24^th Jan 2018

A UK leading letting agent is telling the government that their new measures to help tenant's safety and protect them from rogue landlords is just too soft.

As previously reported, the government has recently announced its full backing for new legislation to give tenants the power to take their landlords to court, if they are renting out properties that are not fit for human habitation.

The new bill, which should come into force in the near future, will state that “all landlords (both social and private sector) must ensure that their property is fit for human habitation at the beginning of the tenancy and throughout”.

If a landlord fails to meet the proper standards for their properties, then tenants will have the legal right to take action against them in the courts for 'breach of contract', as the property is unfit to live in.

The operations director of the lettings agents Paul Sloan, states that there is already a mechanism in place to help tenants. They can sue 'rogue' landlords if their properties and conduct do not reach acceptable standards. He does point out that in the past the local authorities had the majority of powers to take action against unscrupulous landlords.

Sloan explains: "This legislation is not new - tenants have always been able to take legal action against landlords, but this particular bill – which was originally brought forward two years ago - gives more rights to the tenants themselves. It failed to get enough votes in 2015, but was brought forward again in the summer in the wake of the Grenfell tower disaster, and has now got the government backing it needs."

Paul Sloan does appreciate the new measures being introduced and sees them as "a positive move”, however he strongly believes that the government falls short and needs to introduce much more stringent rules.

He continues: "The aim of this bill is to raise standards and push the bad boys out of the market, but, it is just another bit of legislation and I think there is a danger that the bad boys will be driven underground rather than out.

"If the government is going to regulate, it needs to regulate the industry as a whole – that’s the only way to raise standards across the board, not this piecemeal approach which seems designed more to win votes than to actually change the way that the rental market operates."

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