New Housing Court proposals consultation

New Housing Court proposals consultation

13:27 PM, 13th November 2018, About 5 years ago 8

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As promised in the government’s last manifesto the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government have proposed a new Housing Court.

This new court will be  route for landlords and tenants to speed up and improve usability in obtaining redress and has now gone to consultation.

“Tenants, landlords and agents can bring a range of housing issues to the courts or First tier Tribunal to resolve disputes and enforce their rights. However, concerns have been raised that this does not always work as effectively as it could. Tenants and landlords have suggested that it can be difficult for them to navigate bringing a case to court without support. We want to explore ways of reducing delays and improving the service for all users who bring housing cases to the courts and tribunal services.”

James Brokenshire, Housing Minister, said: “Everyone deserves to live in a safe and decent home, and this government is bringing about real change in making renting more secure. This is particularly important for families and vulnerable tenants who live with the fear of suddenly being forced to move, or fear eviction if they complain about problems with their home. It is also important for landlords who, in a minority of cases, struggle to get their property back when they have reason to do so.”

David Smith, Policy Director for the Residential Landlords Association, said:

“The RLA called for a new Housing Court at the time of the last election and in its budget submission. It therefore welcomes this important consultation.

“Improving and speeding up access to justice in this way would be good news for landlords and tenants.

“It will help root out criminal landlords more quickly, give tenants better ability to enforce rights granted by new legislation on property fitness, and give greater confidence to landlords to offer longer tenancies.”

 Click Here Open and download the consultation

“Considering the case for a Housing Court: call for evidence

Summary:

We are seeking views on the experiences of people using courts and tribunal services in property cases, including whether a specialist Housing Court is needed.

This consultation closes at

Consultation description

This call for evidence seeks views and opinions from the judiciary, landlords and tenants to help the government to better understand and improve the experience of people using courts and tribunal services in property cases, including considering the case for a specialist Housing Court.

We are interested in views and opinions on the:

  • private landlord possession action process in the county court
  • user experience in both the county courts and the First-tier Tribunal for property cases
  • case for a new Housing Court
  • case for other structural changes such as an extension of the remit of the property tribunal”

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Comments

Dr Rosalind Beck

9:33 AM, 14th November 2018, About 5 years ago

Who wants to bet this will all be swung in favour of tenants and become another stick to beat landlords with? The way it has been phrased by Brokenshire already indicates this.

Luke P

12:26 PM, 14th November 2018, About 5 years ago

Reply to the comment left by Dr Rosalind Beck at 14/11/2018 - 09:33
Nice idea. In practice it will be a disaster.

A bit like contract law…works well, but when it comes to tenancies (contracts in themselves), we have a whole set of ‘special’ rules.

They will do this with a ‘Housing Court’ too. It’ll be run by Court ‘Officers’ overseen by a Judge. Will include mandatory arbitration and because it’s new and will hit the ground running, will be backlogged for weeks or months within a matter of days.

The truth is, the Government (both local and national) don’t want a whole bunch of non-paying, troublesome tenants kicked out swiftly because they’d become the local authorities headache…even if they found another unsuspecting LL, it’d be a short amount of time before they were kicked out a second time and a headache for the local authority.

It will inevitably continue until LLs have enough and leave the sector entirely. This won’t change a thing on the ground, except remove everyone’s favourite whipping boy and I can’t wait until they’re all lost for who to blame.

John Frith

18:05 PM, 15th November 2018, About 5 years ago

Suggest we prepare an intelligent response which could be signed by those members who agree. We can't not respond to a consultation and then complain that we're not heard.

Michael Barnes

14:38 PM, 16th November 2018, About 5 years ago

we all need to respond individually, even if we all agree (which is unlikely).
The more responses, the more likely we are to be heard.
100 responses from 100 landlords may not be 100 times as effective as 1 response from 100 landlords, but I'm sure it would be 5 times as effective.

Rennie

15:42 PM, 19th November 2018, About 5 years ago

Well, I have filled in this survey, even though I have no experience of any of these courts. If you read it, it says people who have been through this experience. I haven't, but have suffered losses due to abandonment, non payment of rent, damage to property at the end of a tenancy, tenants who think they can decorate and obviously can't, breach of tenancy agreement and now this stupid endless tenancy we have in Scotland so I have given them the benefit of my experience even though I haven't been to court. Well of course I would have been if there was any chance of recouping my losses

Seething Landlord

23:53 PM, 19th November 2018, About 5 years ago

This report is well worth reading before responding to the consultation:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/755025 Factors_influencing_housing_case_progress_and_outcomes_in_county_courts_research_report.pdf

Old Mrs Landlord

8:14 AM, 20th November 2018, About 5 years ago

Seething LL, your link did not work for me. Just got a "not found" message.

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