By Mike Edwards
Last week, both mayoral candidates, Ken Livingstone and the incumbent Boris Johnson, stirred up the debate on the private rented sector. Livingstone will set up a non-profit lettings agency, covering the whole of London, if elected, and would impose a rent cap of no more than one-third of the tenant’s wage. In polite terms these proposals have generally been received as coming from another planet, and totally unworkable and in fact a retrograde step. Boris Johnson on the other hand, so often considered lightweight and with his own zany comments and ideas, has confirmed his own plans to accredit private landlords and the publication of a rents map to give tenants information about rents in their area. These proposals have been received much more warmly.
Longer tenancies, accreditation of landlords, and incentives for landlords to use accredited agents are among new proposals being made by the London Assembly. In its report, ‘Bleak House – Improving London’s Private Rented Housing’, it is also calling for landlords to be given tax incentives to improve their housing stock, thought to amount to some 850,000 homes across the capital and which are lived in by one in four London households. The report, from the all-party housing and planning committee, says that a surprisingly high one-third of the properties are below standard, and estimates that one in three private landlords is a ‘rogue’ operator. This problem has always been exacerbated inside the M25 and especially in London itself by the increased numbers of Landlords who manage property themselves instead of using a regulated agent. Several years ago ARLA estimated that 40% of property within the M25 is not let through managing agents. Hence tenants also suffer, as many of the subsequent problems stay below the radar. Indeed so severe is the problem that the Assembly estimates over £1bn is needed as investment into the sector.
The report calls for the Mayor of London to develop a kitemark or accreditation ‘badge’ which sets out minimum standards of private rental housing, together with a publicity campaign to raise awareness of the scheme among tenants. It suggests that there should be standards in the private rented sector that are similar to the decent homes standard for social housing. Naturally and logically the report then urges councils to only place tenants in properties belonging to landlords who meet the standards. It also calls for agents to ensure that the properties they deal with also come up to the standards. Acknowledging that rogue landlords will never be swayed by any amount of incentives or encouragement, the report calls for the Mayor to consider greater use of selective licensing. Licensing requirements could be relaxed, it suggests, where the properties are managed by an accredited agent.
But it is the call for longer tenancies which, if adopted, could have the greatest impact on the industry, with Assured Shorthold Tenancies a strong focus of the report. It criticises ASTs as not offering tenants sufficient security, with landlords having the right to give tenants two months’ notice to quit after four months, without needing to give a reason. The ‘Assured Longhold Tenancy’ has long been under consideration by The Law Commission and one wonders where they are while all this comment is being made on a subject they were specifically asked to look into. It says families, particularly those with school-age children, need longer security of tenure and it calls on the Mayor to lobby the Government for changes, including giving tenants protection from ‘retaliatory eviction’, possibly via the Localism Act.
The report says £400m is paid to private landlords in London annually by local authorities using the sector to house homeless people. In fact in many ways, London’s private rented sector can be regarded as a success story. The problem lies in the fact that private rented housing is increasingly acting as social housing, but without any of the standards and security. One thing is certain in these uncertain times, and that is families need certainty about where they will be living so that they can settle their children in schools and forge community links. The London Assembly considers that in exchange for the hundreds of millions of pounds of public money they are receiving, private landlords must be compelled to provide certainty in the form of longer tenancies. They could have a point.
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