How to help bring about changes to legislation post “Superstrike”

How to help bring about changes to legislation post “Superstrike”

16:48 PM, 6th August 2013, About 11 years ago 15

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One of the things that are uppermost in landlords’ minds at the moment is the concern that we are vulnerable to possible litigation following the “Superstrike” case. The degree of that vulnerability varies from landlord to landlord and of course some landlords are not at all clear where they stand.Mary Latham

All of the deposit protection schemes and large landlords associations are working behind the scenes to persuade DCLG to tweak legislation to prevent courts being overrun with cases from tenants who have not actually been deprived of their legal rights but have become aware of the loophole that Superstrike highlighted.  In other words they are not asking for a change in the law which would enable those landlords who do not/did not protect their tenants deposits (HA 2004 & Localism Act 2012) to get away with it.  What they are asking for is a change which prevents those landlords who believed that they were acting within the law from facing litigation from their past and present tenants. These are the landlords who do/did protect their tenants deposits and provided the tenant with the Deposit Protection Certificate and Prescribed Information for Tenants within 30 days of having received the deposit but who were unaware that they needed to provide the documents again, despite the deposit protection continuing and no new paperwork being issued, at the point at which the fixed term of the tenancy ended and a Statutory Periodic Tenancy began (HA 1988). There are also those landlords who have tenancies that began before the Deposit Protection legislation came into affect (HA 2004) and therefore did not protect their tenants deposits. These landlords were also unaware that if the tenancy became a Statutory Periodic Tenancy at the end of the fixed term after the law changed that they should have protected the deposit and served the documents on their tenants. This last point was the crux of the Superstrike case.

In addition to the concerns many of us have about the potential litigation (it has not yet been established that there is actually a threat beyond the circumstances of Superstrike) is the issue of not being able to regain Possession of properties using Section 21 (HA 1988)

In order to convince Government that this is a major problem in the PRS they need to be shown actual evidence and the only people who can give them that evidence is us (landlords and letting agents).  All of the organisations involved in the discussions have produced a short survey to gather the facts.

The combined results will be present to DCLG.

The survey will take just a few minutes of your time and will not ask you to identify yourself.

If you do not take the time and trouble to complete the survey we may lose the argument and fail to get the legislative changes that we all need. 

Please follow the link  below and do your part to bring about a solution for us all before the Courts are filled with cases brought by the “No Win No Fee” people that have sprung up to make easy money from landlords who have simply made a mistake and have not in any way deprived our tenants of their legal rights.

Please also send a link to this article to every landlord you know to make certain they aware of this very important survey.

Click this link >>> https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/NLASS

When I completed the survey I found that I needed to read it first then work out which category my deposits fell into before going back and completing it – which took less than 2 minutes. By doing the calculations for this survey I am now clear of where I stand with each of my tenancies.

This was a useful exercise and may help me going forward when the inevitable happens and a landlord is sued by a tenant for one of the possible scenario.

I think that you may find this helpful too.


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Comments

Mike

20:29 PM, 8th August 2013, About 11 years ago

TBH, with all this legislation and the risk of getting it wrong and then being fined 3 times the amount of deposit plus the amount of deposit, and the bandwagon of no claim no fee solicitors, and free advice given to perpetrators (bad tenants who refuse to pay rent on time, or fix damage) is it not time to drive these greedy pigs out of business, as well as the deposit holding institutes.

Why be greedy and take deposit? After all , how much difference is it going to impact a landlord who owns a property or properties, just for the sake of one month's rent taken as a deposit, it is not going to break your bank is it.

personally I would rather not take the deposit if the legislation is so much against landlords, and in more favour of tenants, with so much involved with providing prescribed information, and so on, there is a good chance that mistakes could be made so easily and you are open to exploitation by courts.

No thanks I much rather not take any deposit. rather than face 6 years of sleepless nights each time a tenant leaves.

And how far would a tenants deposit of equivalent of 1 months rent go in putting any damage right, why not build that deposit element in your rent in the first place?

so for example if you were to rent your place for £750.00pcm, then charge £815.00 rounded up and so let us revolt against these pee takers. Let us make it deposit free renting.

Oh and if your tenant leaves your place clean and tidy when he goes, you may reward him back the inflated rent otherwise you pocket it and fix damage!

Mike

20:38 PM, 8th August 2013, About 11 years ago

TBH, with all this legislation and the risk of getting it wrong and then being fined 3 times the amount of deposit plus the amount of deposit, and the bandwagon of no claim no fee solicitors, is it not time to drive these greedy pigs out of business, as well as the deposit holding institutes.

Why be greedy and take deposit? After all , how much difference is it going to impact a landlord who owns a property or properties, just for the sake of one month's rent taken as a deposit, it is not going to break your bank is it.

personally I would rather not take the deposit if the legislation is so much against landlords, and in more favour of tenants, with so much involved with providing prescribed information, and so on, there is a good chance that mistakes could be made so easily and you are open to exploitation by tenants and courts nearly always seems to favours them.

No thanks I much rather not take any deposit. rather than face 6 years of sleepless nights each time a tenant leaves.

And how far would a tenants deposit of equivalent of 1 months rent go in putting any damage right, why not build that deposit element in your rent in the first place?

so for example if you were to rent your place for £750.00pcm, then charge £815.00 rounded up and so let us revolt against these pee takers.

Oh! when your good tenant goes, leaving your property in a good clean & tidy state as he found, you may want to reward him some of or all of that extra money you charged him through inflated rent, as a good will gesture, otherwise a disrespectful bad tenant, who leaves your property in a complete mess, don't reward him with anything.

Mary Latham

11:00 AM, 9th August 2013, About 11 years ago

I have decided that I will make all my future tenancies Contractual Periodic Tenancies. The tenant will still be protected for the first 6 months and I am not at all concerned that this means that a tenant can give me one months Notice at any time - I would not hold a tenant to the fixed term if he needed to go and therefore this makes no difference to me in reality but it does prevent issues of "new tenancies" popping up every five minutes and increasing my workload for no good reason

Follow me on Twitter@landlordtweets

My book, where I warn about the storm clouds that are gathering for landlords is here >>> http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1484855337

Mark Alexander - Founder of Property118

11:09 AM, 9th August 2013, About 11 years ago

Reply to the comment left by "Mary Latham" at "09/08/2013 - 11:00":

It is a fine idea Mary as it means that you will only need to protect and serve a deposit protection certificate and prescribed information once.

As you know, the same outcome can be achievd for the tenant when you grant an AST with a one month minimum term, i.e. tenant can leave at the end of the month but you can seek possession for at least 6 months.

As we both know, currenly the biggest issue with the strategy of using Contractual Periodic Tenancies is that my\deposits systems don't currently allow you to protect without putting an end date, unless they've changed them in the last few days that is.
.

Anon 44

11:20 AM, 9th August 2013, About 11 years ago

Reply to the comment left by "Mary Latham" at "09/08/2013 - 11:00":
hi Mary

You asked the same question, I am looking for an answer to, in a Property Tribe forum on 15th April 2013 regarding section 13 rent increase notices. If the deposit is in the DPS and so remains protected, should the tenants have a new PI issued especially in the wake of Superstrike? You didn't get an answer on that thread but I wondered if you found out the answer anywhere else? Many thanks, Lorraine

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