Profile incomplete
by Ian Narbeth
7:22 AM, 7th October 2019, About 5 years ago 43
Text Size
The Government consultation on “A new deal for renting: resetting the balance of rights and responsibilities between landlords and tenants” closes on 12th October. I would urge all landlords to make a submission: Click here. You can also email your submission and any comments to TenancyReform@communities.gov.uk Below is an extract from my submission
1. The Government may already have made up its mind on the matter but there are reasons why section 21 should not be abolished for all tenancies. If the concern was having tenancies of 3 to 5 years, removing section 21 throws the baby out with the bathwater. It is proposed tenants can terminate on two months’ notice but landlords cannot terminate without cause. Coming after everything else that has occurred in the past few years this may be the last straw for many landlords.
2. In recent years Private Rental Sector (PRS) landlords have been demoralised by Government actions. In the last four years we have had:
• Restriction of mortgage interest relief so that from 2020 some landlords will pay tax on zero profit – a tax rate of infinity – or on actual losses;
• Removal of 10% wear and tear allowance;
• Right to Rent checks making landlords unpaid immigration officers. Landlords are threatened with up to five years in prison if they rent to an illegal immigrant. It is understood that a total of about 16 illegal immigrants have been caught as a result of the legislation. Given the amount of extra work required of landlords and the disproportionately harsh punishments, the policy should be re-thought. Similar sentences apply to offences under the Terrorism Act. Is that how much the Government wants to work with landlords?
• 3% extra stamp duty which pushed house prices up and which sucks out of the system money that could be spent on maintaining and improving properties.
• The Tenant Fees Act which instead of just capping or abolishing certain fees, has made all payments illegal unless expressly permitted. It will render landlords liable to fines of up to £5000 for a first infraction if they miscalculate interest for late rent payment and charge so much as a penny too much. It will encourage bad tenants to threaten landlords with severe penalties for trivial mistakes. Until the overpaid penny is repaid the tenant can ambush a section 21 application even if they owe thousands of pounds in rent.
3. Without section 21, landlords will become choosier about their tenants. Despite the No to No DSS campaign, how many landlords will take a chance on the “challenging tenant”: the young person coming out of the care system, the person leaving a homeless hostel or a mother with children leaving a domestic violence refuge?
With the best will in the world some people have troubled lives and not all of them make good tenants. If landlords cannot get “problem” tenants out quickly, they will be less likely to take a chance and will choose the middle class employed tenants every time. Start penalising or prosecuting landlords for not taking on the impecunious, troubled tenant and they may withdraw their rental properties.
4. Section 21 prevents a landlord being tied to an unwanted tenant indefinitely. With the abolition of tenant fees the cost of moving into new accommodation will (we are told) come down. With an efficient market and a plentiful supply of housing, tenants can relocate if they have to.
Yes, there are costs in moving and yes people become attached to their home, but plenty of people have to move for work and they manage.
5. Tenant lobby groups such as Shelter and the CAB assert that tenants can be evicted on only 2 months’ notice. That is wrong. Nobody can be compelled to leave that quickly. In practice if tenants refuse to leave it always takes several more months until the tenant is actually required to vacate.
Government might consider longer notice periods for true “no fault” evictions of longer-term tenants. Something like 2 months notice during the first 2 years, 3 months if the tenant has been there between 2 and 5 years and four to six months notice for tenants who have been there for over 5 years?
6. If, notwithstanding the powerful arguments against, s21 is to be abolished Government should also look at “starter tenancies”. Housing Associations use these. They allow the landlord to assess the tenant and get them out after 12 months if they are unsuitable. PRS landlords will be much happier if they can have a starter tenancy for up to 18 months to assess tenants. Appropriate safeguards can be introduced to safeguard tenants from this exemption being abused. It should also be noted that where there is anti-social behaviour, housing associations can demote a tenancy back to an AST.
7. With Section 21, tenants know they will have to leave if the landlord’s paperwork is in order and, despite the Parliamentary draftsman’s attempts to make a missing comma fatal to a landlord’s application, it works better than a section 8 application. Many cases don’t get to court. Section 8 is a slower process and more cumbersome. The landlord has no certainty of getting possession. It is worth the tenant’s while to take his chances. Even if he loses it will still be weeks before he is evicted.
8. Government should look at establishing a specialist housing court with judges who know the law. Unless the court system is overhauled and vastly speeded up BEFORE section 21 is abolished or restricted even more, a bad situation will be made even worse and delays will increase. There will be more section 8 cases, more paperwork for judges to read, more lawyers to be involved and more cost added to the process. Who will pay that cost at the end of the day?
9. British justice generally encourages advance disclosure of evidence. With s21 claims the law positively encourages tenants to take technical points at court such as that a Prescribed Information Form (which the tenant may have never read) was served a day late, it mis-spelled a name or was signed by only one director, not two.
Tenants should be required to raise points in advance and judges must throw out “ambush” defences that are held back until the last moment. If the tenant offers a spurious defence or no defence or does not turn up at court judges should not act as advocate for the defence and delay the process further.
10. What about tenants who won’t ventilate a property properly? A senior housing officer at one council said that in over 90% of cases where mould is found in rented accommodation it is down to tenants’ lifestyles. They won’t open windows, they dry laundry in the living room with the windows closed. When they have a bath it is like a sauna. Without section 21, the landlord could take months even to gather evidence. All the while the fabric of the house is damaged and the landlord will have a bill for thousands of pounds and rental voids while repairs (unnecessary if the tenant had used the property properly) are carried out. Try recovering £5000 out of a £1000 deposit!
A claim under section 8 requires evidence. What of the tenants who complain about the condition of their property but don’t allow access for the landlord to inspect or his tradesmen to carry out repairs? What of the tenant who leaves his dogs alone all day and they bark continuously? The landlord could use section 8 which takes 12 to 18 months. Then, just before the court hearing the tenant allows access and promises to behave or makes arrangements for the dogs.
Does the landlord go to court, pay hundreds or even thousands of pounds for legal representation only to find the judge says: “Well, provided the tenant gives access/ keeps the dogs under control, I won’t order possession”? Or does he wait till next time and start all over again?
11. With selective licensing, some Councils are trying to make landlords responsible for dealing with anti-social behaviour. In some areas they require landlords to issue s21 notices to deal with problem tenants. Landlords must not be placed between a rock and a hard place of being penalised under a Council’s licensing rules but unable to evict an anti-social tenant.
The courts should have a lower bar for anti-social behaviour than the Environmental Health Officer at the Council. If there is credible evidence of anti-social behaviour from two or more witnesses, judges should be prepared to evict.
12. Special consideration is needed for Houses in Multiple Occupation (HMOs or house share). The following remarks also apply to flats with communal areas where one tenant can seriously upset the neighbours.
13. With four, five, six or more people sharing a house sensible landlords try to pick tenants who will get along together. However, from time to time a house mate is just obnoxious. They pay the rent on time but annoy the other tenants. They play music or the TV loudly or insist on watching offensive programmes in the communal areas. They put the laundry on late at night disturbing others’ sleep. They don’t do their share of chores such as emptying the bins. They never wash up. They “borrow” other people’s milk or coffee and don’t replace it. In all of these cases good tenants may leave or threaten to leave.
Another issue is the personal safety of the landlord and property manager in HMOs. If a tenant threatens the landlord or even is just physically intimidating, it will make life very difficult. It is bad enough where a tenant of the whole property is threatening. With an HMO, the property manager will be visiting the house frequently for check-ins, check-outs, viewings, periodic inspections and general maintenance. Rarely does a month go by without a visit. Without section 21, it could take months to gather sufficient evidence of a tenant’s anti-social behaviour to launch a section 8 claim. Even if the court procedure is vastly speeded up it could still take many more weeks to get to court. If the tenant is meanwhile threatening or intimidating other tenants and the landlord cannot give comfort that action will be taken, tenants will give notice to leave.
Tenants’ circumstances change and loss of a job, relationship breakdown or bereavement may lead to problems with drink or drugs so that the behaviour of a previously respectable tenant becomes unacceptable. If they live on their own or with their own family that is bad enough. In an HMO it is much worse.
Without section 21, how long will it take to get such a tenant out? What about the rights of other tenants, especially women who may feel intimidated by a large drunken male? What about their rights to security and a safe home environment?
14. How are landlords supposed to use section 8 in the circumstances I have described? How do we gather evidence? Can we prove that the awkward tenant borrowed the milk on five occasions, failed to put the bins out and left his messy crockery in the sink? Is that sufficient? How much foul-mouthed swearing in front of others is so offensive a tenant should be evicted? How much hogging the TV remote and watching “Naked Attraction” on TV or late night porn is too much?
Do landlords have to run up substantial legal fees, lose tenants and suffer rental voids because a disobliging tenant won’t change his or her behaviour? Without section 21, that is what HMO landlords are faced with. With section 21 we can tell the other tenants: “Please bear with us. We are evicting the trouble-maker.” Without section 21, it will take too long and the good tenants will be gone before the nuisance tenant is removed.
15. If section 21 is not available, landlords will plead multiple grounds under section 8 to improve their chances of success. The more lurid accusations the better. Tenants will be chased for every last penny of rent. Count Court Judgments will be registered against them. Their dirty linen will be washed in front of the court. Landlords will have to spend more to bring cases and tenants will have to call on Shelter, Citizens Advice etc. to defend them.
It is ironic that just as the Government changes the law of divorce to allow no-fault divorce and avoid claims and counter-claims of bad behaviour it will pit landlords and tenants against each other and encourage landlords to make as many complaints as possible. This will substantially increase the workload for an already over-stretched courts service.
It will also mean that more tenants will find they are treated as intentionally homeless by councils for not paying rent and will be unattractive to private and public sector landlords.
Who will house them?
I predict that abolishing s21 will end up hurting the very people Government is trying to help.
Previous Article
Shelter do it again!Next Article
Courts failing to follow housing case rules
Mike
15:27 PM, 9th October 2019, About 5 years ago
I have just written to my MP Stephen Timms, hopefully he will reply regarding his views:
Dear Mr Timms,
Good Afternoon Mr Timms, I hope you are well.
I am highly concerned regarding Government's proposal to abolish Section 21 altogether, this I am sure will lead to even more homelessness, as Private Landlords start experiencing the mayhem it will cause and will pull out of the renting market altogether, our money could be better invested elsewhere, with little risk than in our own country and in helping to provide much needed accomodation to tenants due to shortage of affordable housing. I for one would definitely not take on any new tenants if this Section 21 ultimate safeguard and protection gets abolished.
As a long term landlord, I have never had to take any action against a good law abiding tenant, in fact the longer a tenant stays in a property the better for us, as we don't have to spend weeks on renovating or do any clean up or make over anything to get it ready to put it back on the market apart from general maintenance.
But it is absolutely essential that we have this ultimate tool to evict bad tenants, since using Section 8 requires absolute proof, and when certain incidents happen there is no one taking a video or witnessing the event where landlords can prove to courts that tenant had behaved in a reckless or bad manner endangering not only his own but risk lives of others too, or his or her general behaviour becomes highly intolerable and is disturbing to many others living around him or her, a kind of a mental torture for others, please remember in an HMO, there are other tenants who also need same level of protection from a bad tenant, many suffering tenants will not provide evidence because of fear of repercussions from a bad tenant. This was a case where I had to evict a threatening and violent tenant but I had no evidence to support, and the good tenant left through fear of his life.
I have had a personal experience of a bad tenant who became so abusive and threatening towards another tenant's wife, that the good tenant had to defend his wife and launched a defensive attack, this lead to the bad tenant arranging a few men to come over to sort out the good tenant who only tried to defend his wife being abused and threatened.
So do you think in this case the good tenant should have left if the bad tenant was not being reasonable or getting on with the good rule abiding tenant? Leave for his own safety and struggle to find a suitable accommodation elsewhere? Uprooted through violence! Why should a good tenant be evicted by a bad tenant? or suffer mental torture from a drunken and badly behaving or a nuisance tenant and his intolerable behaviour. Will a court give me a possession of a property if I used Section 8 and said the tenant is being evicted on the grounds of his drunken behaviour, causing mental torture to others?
This intolerable behaviour could also affect good law abiding neighbours, who would be reluctant to provide any evidence or witness statements for fear of reprisals, so how would landlords evict such a tenant if they cannot use a Section 21 notice?
In Newham Selective licensing was introduced in 2012, to combat this very issue, anti-social behaviour, and the tool to fight this is being taken away, does this then mean that Selective licensing should be abolished along with section 21 as well and our fees returned?
The proposed abolishing of Section 21 is not going to punish the culprits but the good law abiding people, the good tenants and good landlords, it is all wrong! (its all wrong! reminds me of Gretha Thunberg ha ha ! )
Abolishing of Section 21 will cause much troubles, many landlords will pull out altogether, including I am also preparing for it too, should this protection gets abolished, I will be defenseless, without a proper material evidence, I will never be able to evict a bad tenant whose behaviour causes mental torture to many,
who continues to pay rent on time, so we cannot evict a bad tenant without a good reason, and evidence, we would be forced to sell, and only those with money would be able to purchase the properties, where would the bad tenants go - not that care less for them, bad tenants don't deserve sympathy and protection from the Housing law, we all live in a civilised society where bad behaviour is not acceptable.
Please kindly think of the repercussions of abolishing this much needed section Section 21, maybe a few rogue landlords might use Section 21 to evict good tenants for No fault of theirs, for fun! Why would any landlord rent out a property to a tenant only to evict a good tenant for fun or for no reason? There is always a reason even when landlords do use section 21 as it gives them virtual guarantee that a tenant cannot defend it by denying wrongdoing in a court and courts relying on solid evidence.
Many landlords don't even know this is coming, as many are not aware and many cannot respond to consultations. It would unfair if only a few thousand landlords put their concern forward, and Government deciding on proceeding with this ill thought plan.
kind regards
Yours sincerely
paul robinson
15:41 PM, 9th October 2019, About 5 years ago
Reply to the comment left by Mike at 09/10/2019 - 15:27Good email – be interesting if your MP replies – my Labour MP never has, despite meeting him in person and him promising a reply.
That said I don’t think it’s a reason not for us all to contact our MP’s – although I would also suggest copying in the parties I mentioned above comment – 7th Oct.
You mention HMO – again I’ve focused on this in my initial email response to the ministry of housing and others. As noted in my comment above, it’s a flawed consultation.
I was told by the lady at the ministry of housing “the consultation document is geared towards single unit occupancy” and HMO landlords should just use the “other box”
I also asked - can the Q&A support document be updated to encompass shared HMO (licenced in particular), ensuring that this large sector’s feedback can be encouraged to be gathered and also easily analysed on receipt?
Their response “We are exploring updating the document so to explain how the changes will interplay with joint tenancies, to help landlords understand how this will affect them, including landlords of HMOs” -
but no documents have been update! .
Whiteskifreak Surrey
15:44 PM, 9th October 2019, About 5 years ago
Reply to the comment left by Mike at 09/10/2019 - 15:27
Can I redact it a bit and use to write to my own MP?
Thank you.
Mike
21:17 PM, 9th October 2019, About 5 years ago
Please feel free WS, sorry my letters can be quite long! I also copied and pasted Ian Narbeth's points to my MP, those points are real concern.
Mike
3:54 AM, 10th October 2019, About 5 years ago
Instead of chopping and changing so many rules to accomodate removal of Section 21, such as introducing some amendments to existing grounds under the Section 8, of schedule 2 Housing Act 2008, why not simply amend the section 21 whereby it cannot used against any tenants less than 2 years have lapsed since the start of a tenancy, I am sure most of us could put up with this long wait once we know we would be granted a possession under amended Section 21 .
This way no one would be stuck with badly behaving rule flouting tenants who would be very difficult to evict using Section 8, this 2 year minimum term creates a fair balance instead of repealing it altogether.
Many tenants who ignore tenancy rules, and where we know section 8 would simply not stand the ground, we can therefore put up with some nuisance from a tenant for 2 years and know that in two years time we would be able to evict a bad tenant using Section 21 amended . 2 years in my view is a good balance where landlords could put up with a rogue tenant, this would also protect many reasonable behaving tenants whose landlords were not too lenient in evicting them for minor breaches of the tenancy rules. Most landlords do put up with tenants breaching minor issues, so this would be the proper way to shift the balance slightly in favour tenants where some landlords exploit Section 21 at smallest breach.
The Forever Tenant
10:10 AM, 10th October 2019, About 5 years ago
Section 21 is a strange one. Its one of those cases where I wish that Section 8 worked as it should so that those tenants who are causing a problem can be dealt with quickly.
It would appear that Section 21 got overused as an alternative to Section 8, because Section 21 was a guarantee whereas Section 8 could be argued against on so many factors. I suspect it is this overuse that has now led to the possibility of its removal.
As a tenant, its a strange feeling that at any time I could be asked to leave the place I live through no decision of my own. That I have to put my life into loads of cardboard boxes and go through the hassle of finding another place to live. It worries me as its happened to me once before.
The previous place I lived had a wonderful landlord, elderly woman, kind and charming. A few years into my tenancy she got cancer which progressed quickly and she dies a few months after diagnosis. Her son inherited all her properties, came to see my flat, took one look and said that he could turn our living room into another bedroom and rent it out as an HMO instead making him more money. So he issued me with a Section 21.
I honestly don't know what the solution is about this. I have theorized about possibilities that may make it easier, such as the longer a tenant has been in the property, the longer the Section 21 time must be. Or once you issue a section 21 then the tenant is no longer responsible for rent for the period you request the property back. Both of those would require the government to guarantee that you would get the court order to evict on the 2 month mark without any hassle or delay.
One thing I do know, is that Landlords need to not have a kneejerk reaction to this all happening. If it is seen that Landlords are bypassing legislation or finding loopholes or doing anything that could be construed as punishing towards tenants because of something against their power, that the PRS would just end up even more regulated than ever before. It could lead to any of the political parties ripping your properties away, claiming that you cannot be trusted with them.
Ian Narbeth
10:16 AM, 10th October 2019, About 5 years ago
Reply to the comment left by Mike at 10/10/2019 - 03:54Hi Mike
A few points in reply.
Perhaps the strongest argument for abolishing s21 is that even where tenants have lived in a house for many years, put down roots in the community, made friends and have children in local schools they can be required to leave "for no reason". In most cases there is a reason (and tenants may not be entirely candid, or realistic, when telling their side of the story) such as rent arrears or anti-social behaviour or keeping pets in contravention of the lease or not allowing the landlord access to the property. There are no doubt cases where a few landlords act badly (such as where a tenant reasonably asks for repairs to be done). There is already a law against this but it is not enforced properly. Allowing s21 after two years does not help the long term settled tenant.
As you may know I have some HMOs. We need s21 to remove tenants who upset other housemates and lead to the well-behaved leaving. Two years is far too long to have to wait to get rid of the guy who comes home drunk and careers around the house banging on people's doors or entering their rooms unasked. I can't expect a frightened tenant to give evidence (necessary for a s8 claim) against the man who has the room next door. Even low level obnoxious behaviour is enough to spoil the harmony in a house. Judges won't evict for not doing the washing up or hogging the communal TV!
The crux of the problem is a shortage of affordable houses to rent in places people want to live. Abolishing agents' fees to tenants (which were in many cases excessive) ought to help but the difficulty for tenants is finding a new place to live in the same vicinity at a similar rent. Paradoxically it seems likely that removing s21 will, as my article argues, make the situation even worse by withdrawing some of the housing supply.
Beaver
10:30 AM, 10th October 2019, About 5 years ago
Reply to the comment left by Ian Narbeth at 10/10/2019 - 10:16
Interesting: I was chatting to someone a few weeks ago whose daughter lives in a flat and has a young child. The people in the flats on the top floor are drug users who are housed by the council. Apparently her daughter often has to get out of the house with her daughter quickly if the police come in to deal with problems, because if the police get in the place goes into 'lock down' and they then can't get out. They've also come home and found drug users smoking crack in the stairwells.
The council don't want to get rid of the drug users, presumably because if they do, they only have to deal with the problem somewhere else. So the good tenants are affected.
I think this S21 ban doesn't just potentially affect people in HMOs, it also affects people in flats who are intimidated.
paul robinson
10:35 AM, 10th October 2019, About 5 years ago
Reply to the comment left by Ian Narbeth at 10/10/2019 - 10:16
Completely agree. 👍
S21 is vital for management, providing safe and comfortably environments for decent tenants in HMOs.
Concerned over why the consultation document doesn’t seem to recognise HMO and has been written towards single household rentals.
Ministry of Housing have said that was their main focus. I would agree that a family with kids, schools etc put down more roots and often undertake improvements in a rental property so more invested that a young professional living in a shared HMO.
But very worrying that if the consultation doesn’t recognise HMO as a separate sub sector, they will just roll out scrapping of section 21 with no real consideration how very differently and detrimentally it will effect this sub sector.
Mike
12:26 PM, 10th October 2019, About 5 years ago
Thank you Ian for your views on my suggestion of limiting the use of Section 21 Notice to not less than 2 years before the end of 2 year minimum AST.
In a flat or in HMOs, it is possible to gather solid evidence through use of CCTV recordings, and obnoxious housemate could be brought to justice, evidence can also be collected by calling police and taking or making police crime reports, asking police to issue some kind of evidence that they had to be called to sort out some issues amongst tenants. wearing body cameras where landlord has to visit a premises and gets foul treatment from any obnoxious tenant. Hopefully these can be used against that tenant in a court and granted possession on the grounds of intolerable or unacceptable behaviour within a shared accomodation. Of course you cannot cover CCTV everywhere like in baths and showers or WCs, I have known of obnoxious tenant ripping off toilet seats and blaming on others, breaking shower hoses within a week of a new one being put in, leaving taps running , messing up with toilet cistern, turning up heating or shutting off radiators, cutting off heating to annoy other tenants.
Outside removing other tenants rubbish and dumping it on pavements or in recycle bins, to frame them for the offence of throwing rubbish on pavements.
In as far as a long term tenant who has established his or her rootes deeper in a house and in the local community, I am sure no landlord is going to uproot them for no reason, and if suppose they are uprooted, they can always find another accomodation in the nearby streets, my tenant whom I had to evict after 6 years due to his obnoxious behaviour, he has moved only 3 streets away, still maintaining local contacts, still comes and sees me to sort out things for him, which I have always done as I took him in as a friend for the first two years I did not even charge him any rent, I am sure he must now regret but he just could not overcome his ego, bullying other tenants, dominating them all because he was the longest staying tenant in my HMO and others were petrified of him, at times I felt very threatened by him.
In another real example, i let out a property in 2015 to a family, set the rent at £900 pcm, which was the average going rent for a newly refurbished 3 bed house in Harlow, Essex, today you would think I should be charging him at least £1000. if not the going rate of £1100 for similar size properties in that very area, but hold on, I am getting £800 rent! I still have not used a Section 21 against him, because I know that shortfall is going to cost me much more if he is sent packing using Section 21, since he has 3 young children, a Court would most likely give me a possession on Section 21 but give him more time to leave, and he could then further extend this time by requesting court to delay more due to the welfare of his children, so I could end up losing more as he would stop paying me rent from the moment I give him a notice, that means 4 to 5 months of loss of rent, which can mount to well over £3500 if you also include court fees, then when he has left you will face another huge bill of cleaning up the mess he has left behind, possibly he may even deliberately damage the property and there will be no prospect of getting any of that money back as he would declare broke, that is why I am allowing him to continue to stay at £800 pcm, and just a couple of months ago I replaced old worn out carpets at a cost of £1500 ! And we are called unfair rogue landlords!