24th
Mar 2023
The government has just announced its plans to introduce a mandatory ombudsman scheme which all private landlords will have to join.
It has published a Pre-Tender Market Engagement request to receive and collate information in preparations for appointing a supplier in overall charge of the scheme.
The government outlines its proposals of the scheme which was originally called ‘the Private Rented Sector (PRS) Landlord Ombudsman scheme’.
It says: “The Ombudsman scheme will be mandatory for all private landlords in England.
“It will provide redress and dispute resolution to all private rented sector tenants by an independent person, in accordance with the terms of the arrangements with the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (herein referred to as "the Authority").”
It states the Pre-Tender Market Engagement will source and collate information to:
“- help define the service specification for the Ombudsman;
“- help provide a better understanding of the feasibility of the requirement;
“- understand the best approach to introduce and implement the Ombudsman;
“- understand the capacity of the market to deliver and possible risks involved;
“- inform value for money considerations undertaken by the Authority;
“- provide the market with an opportunity to ask questions, raise queries and any issues to be addressed at an early stage;
“- inform potential delivery timescales of the Ombudsman;
“- inform our decision on the route to market.”
This preliminary process is to ‘scope’ the possible powers and organisational structure of an ombudsman with the government stating it is “separate to any later procurement exercise.”
The proposed ombudsman is just one of the multitude of pledges made by the Tories to reform what it sees as problematic areas of the private rental sector.
Richard Merrick of PIMS, said: ”The present and future governments will no doubt face fewer problems in the private rented sector as their tax increases, regulations have and are reducing rental housing stock and number of landlords.
“ Dependant on costs for the ombudsman there is only one section that will be affected as tenants will end up having to pay increased rents to offset councils’ and government ‘cash grabs’ from private landlords.
“The only real winners will be the corporate landlords as more and more such as Tesco, John Lewis and of course pension funds are investing into the sector with accessible funding from the taxpayer.”
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