Section 21 Summit Success

Section 21 Summit Success

9:51 AM, 4th June 2019, About 5 years ago 22

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Following Theresa May’s announcement that she would abolish Section 21, the Alliance announced that it would hold an emergency summit in Manchester and invited other Landlord representative bodies. Following discussions with the RLA, we agreed to cancel our summit and attend a summit in London chaired by Lord Lytton.

We have achieved what never has been achieved previously.

With our immediate response calling for a united front, we now have a statement signed by Landlord bodies nationwide demanding wholesale reforms to ensure that the possession process is fair.

The Fair coalition summit has stood up and said ‘enough is enough’ rather than rolling over as happened in the Section 24 mortgage interest relief restrictions situation. Eminent London Property Solicitor, Ian Narbeth represented the Alliance at the talks and all our red lines have been kept.

No removal of Section 21 without reform of Section 8.

We have called for comprehensive judicial reform and furthermore no removal of Section 21 without the new regime running alongside the old, to ensure that it is fit for purpose. The courts and possession procedures at present are not fit for purpose. The entire system is skewed against Landlords and that is blatantly unfair.

In the space of a couple of months we have achieved two victories.  Local authorities have been forced to accept that their application process for licences is flawed and we have landlord bodies working together to present a united front.

We will call out politicians and Shelter who seek to cause division by demonising a particular section of society. The majority of tenants are decent hard working people like ourselves. A minority of tenants are delinquents who engage in Anti-Social Behaviour and default on rent. However, Shelter and certain politicians cynically exploit the fact that there are also a minority of bad landlords.

For a housing charity to attack the PRS while actually housing nobody is beyond the pale. Having said that, I wish to thank Shelter for their deluded attacks on us and Section 21. Yes thanks to Shelter we recruited even more members Thanks to Shelter attempting to get Section 21 abolished, we now have a coalition.

Landlords please help us to help you. Join the Alliance now.

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There is so much yet to be done and it’s thanks to those who have already joined, that we have made so much progress.

We offered an olive branch to Shelter. We offered to talk to Shelter. We tried to get Shelter to assist us housing benefit tenants, all to no avail.
We now intend to organise a new coalition and call for this organisation to be disbanded.

Our progress in a matter of months has been astounding. Thank you very much to our members who have taken up the baton on behalf of all landlords Nationwide.

Thanks to Neil and Mark at Property118 and thank you to all of our partners in the Fair coalition summit.


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Comments

pam frigo

11:15 AM, 4th June 2019, About 5 years ago

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

20:06 PM, 4th June 2019, About 5 years ago

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.

paul robinson

10:41 AM, 5th June 2019, About 5 years ago

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.

Freda Blogs

11:39 AM, 5th June 2019, About 5 years ago

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.

paul robinson

14:11 PM, 5th June 2019, About 5 years ago

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.

Mick Roberts

14:17 PM, 5th June 2019, About 5 years ago

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.

Luke P

14:54 PM, 5th June 2019, About 5 years ago

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."

Larry Sweeney

15:54 PM, 5th June 2019, About 5 years ago

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.

Michael Barnes

14:43 PM, 6th June 2019, About 5 years ago

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)

paul robinson

16:56 PM, 6th June 2019, About 5 years ago

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.

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