Rebalancing the law.

When there is a clear case of a tenant who refuses to pay and/or has anti-social behaviour issues, they must be evicted. Under the current system this can take up to 6 months. It's too long. Landlords with mortgages are losing properties and decent tenants are being kept out.

Already it is much quicker to evict squatters through a faster process. Landlords need something like this procedure for clear-cut cases such as non-payment of rent, anti-social behaviour or where the property is the landlord's primary residence....

Benefit Scam.

As you may know, tenants on benefit are paid their rent by their local authority and are then required to pass it on to the landlord.

Only ... a lot of tenants are not passing on the rent. Some sources estimate that the total amount of rent pocketed by tenants is over £200 million.

The landlords are suffering - and so are the tenants, because they get evicted.

We're lobbying parliament to get this system changed so that landlords are paid directly. Please add your name to the thousands of landlords who are unhappy with this situation and want to see a change....

Landlord Action calls for a Rogue Tenant List.

The Housing and Planning Bill is currently making its way through Parliament following a Government consultation on ‘Tackling rogue landlords and improving the private rental sector’. They are proposing a blacklist of persistent rogue landlords and letting agents. In response, Paul Shamplina, Founder of Landlord Action, is calling for a blacklist of persistent rogue tenants to be made public.

Some of the consultation’s key discussion points in tackling the worst offenders within the private rental sector include, introducing banning orders and civil penalties of up for £5,000 for rogue landlords, speeding up repossessions of abandoned properties and producing a rogue landlord/letting agent blacklist. It is currently suggested the blacklist of rogue landlords and agents would be available to local authorities and central Government, enabling them to keep track of those who had committed offences....

Court call-centres fuelling possession delays.

Since reporting a year ago that under-resourced county courts were overwhelmed by the number of possession claims being put forward, Landlord Action says the problem has not improved and is now being compounded by the use of call centres run by inexperienced temporary staff.  They warn other practitioners “If you want an answer quickly, be prepared to chase.”

Twelve months ago, Landlord Action employed a full-time member of staff solely to follow up claims made to the courts. They wanted to ensure they continued providing clients with an efficient service, despite the challenges via third party delays. However, with further court closures, it now transpires that some county courts are operating call centres, where temporary staff, with little or no experience, have been appointed to process claims and correspondence....

Landlord Action appeals to Ministry of Justice to transfer more evictions to the High Court.

The length of time it is taking to get a County Court bailiff appointment once a possession order has been granted, in some cases up to three months, is having considerable financial impact on landlords. As a result, Landlord Action is campaigning to enable more eviction cases to be transferred up to the High Court by county court judges.

Once a possession order has been granted, and if a tenant remains in occupation after the date possession was supposed to be given up, in the majority of cases, the landlord’s current only option is to apply for a country court bailiff to evict the tenant. However, many bailiffs do not have a free appointment for up to three months....

Why We Are Against Further Court Fee Rises.

The Ministry of Justice has proposed to charge 5% of the value of the claim to all court cases worth more than £10,000, which it estimates will bring in an extra £120m a year. A further consultation has also opened on extra charges for possession claims and general applications in civil proceedings. Possession claim fees will rise by £75, which the fee for general applications will go up from £50 to £100 for applications made by consent and from £155 to £255 for contested claims. These increases will apply equally to all applicants.We at Landlord Action are absolutely opposed to each and every one of the justifications given by the Ministry of Justice for enhanced court fees.Our responses to each of these are details as follows:-...

The Courts Want To Increase Fees Again- Say No.

Last April, landlords had to endure a 150% increase on court fee rises on section 8 claims from £100 to £250, in addition to the increased placed on the Accelerated Possession fee from £175 to £280.  Now the Ministry of Justice has announced plans to increase court fees again, by another £75 per claim, for the second year running.  This being £325 for a Section 8 claim online and £355 for a paper based claim for Section 21....

Landlord Action Delighted As ‘Revenge Eviction’ Bill Defeated.

The Tenancies Reform Bill presented by Liberal Democrat MP Sarah Teather and aimed at stopping 'revenge evictions’, has failed to secure enough votes to pass in Parliament, much to the relief of Landlord Action and other industry organisations.

Following the result, Founder of Landlord Action, Paul Shamplina, who gave evidence at the end of October to the All Party Parliamentary Group, commented “This is great news for landlords.  Whilst I fully agree that tenants need to be protected from the small minority of rogue landlords, there simply wasn’t enough evidence to support the need for more legislation, which would have impacted a large number of good, reliable landlords.”...

A Bad Week For Landlords As Court Fee Rises Come Into Effect.

Yesterday on social media the landlord community were up in arms. A story we broke of government plans to increase court fees came into effect on the 22nd of April. We have lambasted these increases as "extortionate" The changes will see fees relating to Section 8 (PCOL) claims and Accelerated (S21) claims increase by as much as 60%. As our founder Paul Shamplina rightly pointed out this could only ever be justifiable if landlords are to receive a more efficient service in return. Unfortunately this is unlikely to be the case....

Landlord Action At Government ‘Think-Tank’ Update.

Last Friday I attended my second workshop Think Tank with the governments Private Sector Property Division, in respect of Speeding Up Evictions, which was highlighted in the last report by the Government on the private rented sector, present were trade associations NLA, RLA, Landlord law, ARLA, RICS, BPF, Shelter together with the Ministry of Justice.We discussed the overriding problems, of the councils advising tenants to stay in the properties, until an eviction date was sought, which was effectively passing the problem on to landlords, as there was a massive shortage of available properties from the councils.  Should the council being offering better mediation once a section 8 notice for arrears is served.Also the overriding fact of massive amount of monies being spent by the Government of emergency temporary housing.It was clear from the Department, that the minsters did not want to mess around with ASTs....