Housing and Planning Bill (Eighth sitting)

Brandon Lewis Excerpts

Thursday 26th November 2015 Public Bill Committees

[Mr Thomas]

I appreciate it.

[The Minister for Housing and Planning (Brandon Lewis)]

Further to that point of order, Sir Alan. To be helpful to the Committee, I suggest that the hon. Member for Harrow West looks at the National Housing Federation website, where the deal is published in full.

Clause 48, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 49

Recovering abandoned premises

[Teresa Pearce (Erith and Thamesmead) (Lab)]

I beg to move amendment 110, in clause 49, page 22, line 10, at end insert—

“(e) the local housing authority responds to a request by the landlord confirming that they suspect the property to be abandoned.”

This amendment would require the local housing authority to confirm that they also suspect that the property is abandoned before a landlord can recover the abandoned premises.

Part 3 of the Bill makes provision for private landlords to recover abandoned premises. We appreciate the need for some landlords to recover abandoned premises, but the proposed measures give landlords dangerous powers to evict tenants with speed and ease.

Tenancies are formal legal agreements and the Bill will give landlords the power to repossess homes from tenants without going through a court process. The turnover period for recovering abandoned premises is too short and the Bill does not provide safeguards for genuine cases of someone legitimately being away from the property, such as for a long holiday, a stay in hospital or a short period of working away.

The proposed measures will lead to further pressure on our already stretched social housing and local authority housing departments as evicted tenants turn to their local authorities after eviction. At the moment there is a timetable and a process for a local authority to help people avoid homelessness by trying to get them into another property, but the process in the Bill is too speedy and people will literally be turning up at the housing department having just been given a second letter.

As drafted, the measures go against the spirit of the Bill that we debated in our scrutiny on Tuesday, namely to crack down on rogue and criminal landlords with banning orders, the database and the fines and to drive up standards throughout the private rented sector. Instead, as they stand, the provisions create a way for some landlords to evict without recourse to the courts and with ease and speed.

Part 3 gives the impression of being put together at the last minute, without thought for the impact on existing legislation. In fact, the impact assessment, on page 43, indicates that the Government are unsure about how big the problem being dealt with even is, so we are concerned about the inclusion of the measure in the Bill. We are not alone in expressing concern.

Shelter and Crisis, two of the leading charities in the sector, released special briefings on those clauses in part 3, strongly opposing them and recommending that they be removed from the Bill completely. They were particularly concerned that vulnerable tenants could be unintentionally evicted, that tenants will be unable to challenge eviction effectively and that there is insufficient evidence that abandonment is a real problem. They also said that there is existing legal provision to deal with genuine cases of abandonment. In addition, they believe that by undermining the role of the courts in the eviction process, the changes will put more tenants at risk of homelessness.

Many representations made to the Committee in written and oral evidence noted concern about the proposals. In written evidence, Crisis highlighted:

“The Bill creates a new ‘fast-track’ eviction process for landlords to reclaim possession of a property which”

they believe

“has been abandoned”,

and that:

“There is no robust evidence to suggest that abandonment is significant or widespread”.

Crisis cited the Bill and the Government’s own impact assessment, which I just mentioned, in which landlords’ associations representing approximately 1.4 million landlords estimated that only 1% of calls to their helplines relate to abandonment. From that figure, the Government have extrapolated that only 1,750 tenancies are abandoned every year, which amounts to 0.04% of private rented households.

The Housing Law Practitioners Association also expressed concern in its written evidence, saying that the HLPA was unaware of any evidential basis suggesting the need for such a power and did not understand what was thought to be defective in existing law. Looking more closely at the legislation, the HLPA noted that the trigger rent arrears are plainly modelled on those in schedule 2 of the Housing Act 1988. If rent arrears are not paid, the landlord is already entitled to a mandatory possession order on ground 8 of the Act.

If the landlord already has a right to mandatory possession, why does he need a right to bypass the court? I would be interested to hear why the Minister believes that the clause is necessary, because it puzzles me. The HLPA also raised concerns about the reinstatement provisions, noting that if the landlord re-lets the property after recovering possession using the abandoned property route and the original tenants seek reinstatement, the court is very likely to refuse them, given that reinstatement would take effect as a concurrent tenancy but would not entitle the original tenant to resume occupation.

In addition to the written evidence, I remember clearly questioning Campbell Robb, chief executive of Shelter, in the evidence sessions. I remind the Committee of that discussion. To quote the transcript, Mr Robb mentioned

“potentially some unintended consequences of bringing”

these measures

“forward and of the lack of court oversight or local authority oversight in making sure that the proposals achieve what is wished but that they do not give a licence to some landlords to use them in a way that we would not support. I just want to put that on record.”

Mr Robb also went on to highlight the danger that,

“without that due process, certain types of landlords may use this to create evictions”

and agreed that it might

“put additional pressure on local authority housing departments by people appearing evicted without due process”.––[Official Report, Housing and Planning Public Bill Committee, 10 November 2015; c. 59, Q153-156.]

Although many have concerns about the proposals as they stand, others note that they are unnecessary. Crisis and Shelter reminded the Bill Committee in their briefing and in written evidence that there is already legal provision for cases of abandonment, in the form of the legal rule on implied surrender.