A new and wide-ranging inquiry into the Private Rented Sector is to be conducted by an influential cross-party group of MPs.
Regulation of all landlords and letting agents is on the table – something which previous housing minister Grant Shapps always steered away from, but something for which current minister Mark Prisk has shown an appetite.
The Communities and Local Government Select Committee, chaired by Clive Betts, will also be looking at whether to introduce rent controls.
Its look at whether to regulate all letting agents will include their fees and charges.
Jane Ingram, president of the Association of Residential Lettings Agents, said: “We welcome the inquiry by the Communities and Local Government Committee into regulation of letting agents.
“ARLA has long campaigned for statutory regulation of letting agents, and with more people living in the Private Rented Sector than ever before it is time for the Government to finally take action.
“Currently anyone can set up as a letting agent without any qualifications or knowledge about their legal requirement. This is simply not good enough, and means that consumers can be taken for a ride by rogue agents.
“We look forward to inputting into the inquiry and making the case for greater regulation of the sector.”
The CLG Committee is inviting submissions from interested parties covering the following issues:
• the quality of private rented housing, and steps that can be taken to ensure that all housing in the sector is of an acceptable standard
• levels of rent within the private rented sector – including the possibility of rent control and the interaction between housing benefit and rents
• regulation of landlords, and steps that can be taken to deal with rogue landlords
• regulation of letting agents, including agents’ fees and charges
• the regulation of houses in multiple occupation (HMOs), including the operation of discretionary licensing schemes imposed by a local authority for a category of HMO in its area
• tenancy agreements and length and security of tenure
• how local authorities are discharging their homelessness duty by being able to place homeless households in private sector housing.
Submissions of no more than 3,000 words are invited by 11am on January 17.
Full details are available on the link:
http://tinyurl.com/8fghrcm
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Comments
It occurs to me that ARLA seems to take a bashing from people who can't be bothered to take the qualification. What good is NALS if all you have to do is sign on the dotted line and pay a fee!!
Every letting agent should be qualified no matter which regulator they are with.
Surprise Surprise! being a member or former member of RICS has nothing to do with the Right Honourable Minister's U Turn on Licencing.
Captain Manwearing-thin couldn't bludgeon this through while he was at NFOPP so now one suspects a bit bit of schmoozy lobbying is going on.
Lets turn the heat back onto the MP's shall we? lets discuss renting out properties to each other and claiming expenses whilst so doing http://bit.ly/WFRrZo
Wouldn't one of thought they would have learnt their lessons last time around?
Am I missing something here?
Have ARLA actually said they want the job or are people just assuming that, because Jane Ingram made a comment supporting the aims of the inquiry, it is a given that they will get it.
ARLA are just seeking another gravy train as government-appointed regulator.
I have encountered a high number of both landlords and tenants who think ARLA is a government body, and give them undeserved respect because of that misapprehension.
All the points about membership / trade bodies not being impartial regulators are quite correct, likewise a training provider cannot be either because they want to sell you more and more soporific training courses that don't actually teach anything useful.
If a new regulator is indeed needed, suffice to say that it must not be ARLA in the interests of creating a successful regulatory environment.
@David Worthington
I agree entirely, just a cursory look back at the history of the PRS in this country reveals the effects of rent control; a decline in investment in residential accommodation.
This is all fine and dandy when there is an alternative available to people who have to rent like local authority housing but currently there isn't. If investors see their investments failing they will start to pull out of the market.
Before the first world war 90% of housing stock was privately rented; the government of the time moved to apply control and it steadily declined to the point in the late 80's where it was only 7% of the market. This was assisted by more local authority housing being available at the time and the 'good times' following the second world war when owner occupation was made easier.
Giving tenants more security of tenure and lowering or capping rents will have the same effect imho. If they do go ahead then it needs to be tempered with legislation to make it easier to be rid of non paying and troublesome tenants.
As a landlord, I have had far more problems with tenants than agents.
It would make a lot of sense to license tenants in order to prove that they understood what they were doing. In many cases tenants are the authors of their own disasters. Living above their means, spending the rent money on other items, damaging property and then objecting to losing their deposits are all manifestations of their inadequate knowledge.
From my point of view a good tenant gets my full attention. Losing them and having to find a new tenant costs a lot of money. It is far cheaper to help them as much as is needed within common sense reason. It would be a great help in vetting a new tenant if they had a certificate to show that they were competent to live in a rented property.
Ah well, must stop day dreaming. I think everyone should take clear note of past experience. Too much regulation makes letting unprofitable and the funny thing is that landlords simply stop letting out properties. I well remember the days of rampant socialism and the lack of having anywhere to live. During that time I had occasion to work in the Soviet Union. They all had somewhere to live but the quality was absolutely appalling. Their housing was totally regulated.
Changing the topic from licensing to another of the proposals.
Why is the Select Committee to look at ways of rent control. This has proved disastrous in the past.
The Rent Acts of 1957, 1965, 1967 and 1977 ensured that finding rented property was virtually impossible. I still have copies of those Acts, sad to say!!
The Housing Act 1980 started to reverse that effect, and of course the Housing Acts 1988 and 1996 have made renting property far easier.
Could rent control if intoduced could prove a greater problem to agents than licencing?.....discuss.
In Regulation is to come, it should not be a trade body.
A trade body priority is (should be) to look after the interests of it's members.
If they feel more regulation is desirable they should poll their members.
I feel it is time to start a real trade body that lobbies in the interest of it members and does not would to be a regulator, which is the task of goverment.
It will be interesting to see what solutions they come up with to deal with rogue agents; clearly the present system of dealing with rogue traders isn't being applied too closely.
Dan Robinson on 2012-10-23 10:02:55
SMARTagent on 2012-10-23 10:46:18
Current legislation is not being enforced?
The country does not have the funds to enforce it?
Get that right first?
Further legislation will cost more and would fail - for lack of funding - whoever was responsible for compliance?
Governments are forever passing laws - but do not do the estimated costing at the same time.
Industry Observer, as you say it should be NALS and if the ODPM / CLG had ensured that their significant funding had been administered by directors who shared a regulatory belief in the public interest it would have been.
To make RICS, ARLA & NAEA responsible for the governance of a publicly funded body who all saw (particularly ARLA) the fledgling organisation as a threat always simply beggars belief.
ARLA have always wanted regulation, as long as they provided it. If there is regulation / establishment of an industry standard, then it must be industry wide not restricted to trade associations with their own commercial agenda's.
Well said Mark (apart from the Goody TWO Shoes). If rent controls and regulation of agents' fees are brought in then we may as well have voted Labour!
Transparency is the key,
regulation of agency's will benefit everyone, if it benefits the consumer who is to complain, only the rouge landlords that exist to rip off the good honest people that are renting a property from the only people that have a property to that it will not benefit are the rogue landlords that exist because they think they can do what they want,
if this stops who is to complain?
Mark has a strong point.
Voting or recommending yet MORE legislation over their own occupation, when the current legislation is not being enforced, is stupid. It is also similar to turkeys voting for Christmas!
No need for anyone to get agitated over this it will just be another talking shop, Unless and until one or more of the major parties has licensing of agents (and Landlords?) as a policy and in an election manifesto no-one is committed to anything.
And even then they have to win the election and after that not have more imprtant things to think about and give Parliamentary time to.
Don't worry about ARLA riunning any such licensing scheme either. They have been pistioning themselves to do so for about 20 years now and are getting nowehere fast.
They will not be the licensing scheme administrator and award the licences as they put the final shot in their own feet with their ridiculous attitude towards SAFEagent.
If it is not a completely new Quango it will be NALS
Oh, for goodness sake Mark. It's goody TWO shoes!
ARLA, please allow business to flourish, please allow the unregulated agents to continue to do business as they have done for years without breaking the law and without having to be licensed by you, please let them dictate how they want to run THEIR businesses and charges so if people don't like it they have the choice not to pay it...
ARLA, please step down from your throne, please realise that fees are there for a reason and they are market led, so they increase and decrease at different times. Monthly rents are market led also and will increase an decrease due to supply and demand.
Haven't we all had enough of organisations, licensing bodies and general goody too shoes poking there noses in? I can't stand people who make comment on something as if they know best when they don't actually run/own or are actively involved in it on a day to day basis. Easy money ARLA, huh? Well I would say that ARLA's business is even easier money, I would love to set up a company name, set down some rules, charge a fee for it to the members then dictate to them how they should run their business as well as back government talks an initiatives to decrease the amount of money my members will make... Joke? Not really, more of a sad state of affairs that shows how easy it is for an organisation like ARLA to shape our PRIVATE lettings industry. Oh I almost forgot... As well as specialising in the world of lettings and the rules that they think should be in place, they also have excellent knowledge in auctions agents, commercial business agents, the residential sales market and its agents and wait for it... Inventories too!
They're so clever!
For further details google "Landlord Registration Scotland" and dont let the title fool you. Landlord Registration includes all agents.