Welfare Rights and Social Policy by Dean Hartley;

Author:Dean, Hartley;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Group

Rent regulation

Protected or regulated tenancies, where they survive, are those that still enjoy ‘traditional’ Rent Act protection; specifically under the Rent Act of 1977. Protected tenants enjoy the right to have a ‘fair rent’ determined for their tenancy by the rent officer. Since this right would be valueless if tenants who availed themselves of it could be evicted by their landlords, the legislation also affords security of tenure (see below). Certain tenants with what were called ‘restricted contracts’ were excluded from full protection. Either tenants or landlords can apply to have a ‘fair rent’ registered for a letting and, once registered, that rent becomes the maximum rent that can legally be charged. Applications to review the registered rent can be made periodically. The rent officers who determine and register ‘fair rents’ are independent public officials employed in local offices. In registering ‘fair rents’ they are required to ignore the effect of market conditions and to assume that no scarcity value attaches to rented accommodation. The number of tenancies over which rent officers have jurisdiction is tiny and declining, though they now have an entirely new jurisdiction under which they are called upon by local authorities to determine ‘reasonable rents’ and ‘reference rents’ for the purposes of limiting the amount of HB payable (see above).

Prior to the 1980s, it was assumed that, because public sector landlords and charitable bodies such as housing associations did not seek to return a profit, it was not necessary for their tenants to have special legislative protection. The Housing Acts of 1980 and 1985, however, introduced the concept of the secure tenancy and gave the tenants of local authorities, and of other public bodies and housing associations, a form of security of tenure broadly similar to that enjoyed by protected tenants. However, no specific legal mechanism is available to local authority tenants by which to challenge the level of rents, though, because they are elected bodies, local councils remain in principle democratically accountable: a council tenant enjoys political as well as legal rights against her/his landlord. Additionally, local councils have been required since 1980 to establish consultation procedures and, since 2000, Tenant Participation Compacts, though such arrangements do not give tenants any control over rent levels. Rents for local authority tenancies have remained, in theory, at the discretion of councils, albeit with a requirement that rents should, in time, approximate more closely to the market rents charged in the private rented sector. The financial regime imposed on councils by the 1989 Local Government and Housing Act restricted the discretion of local authorities and in effect forced council rents to rise. Housing association tenancies had once been subject, like protected tenancies, to the ‘fair rents’ scheme, but housing association tenancies granted since the enactment of the 1988 Housing Act are no longer secure tenancies; they are assured tenancies and rents are governed in principle by the same rules as for other assured tenancies. None the less, housing associations and the expanding range of not-for-profit housing companies –

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.