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Housing

27 March, 2015

Duty of Letting Agents to Publicise Fees etc. (Exclusion) (England) Regulations 2015

New regulations that specify persons that are not letting agents for the purposes of Chapter 3 of the Consumer Rights Act 2015.

27 March, 2015

Allocation of Housing (Qualification Criteria for Right to Move) (England) Regulations 2015

New regulations that ensure that where a local housing authority uses a local connection requirement as a criterion to decide whether a class of persons are qualifying persons for an allocation of housing accommodation, they must not apply that criterion to certain persons.

27 March, 2015

House of Commons Library note on Housing Health and Safety Rating System

New briefing note explains the old Housing Fitness Standard and the reasons for its replacement with the Housing, Health and Safety Rating System before giving an overview of how the new HHSRS works.

27 March, 2015

Sharing solutions toolkit

New resource from Crisis to help organisations working with homeless people moving into shared accommodation.

27 March, 2015

Deregulation Act 2015

New Act which includes a number of provisions relating to housing including measures to prevent retaliatory eviction.

27 March, 2015

Tenants frequently ripped-off by fees often hidden by letting agents, says Citizens Advice

New report - Still Let Down - calls for letting agents’ fees to be banned to protect tenants in the private rental sector.

26 March, 2015

Nine per cent increase in number of households living in temporary accommodation

New statistics from the Department for Communities and Local Government also show that there has been a 6 per cent increase in the number of households accepted as homeless in the last quarter of 2014 compared to the last quarter of 2013.

26 March, 2015

Addressing complex needs: improving services for vulnerable homeless people

New policy paper from the Department for Communities and Local Government setting out the issues around 'complex needs homelessness' and exploring what more could be done to improve outcomes in the future.

26 March, 2015

House of Commons Library note on accommodation and financial support for asylum seekers

New briefing note highlights that asylum seekers who are destitute can apply to UK Visas and Immigration for accommodation and/or financial support but also points out that local authorities are responsible for providing support to unaccompanied asylum seeking children.

24 March, 2015

Housing (Wales) Act 2014 (Consequential Amendments) Regulations 2015

New statutory instrument provides that Chapter 2 of Part 2 of the Housing (Wales) Act 2014 (help for people who are homeless or threatened with homelessness) is added to the homelessness functions that may be contracted out by local authorities under the Local Authorities (Contracting Out of Allocation of Housing and Homelessness Functions) Order 1996.

24 March, 2015

Majority of council tax will soon be spent on community care, says Local Government Association

New analysis shows that, of every £1 of council tax collected by councils in 2019/2020, 60p will be spent on caring for the elderly, vulnerable adults, and vulnerable children, up from 41p in 2010/2011.

24 March, 2015

DCLG confirms that Audit Commission will close on 31 March 2015

Communities Secretary sets out details of its replacement by 'a new, leaner, framework which, whilst it retains the knowledge and expertise of the commission where it has value, will create more freedom and flexibility for local public bodies, replacing top-down inspection with local accountability'.

23 March, 2015

Government responds to Competition and Markets Authority report on residential property management

Response accepts 'vast majority' of recommendations including in relation to redress, improvement of transparency and communications and mediation.

20 March, 2015

Government responds to council tax powers of entry consultation

Government says that it has decided to proceed with amending the Valuation Office Agency’s powers of entry as proposed in the consultation paper, to provide 'protection from unnecessary and intrusive visits into taxpayers' homes'.

20 March, 2015

Housing (Scotland) Act 2014 (Commencement No. 2) Order 2015

New regulations that bring into force, on 1 April 2015, specified provisions of the Housing (Scotland) Act 2014 in relation to local authority powers to enforce 'house condition works', in furtherance of the Scottish Government's policy intention that people should live in good quality homes.

20 March, 2015

Local Government Ombudsman saw 27 per cent fewer homelessness complaints in 2014

Ombudsman reports that, while it is apparent that individual councils nationally have been taking steps to deal with this difficult issue, cases are still being seen where authorities make errors in their handling of homelessness applications.

20 March, 2015

12,000 teenagers aged 16 and 17 present to their local council as homeless every year

New report from the Children's Society finds that half of these are never properly assessed and calls for all 16 and 17 year olds who present as homeless to get a full assessment from children’s services so that, even if they do not need somewhere to live, all their needs are met and they can be properly supported into adulthood.

20 March, 2015

More information needed before a decision can be made on banning letting agents’ fees

New report from the Communities and Local Government Committee concludes that to determine the likely impact of introducing a ban on letting agents’ fees in England the net impact on tenants in terms of rents, access to property and other costs, including agents’ additional fees, would need to be assessed.

18 March, 2015

Sub-letting and sharing of space in private fixed-term and periodic tenancies

In Budget 2015, government announces intention to legislate on preventing the use of clauses in private fixed-term residential tenancy agreements that expressly rule out sub-letting or otherwise sharing space on a short-term basis, and to consider extending the prohibition to statutory periodic tenancies. (Paragraph 2.235)