Local Housing Allowance and More Changes to Policy

David Lawrenson of www.LettingFocus.com explains the “work arounds” and the sleights of hand involved in the latest changes in Local Housing Allowance funding. The government has just voted to cap rises in several benefits, including local housing allowance (LHA) base rates, at the lower of 1% or the 30th percentile of local rents – which means that in practice, in […]

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London Living Rent, Landlord Accreditation and Ken and Boris

David Lawrenson of LettingFocus worries about Ken Livingston’s idea of rent controls and says that that accreditation and registration schemes for landlords are not needed because the vast majority of landlord and tenants enjoy good relations and the minority of rogue landlords will never register anyway. Oh dear, oh dear, I spend a nice day at a CIH Conference telling […]

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Scotland Landlord Registration Scheme Review Makes Grim Reading

A new report on the Scotland Landlords Registration Scheme confirms what we have long suggested – that the scheme has failed on many of its objectives says David Lawrenson of LettingFocus. Many people, in government and elsewhere, would like to see the private rented sector “regulated” more. Of course they often have different ideas about exactly what sort of regulation […]

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Strategy for Housing and the Private Rented Sector Govt Paper is a Bit of a Let Down

So how is the Private Rented Sector (PRS) affected by the Government’s recently published new Strategy for Housing? Well, first of all, there will be an independent review of barriers to investment in the PRS. Doubtless this will be looking closely at new build to let models, where homes are built specifically for the private rental market, with funding coming […]

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