News

Under a landmark court case heard in York County Court on 1 July, a tenant challenged a letting agent for rejecting her application for a privately rented property on the basis of her being in receipt of housing benefit, and won her case.

This week, Secretary of State Thérèse Coffey took questions from the Economic Affairs Committee on the economics of Universal Credit. As part of this she told MPs that she does not want to see a return to the widespread use of direct rent payments to landlords with tenants in receipt of housing benefit, despite praising the new online Alternative Payment Arrangement system which makes setting up direct payments much quicker.

Did you know that under the Electrical Safety Standards in the Private Rented Sector (England) Regulations 2020, from 1 July 2020 landlords will be required to have property electrics checked at least every 5 years by a properly qualified person. The electrics must meet certain standards and landlords must give their tenants proof of this.

Today (13th May 2020) The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has launched a new online system to allow rent payments, from tenants in receipt of Universal Credit, to be paid directly to Private Rented Sector (PRS) landlords. The new system for arranging these Alternative Payment Arrangements replaces the two existing UC47 forms cutting the processing time down from in excess of three weeks to just two hours in some cases.

We understand that amidst these uncertain times, there is an enormous amount of new information being released every day. One of the things we are hearing is that, because every individual’s circumstances are different, landlords are finding it difficult to cut through all of the information in order to access what is relevant to them.

Concern about the COVID-19 outbreak is mounting around the world with the situation developing and changing fast. We are all having to take steps to deal with the issues that arise as a result of this unprecedented situation, but with so much information landlords and tenants are finding it difficult to decipher fact from fiction.