Unlicensed HMO’s for Asylum seekers?

Unlicensed HMO’s for Asylum seekers?

9:27 AM, 1st November 2023, About 6 months ago 10

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Hi, Housing asylum seekers in hotels was a very unpopular move with the public. Now the Government have announced they will be moving them out to alternative accommodation. They can’t all be going to the Bibby Stockholm Barge, so where are they going?

According to Hansard “Draft Houses in Multiple Occupation (Asylum-Seeker Accommodation) (England) Regulations 2023 Debated on Wednesday 10 May 2023 the indication is HMO’s will be the answer. Fair enough I suppose, but in order that there are sufficient HMO’s available it is proposed that the HMO regulations be relaxed for 2 years for any owner who is willing to set up an HMO to specifically house asylum seekers.

According to Hansard: “Longer-term dispersal accommodation, such as houses in multiple occupation, commonly known as HMOs, are a better solution for asylum seekers—especially single asylum seekers—communities and the taxpayer. All local authority areas in England, Scotland and Wales became asylum dispersal areas in April 2022, increasing the number of suitable properties that can be procured to accommodate destitute asylum seekers across the UK. To deliver on that change and support the rapid provision of alternative, more cost-effective accommodation, the Government laid secondary legislation on 30 March to temporarily exempt asylum accommodation from the licensing requirements for houses in multiple occupation. This temporary exemption is part of a broader suite of measures that the Home Office is implementing to speed up the moving of asylum seekers out of hotel accommodation. The regulations will temporarily exempt from licensing requirements HMO properties that are used by the Home Office to house asylum seekers. That means that HMO properties that begin use as asylum accommodation before 30 June 2024 will not need to be licensed for a period of two years”.

Can this be serious? Can this really mean that rogues will be able to set up any property as an HMO, or that anybody running an unlicensed HMO can just evict their tenants take in asylum seekers and be legal?

It is to be hoped that any unlicensed HMO owner will use the rent money to upgrade their property within 2 years. It’s certainly unfair on those HMO owners who have spent a fortune making sure their premises comply with regulations upfront.

Hansard link:
Draft Houses in Multiple Occupation (Asylum-Seeker Acc – Hansard – UK Parliament).

Thanks,

Bob

Editor’s Note: Property118 covered the issue of HMO regulations being relaxed for asylum seekers when the proposal was raised.


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Comments

LL Minion

10:17 AM, 1st November 2023, About 6 months ago

hahahah - upgrade the property while the refugees are in it???

what a joke!

Rich S

10:36 AM, 1st November 2023, About 6 months ago

Rules apply or dont apply, to bend for a crisis in illegal migration when one already exists in the rental market is to say it only matters when it suits and doesnt when there is something to be gained for it not to.

Easy rider

11:05 AM, 1st November 2023, About 6 months ago

This government has no shame.
If the regulations are not required for migrants, they are not required for U.K. Nationals. Or are migrants lesser people? (Rhetorical question).

Moving migrants from hotels to the PRS is about shifting costs from central government to the local council tax payer.

LaLo

11:46 AM, 1st November 2023, About 6 months ago

I’m confused. Many migrants given accommodation when many of our people are homeless on the streets!

Neil T

13:15 PM, 1st November 2023, About 6 months ago

I'm sure nothing could possibly go wrong by incentivising the most unscrupulous slumlords to exploit vulnerable asylum seekers for profit. As long as we shuffle these asylum seekers out of sight into dangerously substandard conditions, the NIMBY crowd should be thrilled!

Here's a thought: maybe if we stopped wasting billions on failed detention centres and cruel deportation efforts, we could easily provide appropriate emergency housing that met clear health standards. But it's clearly better to create a new slum underclass ripe for abuse than to demonstrate even the tiniest bit of compassion.

Darren Peters

13:18 PM, 1st November 2023, About 6 months ago

Reply to the comment left by Easy rider at 01/11/2023 - 11:05
No the opposite, pragmatism is applied to remove barriers to accommodating our guests from France whereas the locals can whistle.

It also indicates the government _understands_ that licensing is a barrier to accommodating people.

Given that gas and electrical safety is a mandatory requirement regardless I’ve yet to see what difference licensing makes to housing standards.

Easy rider

18:22 PM, 1st November 2023, About 6 months ago

We should use the Royal Navy to protect our borders.

Mass migration is here to stay. We need to decide how many we can accommodate and work towards providing suitable accommodation for the resultant population.

We should not allow people smugglers to decide who should come to the U.K.

Paul Essex

20:50 PM, 1st November 2023, About 6 months ago

Anyone up to crowd funding one of these next door to Polly or that generation rant bloke?

Martin Hicks

12:18 PM, 10th November 2023, About 6 months ago

As has been said in an earlier post, this proposal will land in councils lap. They will be presented with overseeing two different categories of HMOs for a couple of years - and then what happens? Inevitably it will be extended. So much for reducing red tape and costs.

Reluctant Landlord

13:44 PM, 10th November 2023, About 6 months ago

Reply to the comment left by Martin Hicks at 10/11/2023 - 12:18
HMO licencing will be a joke. Essentially a two tier system. How can you enforce it at one HMO and not at the one next door full of refugees?

I see a raft of those dodgy landlords already scraping the barrel with badly run HMO's (possibly already without licences) now shifting tenants out in favour of a new lot incoming as those can now be LEGALLY housed without a licence at all!

A race to the bottom if ever I saw one....

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