Welcome to another edition of our Newsround, and this week there is certainly no shortage varied housing news.

Big Issue founder calls for help for landlords

John Bird, the founder of the Big Issue is calling on ministers to help landlords financially in order to prevent rent rises and evictions.

He says

I’m not saying I am not concerned about people who can’t feed themselves or heat themselves, but the worst possible thing to add to that is if hundreds of thousands of people are made homeless …then it completely goes off the richter scale.

Shockingly, the number of homeless families is predicted to be a up by 32% from 2020. Councils have also been additional given funds to run more mediations between landlords and tenants in an effort to reduce evictions.

Meter tampering hits a new high

The energy crisis is seeing an shockingly high rise in the illegal tampering of energy meters that is putting not only the house where the meter is tampered with at risk but also neighbouring properties. The Electrical association Select and the Plumbing Employers Federation have issued this warning

Stealing energy in this way is a worrying and illegal practice, often encouraged by widely shared footage on social media. But it risks lives and can have fatal consequences for innocent people close by. Such services are often offered by unscrupulous individuals who will bypass services or devices for a fee. But often the methods they use are often extremely dangerous and they can have no, or very limited, knowledge of what they’re doing.

The Scottish Fire and Rescue Service is now engaging directly with communities to try and stop this dangerous activity. You can read more here.

New Fire Safety Regulations come into Force

The Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022 came into force this week on 23 January 2023. This new legislation now requires the ‘responsible person’ of mid and high-rise blocks of flats to provide information such as electronic building plans to the fire and rescue services to help them with planning and other safety measures. Residents also need to be given fire safety instructions and information on fire doors.

For high rise blocks monthly checks are also now required on firefighting equipment held within the building such as firefighting lifts and equipment along with a secure information box. For mid-rise blocks annual checks are now required of the entrance doors and all fire doors quarterly. You can read more here.

Rogue HMO landlord lands high fine

Landlord Today reports how an HMO landlord has been hit with a fine of over £175,000 by the courts for running an unhabitable HMO with rats, no working kitchen, toilets or bathrooms, no fire alarms blocked escape routes, rubbish accumulation, water leaks and no gas or electrical certificates. Tenants paid £5,800 per month rent for their dilapidated housing that was in such a bad state an emergency prohibition order had to be served which closed the HMO down immediately leaving the council to emergency house the 18 tenants.

A council spokesperson said

It is unbelievable that in this day and age, these people were able to operate in such a heartless way, exploiting residents and providing such squalid living conditions.

The property is still up for sale.

Former Housing Ministers’ call for more house building

Four former housing ministers are stating that our lack of house building is what is forcing up high prices and are calling for a total rethink of the governments house building policies. Building needs to happen now and not just on brownfield sites. Their report, The Case for Housebuilding, identifies a huge drop on building rates since the 1960’s, it also states that as rents are rising steeply and now 30% of income is spent on rent compared to 10% back in the 1960’s.

The report states

The case for housebuilding is simple – without it, Britain will be a less productive, less equal, less fair and less happy country. Building more homes is the clearest way to boost economic growth and rebuild our economy.

You can read more here.

Rental Reforms threatens Higher Education

Groups representing universities and Student education claim the rental reform plans seriously put at risk higher education. The new plans mean that all student lets will be open ended tenancies thus rendering landlords helpless to have accommodation ready and available again for the next academic year, unless the existing student tenants have officially handed in their notice to quit.

Without this certainty there will be a reduction in available accommodation says a letter to the Minister for the Private Rented Sector.

The groups rally for a change are the NRLA, Universities UK and the British Property Federation, they also say

A shortage of this accommodation has already led some academic institutions to call for a limit to be placed on student intakes for as long as the next five years. The proposed introduction of open-ended tenancies and inevitable reduction in housing supply is therefore likely to further constrain the expansion of the education sector, to the detriment of prospective students and wider society.

The organisations are asking the Government to extend the exemption from open-ended tenancies granted to Purpose Built Student Accommodation (PBSA) to all student housing. They argue that where a landlord rents their property to a group of students a fixed term tenancy agreement should be permissible.

Will the government listen?

Snippets

Rent Cap Minister and Shelter stopped from speaking with politicians in Scotland
Increase stamp duty for landlords say prominent Tory MP
Landlords warn that energy efficiency plans are ‘dead in the water’
42% of landlords claim they will buy property in 2023
UK faces chronic shortage of rental homes, alarming new data shows
Landlords with good EPC ratings get better mortgage deals

Newsround will l be back next week.

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