Graham Norwood
Editor of LLT and LAT since January...
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The reform of the Courts system is the catalyst to the whole Bill. Currently, the Court service is underfunded due to the Treasury tightening the reigns in recent years and its under resourced as a result. The devil is in the detail, in so far as that there needs to be a recruitment drive to take on and train legal personell, which is not going to happen the day after tomorrow. Furthermore, there needs to be a pilot scheme to see how this new legislation will work in practice. The Renters Reform Bill is a highly politicised concept, and unless Government gets its act together in supporting Investors to expand their portfolios and make homes more energy efficient, the range and quality of homes will simply not be there. In essence this will be nothing but a hollow victory for Tenants. As for "a fairer private rented sector" , that remains to be seen,
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2.8 million new instructions- who wants some? While preparing a submission for the at the time unannounced CLG inquiry in PRS (CLG only told their friends) I did some number crunching in the hope of adding a positive input into a department that is seemingly bereft of any experience of the Private rented sector and almost allergic to anyone who has. I identified that a 100,000 tenancy provision by private landlords into the assisted tenancy market (pensions and benefits) was worth approaching £1 billion to landlords. One hundred thousand tenancies was a deliberately small percentage ; an easy , appropriately sized sample to make the point rather than a scientifically calculated figure. It represented about 1.4% of the middle ground between PRS and social housing that many agencies and landlords steer clear of. Subsequent research (discussion) shows that about 40% of assisted tenants are no worse at paying their rent than anyone else. Essentially what that means is that there is an additional £28 billion rental opportunity for those prepared to engage the sector. Increasing the PRS provision by up to by 70% is surely a good start in solving the housing crisis. It will obviously put a large rental income in the pocket of those who can afford to buy to rent out, it will put a large commission income in the pockets of those servicing the industry but moreover it will add the incentive to have another 2.8 million private rented sector properties available to ease the housing crisis. Obviously that will leave the remaining 60% of the sector to house but it seems reasonable that government doesn’t attempt to privatise their entire housing obligation, such schemes tend to lead to civil unrest. There will be natural envy at the rich seemingly exploiting the poor, I am not getting into the social ethics of a solution, simply suggesting how a set of government departments could set about solving issues in an industry they don’t properly understand.
Graham Norwood
Editor of LLT and LAT since January...