Common Sense Prevails !!

[Melboy]

It's not so much that I thought it was a fairly good idea but the real turn-off for me was you just knew it was going to be yet another stealth tax imposed on an easy target of Landlord's but the worse nightmare would have been dealing with the local government beauracratic nightmare and that would not just mean getting through on the phone to speak to the right person in charge!!

You can tell that my experence of dealing with local council officials has not been too good over the past years.

So, in balance.......good riddance I say.

Mel.

Article follows.............

The well-meaning but flawed national register of UK landlords will not be brought forward by the current Government, it has been announced...

Housing Minister Grant Shapps told the House of Commons that the register, proposed in a report almost two years ago by York academic Julie Rugg, would not go ahead. Earlier in the week, he had suggested that a national register could well be ‘another HIPs' and would not encourage further investment in the private rented sector.

‘The Government has no plans to create any burdensome red tape and bureaucracy, so landlords are able to continue providing a service to tenants,' said Shapps. His decision has been widely welcomed by the industry.

‘We are very pleased that the Government is rejecting previous attempts to introduce a register. It was the wrong way to go about raising standards in the private rented sector and would not have rooted out rogue landlords. In fact, we believe the likely consequence could have been to penalise the law abiding, while at the same time driving the worst landlords under the radar,' said David Salusbury, chairman of the National Landlords Association.

Ian Fletcher, director of policy at the British Property Federation, said landlords had lost all confidence in the ever more complex simple registration proposals and will be glad to see the back of them.

‘It would be a pity, however, to also jettison a number of Rugg's sensible recommendations, for example extending self regulation across the agency sector, which has the support of agent, landlord and tenant representatives. These at least deserve a fair hearing, before the minister decides what to do next,' he added.

‘The importance of the private rented sector at this juncture cannot be stressed enough, with two out of every three new households at present finding their first home in the sector. There a number of issues stacking up that need the new government's urgent attention: encouraging future investment from institutions and individuals, HMO planning constraints, returning choice to local housing allowance, tenancy deposit scheme compliance,' he explained.

John Heron, Paragon Mortgages' managing director, welcomed the decision to scrap additional red-tape for the UK's private landlords, but said that ignoring letting agent regulation is a mistake.

‘There are no mandatory controls of letting agents at present, leaving both landlords and tenants at the mercy of the rogue elements that unfortunately blight the sector, undermining the good work carried out by the majority of agents. We have seen agents leaving landlords and tenants out of pocket all too often during this economic downturn by running off with deposits and rent,' he explained.

‘The vast majority of the UK's tenants are happy with the service they receive from their landlord and additional regulation was unnecessary and burdensome. The private rented sector is critical to the housing market going forward and needs to expand to ensure that it continues to meet growing demand from tenants. Tenant demand is already exceeding the supply of private rented properties, resulting in rental inflation. Reducing bureaucracy and red-tape will encourage further investment in the sector, but the Government should also examine how it can increase supply through, for example, helping to widen buy-to-let mortgage availability and creating a tax regime that supports long-term and sustainable investment from landlords,' Heron added.

The Association of Residential Landlords Associations said it was extremely disappointed that the government is not pursuing regulation. ‘This move risks seriously hampering the improvement of standards in the Private Rented Sector, the sector's reputation, and the fundamental role it plays in the wider housing market as well as failing to protect the consumer who has nowhere to go when there is service failure or fraud. A minimum requirement must be surely be consumer redress and protection of all funds taken from the public not just tenants deposits,' he said.

‘We have long campaigned for the introduction of compulsory regulation of lettings agents, along the same lines as our own member-led licensing scheme launched last year. Currently, any person or organisation can become a letting agent. Until that is changed via national regulation, unprofessional, unqualified and unethical operators will continue to exist, to the detriment and expense of consumers and the market as a whole,' he added.

Source: www.propertywire.com