Asked by: Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many meetings of the Commonhold Council there have been since its formation; and how many scheduled meetings of the Council were cancelled.
Answered by Baroness Scott of Bybrook - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities)
The Commonhold Council has met regularly since it was convened in 2021 and no meetings have been cancelled.
Asked by: Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask His Majesty's Government what plans they have to make the leasehold enfranchisement process easier for residential leaseholders.
Answered by Baroness Scott of Bybrook - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities)
The Government has committed to making enfranchisement cheaper for leaseholders by reforming the process of valuation they must follow to calculate the cost of extending their lease or buying their freehold. We will abolish marriage value, cap ground rents in the calculation, prescribe the rates to be used and introduce an online calculator.
Asked by: Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to their white paper A fairer private rented sector (CP 693), published on 16 June 2022, what progress they have made on the establishment of the Property Portal.
Answered by Baroness Scott of Bybrook - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities)
We are conducting ongoing policy and digital development which has included user research with potential users of the portal, such as private landlords, property agents, local authorities and private renters. We will continue to conduct testing of potential solutions for the property portal to make sure the system works for different users. Announcements will be made in the usual way.
Asked by: Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask His Majesty's Government when they will allow the public access to the rogue landlords database.
Answered by Baroness Scott of Bybrook - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities)
Local authorities are responsible for uploading records on the existing Database and removing entries when they have expired. The Database does not distinguish between landlord and property agents' entries. There are currently 56 entries.
The Government will bring forward legislation to reform the private rented sector, this will include – as set out in the Government’s white paper – a Rented Property Portal which will make certain details relating to landlord offences viewable to tenants and prospective tenants.
Asked by: Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many landlords are on the rogue landlords database.
Answered by Baroness Scott of Bybrook - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities)
Local authorities are responsible for uploading records on the existing Database and removing entries when they have expired. The Database does not distinguish between landlord and property agents' entries. There are currently 56 entries.
The Government will bring forward legislation to reform the private rented sector, this will include – as set out in the Government’s white paper – a Rented Property Portal which will make certain details relating to landlord offences viewable to tenants and prospective tenants.
Asked by: Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to ensure freeholders and managing agents of residential property are transparent with leaseholders on the makeup of fees and charges they levy.
Answered by Baroness Scott of Bybrook - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities)
Announcements of future legislation and policy will be made in the usual way.
I refer the noble Lord to the Secretary of State’s comments on leasehold reform (attached) here.
Asked by: Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask His Majesty's Government what plans they have to introduce a bill to reform or abolish leasehold as a residential tenure in the next session of parliament.
Answered by Baroness Scott of Bybrook - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities)
Announcements of future legislation and policy will be made in the usual way.
I refer the noble Lord to the Secretary of State’s comments on leasehold reform (attached) here.
Asked by: Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask His Majesty's Government what estimate they have made of the amount of money collected by local authorities through fees and charges that are not council tax, business rates and rents for social housing.
Answered by Baroness Scott of Bybrook - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities)
Sales, fees and charges income is reported in local authorities' Revenue Outturn returns and totalled £13.973 billion in 2021-22, the latest year for which these data are available. This excludes council tax, business rates and housing revenue account income.
This information is publicly available (attached) in table 2x here.
Asked by: Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask His Majesty's Government what recent assessment they have made of the adequacy of the bands used for calculating council tax.
Answered by Baroness Scott of Bybrook - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities)
As the Secretary of State set out recently, we keep all such policies under review.
Asked by: Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they made (1) to inform their plans for a no-let period of three months, after an eviction for sale, and (2) of whether this is long enough to deter unscrupulous landlords from abusing the grounds for sale.
Answered by Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist
The Government is clear that misuse of the new grounds of possession and any attempt to find loopholes within our reforms will not be tolerated. We are engaging widely with stakeholders to assess the impact of our enforcement proposals and consider what action is necessary to prevent landlords misusing grounds for possession.
Where a landlord wishes to gain possession to sell their property, they will need to be prepared to provide evidence in court to prove that this is their intention. Introducing a ban on re-marketing and re-letting will allow tenants to more easily demonstrate misuse of the grounds – they can, for example, show that a property has been marketed online. Our assessment is that a three-month restriction acts as an additional deterrent by increasing the costs of misusing a ground substantially and is likely sufficient to prevent a rogue landlord from profiting by immediately re-letting the property at a higher rent. However, we recognise that landlords’ circumstances can legitimately change and the three-month restriction provides a balanced and proportionate approach, ensuring that good landlords are not unfairly burdened if this happens.
The three-month restriction is one part of a comprehensive approach to enforcing the new tenancy regime. Other proposals include giving local authorities the powers to issue fines to landlords and allowing tenants to seek redress through a new Ombudsman covering all private landlords.