By Steve Roulstone
It’s time for me to bang on the same drum again, as another slice of news has appeared on my desk and the opportunity to improve a situation by ensuring that licensed or approved Agents and or Landlords looked after the Private rented sector through a Government sponsored (but in my opinion Industry monitored) system immediately suggested itself. Well it does to me and I would welcome commitment or debate about my thoughts!
33% of Private rented stock in poor condition.
This information is taken from the recent English Housing Survey, just released by the Department of Communities and Local Government. This figure is a surprise, especially as the same paper suggests that Social housing is in better condition (some 23%) The headline figures for the Social and Private rented sectors are now very similar, with 17% of stock forming the Social sector and 15.6% the Private sector, this translates in big round numbers to 850,000 Social houses and over 1 million Private houses. But my own experience would suggest that the majority of these lie in the self managed sector, for in my own Company (as I would expect from all professional agencies) we would recommend what was needed for property to be acceptable to offer to the rental market before accepting the property on our books. This of course means we will not manage property that was unfit and I have indeed wiped my feet on the way out of many houses in the past. Of course, most Landlords follow our advice and repair, renew and renovate as needed.
Professional Industry creates Professional standards.
My own point being, that improving the state and condition of property in this Country is rightfully a main target for Government (no matter what colour) by ensuring those responsible for the care and standard of rented property were approved and this approval relies on the correct standards, then the improvement in property would be dealt with, I would suggest, very efficiently and rather quicker than any Government targets are currently achieving.
Same old same old.
It is not the first time I have championed professional membership or approval schemes and it will not be the last. What we need to do and what I do at every given opportunity as a Professional Letting Agent, is to open this debate with and actually put our conclusions in front of those who make the decisions at every given chance. What I hope is that the bodies that represent our Industry are continuing to do the same. I would think it would be difficult to argue against my conclusion in this case and only those who could not afford to renovate properties currently rented would find a reason for doing so, but is this not the objective? Because then the alarming figure of over 1 million properties rented in poor condition would be removed from the market, allowing better quality property to replace it. This of course is providing Landlords can get the right Mortgage to allow renovation or buy new housing stock – but that is another topic for debate.
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