Our Newsround brings you all the latest treading housing news and more. This week has seen some major announcements from the government.

We start our Newsround this week the government’s announcement on green issues.

Government abandon EPC upgrade rules and banning of gas boilers

The announcement made by Rishi Sunak yesterday is good news and somewhat of a relief for Landlords. They will no longer be forced to replace gas boilers with heat pumps until 2035.

The Boiler Upgrade Scheme grant has been increased to £7500.00 to help replace gas boilers with low-carbon alternatives.

In addition to this, the impending minimum EPC grade of C by 2025 has also been scrapped. Rishi Sunak agreed that the cost of getting your property to a ‘C’ rating would undoubtedly be passed on to tenants by higher rents. Again, he said that the government would offer more monetary incentives to help landlords upgrade their homes to raise their EPC grade to a C.

Whilst these changes are welcomed, Ben Beadle of the NRLA comments that a plan is still needed and says

It is welcome that landlords will not be required to invest substantial sums of money during a cost-of-living crisis when many are themselves struggling financially.

However, ministers need to use the space they are creating to develop a full plan that supports the rental market to make the energy efficiency improvements we all want to see.

This must include appropriate financial support and reform of the tax system which currently fails to support investment in energy efficiency measures.

Government updates guidance on possession proceedings

The Department for Levelling up, Housing and Communities has updated its guidance on possession proceedings. The update clarifies that form 6A, or a document setting out the same information as form 6A, must be provided in order to serve a section 21 notice.

It has also been updated to provide a new link in the private landlord guidance about the Housing Loss Prevention Advice Service. You can find this on the government web page here.

Court system must be reformed for evictions

Ben Beadle, Chief Executive of the NRLA, has penned an open letter to the Ministry of Justice to take action to speed up the time the courts take to process legitimate possession cases.

He claims that unless this process is dramatically reduced, it will ‘exacerbate an already serious crisis of supply of rented housing’ if the plan to end section 21 evictions goes ahead.

Currently, there can be delays of six months or more in the courts, thus delaying a landlord from taking back his property from an anti-social tenant.

NRLA want assurances that court waiting times will be reduced. Ahead of the second reading of the Renters Reform Bill, they want the court system digitalized, and the numbers of court staff  who deal with possession cases increased. NRLA warn

It is not clear whether the Government fully appreciates the extent to which an unreformed courts system could undermine its tenancy reforms.

The letter states

Before the second reading of the Renters (Reform) Bill, the Government must set out clearly what court reform means and bring confidence to the sector.

They say that now is the time for detail before it is too late

now is the time for the detail. This must comprise investment, detail of digitalisation and punchy processing targets to give confidence that reforms will work for responsible landlords.

Free Land Registry alerts

Landlords need to beware of scammers.  For example, LandlordZone reports a case of a property owner who returned home to find his house had been sold by scammers, and all his furniture removed. He was met by the new ‘owner’ of the house while the scammers had taken all of the sale proceeds.  This is not an isolated incident.

So what can you do?

The Land Registry offers a free service for property owners & landlords alike, that they can sign up to so that they can protect their properties from targeted criminal gangs who target the titles register. 99% of property owners have failed to sign up.

The service is free and will send you an alert by email and post when any local authority searches are done on your property. This can be a warning that someone is preparing to sell your property.

You can sign up for property alerts on the government webpage here. This is something every landlord should do as they are more at risk than the general population.

Snippets

Veteran landlord’s fine will rise day-by-day is unsafe homes remain occupied
England’s big social housing landlords ignoring official complaint warnings
Government warned landlords will flee the market if rent controls are introduced
Agency fined over failure to license property 
Landlord to be stopped from renting out HMO rooms as holiday lets

Newsround will be back next week.

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