Deregulation Act 2015

The long awaited Deregulation Act received Royal Assent on Thursday 26 March 2015 and provides an immediate amendment of the law in relation to tenancy deposits. These changes are very welcome for landlords following the flurry of cases following Superstrike v Rodrigues.

The Superstrike amendments:

• If the deposit was received before 06 April 2007 and went period before 06 April 2007

The position set out in Charalambous v Ng  continues to apply.

• If the deposit was received before 06 April 2007 but was renewed or went periodic after 06 April 2007

If the deposit has not been protected, the landlord now has a period of 90 days from 26 March 2015 (or before the Court hearing to determine a tenant claim for compensation or to determine the landlord’s claim for possession under s.21, whichever is the earlier) to protect the deposit and serve the prescribed information.

• If the deposit was received after 06 April 2007

If the deposit has been protected and the prescribed information served at the outset, provided the deposit remains the same with the same scheme, the landlord will be treated as if he/she has complied. There is no need to re-protect the deposit and/or re-serve the prescribed information on renewal or roll over into a period tenancy.

If the deposit has not been protected at all, the Act doesn’t change the landlord’s liability.

Other Tenancy Amendments

The Act also provides many other amendments not only relating to landlord and tenant law. For our readership, the following are important:

• Section 30 clarifies PainSmith’s view (see our blog here) that an agent can sign and serve the prescribed information on behalf of the landlord. The section amends The Housing (Tenancy Deposits) (Prescribed Information) Order 2007 to make this explicit without the need to refer to the primary legislation. All references to “the landlord” within the Order have been amended to read “either the landlord or a person who acts on the landlord’s behalf in relation to the tenancy”.

 

• Section 35 of the Act removes the requirement from s.21(4)(a) for the date of expiry of such a notice to be the last day of a period of the tenancy.
  

 

• Section 36(2) provides that a s.21 notice cannot be given during the first 4 months of a tenant’s occupation under a tenancy agreement. This gives the tenant the same 6 month security of tenure but makes timing of the notice trickier where possession is required at the end of a 6 month term.

 

• Section 36 also provides that a s.21 notice will only have a shelf life of 6 months after which possession proceedings cannot be issued on the notice. This is contrary to the previous approach that the Courts were taking that a s.21 notice could be relied on until it was waived.

 

• Section 37 allows the Secretary of State to require landlords to use prescribed forms for s.21 notices. There is currently no prescribed form but Section 37 leaves it open that this might change.

 

• Section 40 requires a daily apportionment of rent to be paid back to the tenant in the event that the tenant has paid rent in advance but a s.21 notice is subsequently served requiring the tenant to give up possession of the property during the period that the rent payment covers.

 

The Act also contains provisions to prevent the retaliatory eviction of tenants following orders being made by the local authority relating to disrepair at rental properties. The provisions are set out in Section 33 of the Deregulation Act but they are not yet in force. Watch this space for further details on the enactment of these amendments, which is expected to be towards the end of this year.

Filed under: England & Wales, deposits, disrepair, Housing Act 1988, Housing Act 2004, legislation

Buying your freehold: Section 5 Landlord and Tenant 1987, Right to Buy

We have talked previously about long leaseholders purchasing their freehold.

PainSmith has recently assisted a substantial development of about 100 flats and various commercial units to purchase their freehold.  The Freeholder of this development entered into liquidation. The Liquidators served notices under Section 5 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1987 giving the residential leaseholders a right of first refusal.  The development consisted of about 100 long residential leaseholders and various separately let commercial units.

Certain of the leaseholders approached PainSmith for advice and we were able to advise on their rights that provided not less than 50% of the residential leaseholders wanted to purchase they could do so at the price included in the notice.  PainSmith assisted in the co-ordination of the leaseholders to bring on board more than the numbers required.  This meant explaining the process and assisting in drafting documents for the leaseholders and then obtaining valuation advice to assist the participants in making the decision to proceed.   Acceptance Notices were served within two months of the service of the notice and the form of contract was agreed with the Vendors.  PainSmith assisted in dealing with an investor who was found to fund the premium payable in respect of the non-participant minority leaseholders so that those taking part did not have to fund this part of the premium.

The transaction completed allowing the residents who participated to have control of their destiny moving forward at a price they were advised was advantageous.

If therefore you or any of your clients in respect of leasehold property they own receive a Section 5 Notice from a freeholder indicating they are looking to sell their freehold interest we at PainSmith are experienced in:

1. Advising on the Notice, its validity and steps to be taken,
2. Assisting finding suitable valuation advice and if necessary finding investors to help fund the purchase.
3. Co-ordinating all the various steps including payment of completion monies.
4. Dealing with all of the formalities both prior to and post completion  of the freehold.

If you have any queries or questions do not hesitate to contact a member of the long residential leasehold team who will be happy to discuss and assist

Filed under: England & Wales, long lease

The Assured Tenancies and Agricultural Occupancies (Forms) (England) Regulations 2015

Some of you may have seen that as at 6^th April 2015 new forms have been prescribed for certain notices and applications with the most relevant to our readership being those in respect of Section 8 and Section 13 of the housing Act 1988 (as amended).  We will be updating the Notices for sale on our Shop and also those contained in our Document Vault (for our Helpline subscribers) and will put up a post once done.

In the meantime you should be aware that if from the 6^th April 2015 you are looking to serve one of these notices it must be in the new form or it will be invalid.

So what are the changes?

In the main they are minor changes to the guidance notes.  With regards to the Section 8 Notice it is to take account of the fact that two new grounds (Grounds 7A and 14A) have been enacted. For the section 13 notices it is to update them to provide that the forum for referring any rent not agreed is the First Tier Tribunal (Property Chamber) which now undertakes the functions of the Rent Assessment Committee.

So the changes are minor and probably practically make very little difference for most of what you do, but be warned the new notices must be used or you do run the risk of any reliance you place on such a notice being challenged!

Filed under: England & Wales, Housing Act 1988, legislation, rent, tenancy agreements

Time to get your house in order

Landlords are facing the prospect of wider and more severe sanctions for failing to keep rental properties in a safe and habitable condition.

From yesterday landlords who fail to comply with an Improvement Notice or Prohibition Order to ensure properties are safe and habitable face unlimited maximum fines in the magistrate’s courts. Previously there was a £5000.00 cap. That cap has been removed.

Further, Improvement Notices and Hazard Awareness notices in relation to category 1 and category 2 hazards are a “relevant notice” for the purposes of the proposed new section 21A of the Housing Act 1988, which is set to come in imminently with the Deregulation Bill. If the Bill is passed in its current form the new section 21A will provide that if a tenant complains in writing to the landlord regarding the condition of a dwelling house, and the landlord serves a section 21 notice, and after the landlord has served the section 21 notice the local authority serves an Improvement Notice or Hazard Awareness Notice, that section 21 notice will be invalid.

For those readers in need of a refresher, Hazard Awareness Notices, Improvement Notices and Prohibition Orders are part of the inspection and enforcement mechanism contained in the Housing Health and Safety Rating System introduced by the Housing Act 2004. A local authority has the right to inspect residential premises for hazards.

There are 29 hazards, in 6 main areas:

• Damp and mould, excess cold, excess heat
• Pollutants including asbestos, CO, Lead, Radiation
• Space and security, light (is there enough?) and noise (is there too much?)
• Hygiene, sanitation, water supply including adequacy of food preparation areas.
• Accidents – protection from falls, slips, trips on stairs, electric shocks, burns, scalds
• Collisions – structural hazards, poor design, explosions, collapse.

An environmental health officer, usually, but not always, following a request from a tenant, can attend a property and inspect for hazards. Each hazard identified is given a score based on the likelihood of an accident happening combined with the probable harm if it does happen. Depending on the score a hazard will be either a “category 1” hazard or a “category 2” hazard.

Category 1 hazards are the more serious.   A local authority must take enforcement action. Depending on the seriousness of the hazard the first step might be to attempt to deal with the matter informally by sending the landlord a “minded-to” letter, giving the landlord a time-limited chance to remove the hazard before taking enforcement measures. If the landlord does not comply, the local authority is likely to serve

an Improvement Notice ( this requires works to be undertaken to remove or minimise a hazard); or

a Prohibition Order ( this closes whole or part of the dwelling, or restricts the number of occupants); or

an Emergency Prohibition Order (If the hazard is thought to pose an “imminent risk of serious harm to the health and safety of any occupiers” in the property, the local authority might make an emergency prohibition order).

An Improvement Notice must set out in detail what the hazard is and set out clearly what work needs doing and a date by which the works must be started and completed. A Prohibition Order must set out what works must be done  for the order to be revoked. Failure to comply with an Improvement Notice or Prohibition Order constitutes an offence.  On conviction the fine until 12 March 2015 was capped at £5000.00. It is now unlimited. The local authority is entitled to recover the costs of enforcement, including the cost of an improvement notice.

Category 2 hazards are the less serious. The local authority has a power to take action, but not a duty. It can issue a Hazard Awareness Notice but there is no power to enforce. However if the Deregulation Bill is passed into law, a Hazard Awareness Notice served on a Landlord may be sufficient to invalidate a section 21 notice if the other conditions of the proposed section 21A are satisfied.

You can read more about the fines here.

You can follow the progress of the Deregulation Bill here.

 

Filed under: England & Wales, disrepair, HHSRS, Housing Act 2004, possession

Possession claims – court fees rise again

It has been announced by HM Courts and Tribunals Service that many Court fees will be significantly increased from 9 March 2015.

The fees for possession proceedings have been further increased by £75 with the fees for claims issued via the Court’s Possession Claims Online (PCOL) system now rising from £250 to £325 and the fee for paper based claims to rise from £280 to £355.

Most will be aware that this will be a very unwelcome increase, particularly considering that the issue fees for possession claims were already increased by over 60% just last April.

The area that has seen the biggest change are money claims, as detailed below:

• The fee for claims from £1 – £9,999 will remain unchanged;
• The fee for claims from £10,000 – £199,999 will now be five per cent of the claim; and
• The fee for claims £200,000 and above will be fixed at £10,000.

The new fee increases are part of wider efforts to modernise and improve the efficiency of the courts and move towards a system which is self-funded. Understandably there has been much criticism of the increases, which will continue to add to the cost of accessing justice for litigants.

Filed under: England & Wales