Warning to Government that families may be made homeless by Section24

Well done Ros and team 🙂

We are starting to gain critical Mass.

Yes this is great news that Dame Kate Barker has spoken out to the Treasury Select Committee.

I hope they listen to her and take the action we have been shouting for
Pity they didnt listen to all the other landlords and experts warning them .

But the more that are prepared to come forward and make a stand the more pressure they will feel.

Well done Ros for sending the letters and report to her.

Well done also to John McKay who also wrote a very detailed letter to her.

Yes Well done John and all the others who wrote great effort

I believe Housing White Paper due in January should do the trick!

When Kate Barker speaks on housing people listen and respect her views. This is an important breakthrough.

Yes, this has been a good week, with RICS also speaking out against s24 and with Crisis indicating that they may have a different view to that of Shelter. I believe the tide is turning. Having said that, Philip Booth and Paul Johnson also spoke out against s24 in front of the Treasury Select Committee. The difference then though was that Osborne was still in charge and the climate was different. As various groups are coming on board, including lenders and letting agents now, we have reason to be hopeful.

If Ken Clarke QC MP is to be believed (see his excellent Kind of Blue, one of the very few readable political memoirs I have read for many years), trying to influence a Government is almost futile as they no longer have proper cabinet meetings, they have briefing sessions from some wet-behind-the-ears policy wonk apparatchik to communicate 'the message'. So how expect a rational thinking process? That's how the Govt / Cameron lost the Referendum, they ignored The People for that tad too long.

Regret cynicism suggests you will have a lot better luck if you can mobilise such tabloids as 'Daily Hate' (aka Mail) or some such to tell the government that is the policy for next week. They are SH1T scared of what the papers will say.

This is excellent!! Well done, great news

Reply to the comment left by "Neil Patterson" at "08/12/2016 - 16:36":

If Dame Kate is worried by the consequences of homelessness as a result of section24, could someone also alert her to the oncoming train crash that is the proposed HMO regulations coming down the line in April17 unless someone comes to their senses.
The proposal is that everyone renting houses to sharers will need an HMO license. This will be an extra cost and administration, also it will usually involve considerable expense in upgrading fire doors and detection systems, this is bad enough but the proposal will also make it illegal to let out a room of less than 6.6 metres square. In many shared houses the profit is in this last room, and most houses have a small room and although the rooms are small they are very popular with contractors who use then for 4 days a week as it is cheaper and more homely than a hotel, also young people starting out for their first time away from home can budget more easily. I will now be selling my houses, they are the only shared properties in the small towns in Devon that I operate in and 15 people will lose their homes. This will impact the local economy as care home workers and hotel staff and mining contractors will not accept jobs here if they cant find anywhere cheap enough to live. The cost if you can find a 1 bed flat is £600 per month plus council tax £100 and bills £100 they also have to eat and because of our terrible lack of public transport and the anti social hours they work, run a car. Simply not possible on a minimum wage.
Worse still is a sector I do not operate in but see in my role as a property developer are the horrible poorly converted bedsits in parts of Torquay and Plymouth. These places are squalid and disgusting and probably quite unsafe, but when legislation is passed to stop the small rooms being let the extremely unfortunate souls who inhabit them, some for literally decades, these people will end up will be on the streets. They are usually single people , no apparent family, serious mental health problems, addiction and unable to work or fit into society. No landlord will take these people on, the council has no homes and Travel Lodge would be scared to have them on the premises , where does the government imagine these people will Live? They will be on the streets and their safety there will be even worse than it is now. If you want to solve these housing problems by closing these places down they MUST get enough hostel accommodation available before they start pushing this sector into oblivion.
I do not Know how to contact Dame Kate, but feel that once again we are on the brink of worsening the housing crisis without concern for the tenants at the sharp end so if someone could pass this on to her I would be grateful
Andrea Peacock