Fighting against the rising tide

The rising tide of legislation impacting landlords shows no sign of abating.  Just as global warming is causing sea-level to rise, lettings legislation is causing landlords to drown.

From mandatory HMO licencing, to mandatory information for tenants and minimum EPC standards the burden of rules is ever-increasing.  It is now all too easy for good self-managing landlords to forget something and find themselves in breach of their obligations.  For others, they are being let down by their agents, who have not kept up to date themselves.

The most recent example of this is was recently reported in Property Industry Eye which reports that landlords inadvertently granting assured tenancies rather than the Assured Shorthold Tenancies they had intended.

It means that they will always be unable to use Section 21 notices for repossession.

Judgment in a court case last year has led to what could be ‘thousands’ who thought that they had complied with the law – but now find that they haven’t.

Furthermore, attempts to put right a simple administrative error would be out of the question.

In last February’s case, Caridon Property Ltd v Monty Shooltz, it was ruled that a landlord who failed to give the tenant a current gas safety certificate before the start of the tenancy, could not put it right by issuing it after the tenancy began.

The judge ruled that under the Deregulation Act 2015, failure to issue a gas certificate before a tenancy begins invalidates any subsequent Section 21 notice. The mistake cannot be corrected.

In Caridon Property Ltd v Monty Shooltz, District Judge Bloom ruled that because the tenant had only been served a gas safety certificate 11 months after the tenancy began, a prescribed requirement had not been complied with.

The landlord had served a Section 21 notice on the tenant, but the Judge ruled this invalid.

Normally, rulings in county courts are not treated as binding or as legal precedents. But it is reported that the ruling in Caridon Property Ltd v Monty Shooltz is likely to be considered definitive by other courts.

Until the case, landlords – and agents – who had failed to issue a gas safety certificate at the prescribed time, would do so later before serving a Section 21 notice.

Following last year’s case, the legal community and landlord bodies had widely expected the Government to address the issue by amending the AST and Gas Safety Regulations, arguing that it had never been intended to impose such draconian requirements on landlords.

Many self-managing landlords’ will be well advised to appoint a reputable letting agent that is a member of a professional body such as The Association of Residential Lettings Agents (ARLA) so that they are properly advised and through their agent ensure that they remain on the right side of the law.

It seems that Government just can’t stop meddling in the buy to let sector – the abolition of mortgage interest rate relief, the ban on fees charged to tenants, ever-draconian requirements of landlords to protect tenant interests.  None is well considered, do nothing to improve the market but do appeal to the 5million voters who privately rent their home.