2012年7月1日 星期日

Lets Have a Fine Time Landlords - Lets Get Fined!



Landlords letting property in England and Wales are more susceptible to fines than ever before, under the Localism Act 2011

Fail to register or protect your tenants' deposit - fine! Fined up to three times the value of the deposit that is! And fail to provide the prescribed information within 30 days of receipt of your deposit and you can be sued up to six years later, yes even following your tenants departure. So your ex tenants might find themselves in future penury, unable to buy a new car? "I know, now what is my old landlords name from five years ago? I'll get them to pay!" And pay they will. Pay day might take on a new meaning, deposit day.

Fail to market a property without attaching an EPC - another fine! And, you may no longer be a, "fit and proper person", to licence a property.

Fail to update a gas safety certificate - fine or worse! Go to jail, do not collect £200 instead pay many times more in compensation to your victims

Fail to Licence a Licensable property - fine! And, denied use of section 21 Accelerated Notice to Quit!

Fail to comply with Council Improvement Notice - fine or worse!

Fail to register for Data protection via ICO - fine!

Personally this is all just fine by me. As a landlord and letting agent, I am tired of being tarred with the same brush as non-compliant landlords.

Localism Bill 2010 from 15 November 2011 became Localism Act - a five part Act one of these parts - housing affects Deposits:


How will new rules affect landlords / agents?

Landlords accepting deposits will have tighter rules of compliance or face a minimum fee of 1 times the value of the deposit or up to three times the value for serious breaches. Starting to feel not so fine? There's more!

In addition, landlords can be sued for up to 6 years after the tenancy ends where landlords return deposits but, fail to provide the prescribed information and register deposits within 30 days.

And that's not all - the section 21 (Accelerated Notice to Quit) is not available to non-compliant landlords, so no sympathy from the courts if your tenants do not pay their rent!

This came into effect on 6 April 2012. Letting agents and landlords that do not take deposits are unaffected.

Deposits taken prior to the protection scheme was introduced are not regulated i.e. pre 6 April 2007 UNLESS you have renewed meantime.

No renewal means no need to register.

So a continuing periodic tenancy originating before 2007 is not required to be registered until renewed

Localism Act re EPCs:


A remnant from Hips, EPC rules changed from 6 April 2012

For now it is important that landlords and agents provide an EPC with all marketing material or face fines and loss of reputation.

From 2018 under the Green Deal any property with a certificate rating below 'E' will be banned from the lettings market. I.e. 'F' and 'G' will be un-lettable without additional work to raise the rating. Leydon Lettings have no properties rated as low as this so is unaffected




Bob Leydon. For more information, see author's website: http://www.leydonlettings.co.uk





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