable more negative impact for the student and young professional market than others.