Deregulation Bill

Debate between Lord Best and Baroness Noakes

Wednesday 11th February 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Noakes (Con)]

My Lords, I support the amendment to the amendment, moved by my noble friend Lord Howard. In principle, preventing retaliatory evictions is a very good idea for all the reasons that have been given by my noble friend and the noble Baroness. I want to focus on two aspects, one of which my noble friend raised in one of his amendments; that is, the 14-day limit provided for under subsection (2)(b)(i) of the new clause proposed under Amendment 46A. I query with my noble friend the Minister whether 14 days is a reasonable timeframe. I declare an extremely modest interest as a landlord of one property.

I just cast my mind to what might happen. I often go on holiday for more than 14 days. If, God forbid, one were ever in a dispute with a tenant—I have no current expectation that I would be in that position—it would be quite easy for a tenant seeking to make use of these provisions generally to cause trouble and to take advantage of one’s being out of the country and not being available for 14 days. As my noble friend’s amendment suggests, 28 days seems more reasonable on that basis.

The second thing I want to raise with the Minister is what would be an “adequate response”, as provided by subsection (2)(b)(ii) in the amendment, which is defined in subsection (3). I ask my noble friend the Minister: how will the adequacy of the response be judged? What is a “reasonable timescale” and who will judge what that is? I could not see in the amendments how any disputes about this process were capable of being dealt with. There needs to be certainty about how the processes will work. It is not entirely clear to me that a response can be quickly identified as being adequate or not, given the wording in subsection (3) of the amendment.

[Lord Best (CB)]

My Lords, I support this group of government amendments. I declare my interests as on the register, in particular as chair of the council of the Property Ombudsman, which handles complaints about property agents—traditionally about estate agents but today more about letting and managing agents in the private sector. I am grateful to Shelter and the British Property Federation for helpful briefings.

I want to address the concerns raised by some representatives of private landlords that this effort to end retaliatory evictions in private rented housing could become a charter for mischievous tenants to prolong their tenancies when they know that the landlord wants them to leave. I want to answer the question: could tenants raise spurious complaints about their property unnecessarily, unfairly or even maliciously, in order to frustrate their landlord and to secure an extra six months or so of occupation? If that was the outcome from that measure, it is argued that it would deter investment, put off potential buy-to-let landlords and slow the growth of this sector.

The private rented sector has more than doubled in size over recent years and we now have some 1.5 million private landlords. Properties that in times past would have been sold to home buyers have instead been snapped up by buy-to-let landlords. Some observers would welcome a slow-down in this shift from owner-occupation to private renting. However, outlawing retaliatory evictions seems very unlikely to put a break on this phenomenal growth. Only the minority of really hopeless—or actually criminal—landlords will be affected.

These measures will bite only where the landlord has not only ignored a request from the tenant for rectification of a serious problem but has also ignored the local authority when it has spelt out that the landlord is in breach of their legal duties. Local authorities will have to visit the property and be satisfied that there is a serious breach of the requirements and that the property is not safe and not free from grave health hazards. The council will then have to issue a formal improvement notice, not a simple hazard awareness notice. That is not an action that is taken lightly by local authorities and they will do so only if the landlord has failed to do anything to rectify the problem. Only after the whole process has been concluded and the landlord has done nothing will the tenant gain an extension to the tenancy. These are pretty extreme circumstances and it would take a truly obdurate or completely incompetent landlord to fail to do what is required by the council.

Nor can the Bill be used as a last-minute delay to hold up an eviction. If the tenant is challenging an eviction notice, they will have to prove that they made the complaint about conditions before the eviction notice was issued. The tenant will lose the ability to challenge the eviction notice if they do not do so within the two-month notice period, and the Bill specifically prohibits renters from raising any issues that are their own responsibility. Environmental health officers are well trained in assessing whether a defect has been exaggerated or manufactured by the tenant. Prior to serving formal notice, the landlord will be given time to address the problem, and proper law-abiding landlords will act before matters reach the stage of the local authority serving the improvement notice which would delay the eviction.

This measure can catch out the shameless landlord of a slum property seeking to remove a tenant who complains in order to find someone else who is prepared to tolerate extremely poor conditions, but it does not provide any help to the tenant who tries to use this as an opportunity to fend off a perfectly valid eviction notice. I think that it is a modest change in the law and there should be no anxieties that unscrupulous tenants can use it to make mischief. There may be some tweaks to be made to the small print which would improve the amendment, and I would not stand in the way of modest changes, but the core components of the measure represent a positive step forward. In combination with the other important new requirements in this set of amendments to enforce proper standards, this measure will support the process of driving out criminal landlords.

Regrettably, among the hundreds of thousands of new landlords in recent years, there are indeed some who lack not only competence but the financial resources to keep their properties in a decent condition, let alone to engage professional agents to manage the lettings for them. Frankly, these landlords are not up to the job, and if this measure flushes out even a handful of them, it will have been worth while. For the great majority of proper landlords these changes are good news because they target unfair competitors who undermine the reputation and the public’s perception of this very necessary sector. I strongly support this group of government amendments.