This is a question to the blog clinic from Vanessa, who is a tenant in England. Our landlord died and the property has now passed on to his son. We have a rolling 6 month contract and have lived here for 15 years. In that time, our rent has only increased once, and we are paying far below the market rate. However, there have been many issues with the house’s repair, including us having to move out twice for a considerable time while still paying rent. Many repairs are needed. The son (our new landlord) wishes to come round to renegotiate the tenancy. Question If he is giving us a new contract ..read more

Welcome to our weekly Newsround, where we bring you our selection of housing news from the past week. Well, we have now had the King’s speech, and it looks like housing law reforms are coming down the track. The Renters Rights Bill This is fairly similar to the Renters Reform bill which was lost in the ‘washup’ before the last Parliament was dissolved.  This is what the Kings Speech briefing paper said it would do: The Renters’ Rights Bill will overhaul the private rented sector, with this Government determined to take action where the previous Government failed, transforming rights for ..read more

Reading a post from David Smith recently, it seems that many Welsh landlords are using the Welsh Government’s Model Contract in an unamended form. By way of background information. From 1 December 2022, new rules have come into effect in Wales.  These include prescribed terms for tenancy agreements (or ‘occupation contracts’ as they are now called), which are now mandatory. But landlords using the model contract unamended obviously don’t realise that it omits many clauses which most landlords would expect to find.  Indeed I suspect landlords using the model contract will be shocked t ..read more

This is a question to the blog clinic from Miles , who is a tenant in England. Tenant eviction during *fixed* term of AST due to Ground 1 (former owner occupier) (of Schedule 2 of Housing Act 1988). Hello, the landlord is entitled to seek possession for this property via Ground 1 (owner occupier) – this is not in dispute between tenant / landlord. However, tenant / landlord have a dispute as to whether this Ground can be used during the fixed term or only after the fixed term has expired. Please clarify. The tenancy agreement is silent on this point (although it has stated that the landlord i ..read more

Welcome to Landlord Law’s weekly Newsround, where we bring you all the trending housing news and more. As you will know, we have the King’s Speech on Wednesday, and after that, we will know more about the intentions of this new Labour government. In the meantime here are some other news items which caught our eye this week. New EPC target due to be announced next week The department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) is expected to announce as early as next week that PRS homes will need to have reached a minimum of an EPC C rating by 2030, according to a spokesman. This was in Labours ma ..read more

As a landlord and tenant solicitor, part of my life’s work has been ‘translating’ legal rules so they can be properly understood by non-lawyers. This is important. Ignorance of the law can not (in the vast majority of cases) be a defence to rule-breaking. But how can you prevent inadvertent rule-breaking if legislation is confusing and unintelligible? For example – the Welsh housing legislation I spent a large part of 2021 and 2022 studying the Renting Homes (Wales) Act 2016 before its implementation in December 2022. Even for me, accustomed to reading legislation, it was not an easy task. It ..read more

So, we have a new government.  The Starmer government. But there is still a lot of negativity around. False extrapolation There is a tendency among people to extrapolate: Your son lounges around in his room all day, and his friends appear to be lazy layabouts. Therefore ALL young people are lazy good for nothings Your work brings you into contact with terrible landlords who charge a fortune for disgusting premises, threatening retaliatory eviction if their tenants dare complain. Therefore, ALL landlords must be overcharging and refusing to comply with their legal obligations. Many millio ..read more

Our first Newsround under a Labour government.  A historic day. A new Labour government A pretty resounding victory for Labour, which some landlords will be apprehensive about. Hopefully their fears will be largely groundless although there is absolutely no doubt that section 21 will be abolished as soon as this can be managed. Good news for landlords will be that, hopefully, the economy will stabilise ushering in more prosperity – which should mean fewer rent arrears!  Hopefully also, there will be financial assistance for landlords to effect the ‘green’ improvements to their proper ..read more

This is in some ways unfair on landlords. Here is a tenant living in the landlord’s property and paying no rent. The landlord, in the meantime, still has to pay the mortgage and other expenses on the property, is responsible for keeping it in repair, and cannot repossess without getting a court order.  Which can take anything between six months to a year (sometimes more). Landlords are fairly unique in that they are forced to continue providing a service when the customer (in this case the tenant) is failing to pay for it. Restaurants are not expected to carry on providing meals to peopl ..read more

It looks as if Labour (if they win the election on Thursday, 4 July) will be looking to update the school curriculum. One thing I would like them to consider is basic legal education in schools. Why some basic law should be taught in schools Everyone is deemed to know the law, and in most cases ignorance of the law is not allowable as a defence. However, in point of fact many people have only the vaguest idea about our legal system and how it works. So, surely, our education system should help people understand the legal system and equip them for life. For example: The difference  betwee ..read more