News

LEGAL & PROPERTY MANAGEMENT UPDATE 2019

LEGAL & PROPERTY MANAGEMENT UPDATE 2019

At Ridgeway, we have an ongoing commitment to receiving up to date training to enable us to give our clients the best possible protection in the ever changing world of Property Management.

On Tuesday 14th May, all our staff that are involved with rental property spent the day with a vastly experienced lecturer. It gave us a valuable update on the recent and impending changes that will affect you and your property.  

There are over 770 different pieces of legislation that, may affect your rented property and we will endeavour to share the important changes that affect you.

TENANT FEES ACT 2019

This comes into force on 1st June 2019 and will affect all new and all renewed tenancies. It will not affect any current periodic tenancies until 1st June 2020.

From 1st June, we will not be able to charge a prospective tenant or guarantor any fees aside from a few specific instances -

We will no longer be able to charge a tenant or guarantor for the referencing. We currently charge £300 and more if a guarantor is required and are sure you would agree, it is essential that your prospective tenant is satisfactorily referenced before a tenancy begins.

If any property maintenance is required, that we would currently hold the tenant responsible for, eg baby wipes blocking a WC, if they don’t agree with the contractor’s findings, they could refuse to pay the charge and there’s nothing initially we can do about it. 

That charge would then have to pass to the landlord. We would have to try claim the expense back, as and when a tenancy ends through the deposit, utilising notes, quotes and invoicing as supporting evidence.

The only exception to this would be for lost keys or the requirement to change locks due to tenant damage.We will no longer be able to hold a deposit that equates to more than 5 weeks rent. We will no longer be allowed to take a pet bond.

SECTION 21 NOTICES

You may already be aware that Government have decided to investigate abolishing Section 21 Notices. We do not foresee this happening for a few years yet but no doubt it will mean another raft of changes imposed.

It is essential though that we keep up to date with current requirements because there are many reported instances where notice has been incorrectly served. Much of the time this is due to the tenant not having received all of the key papers to effect notice so it becomes null and void. It also means that you might not be able to get possession of your property.





EPC

An EPC is valid for 10 years and currently must be a minimum E rating. All of you are at least an E rating but a minimum rating of D is not too far around the corner. For those landlords currently with an E rating, we will be contacting you to establish what can be done.Some of the EPCs have expired the 10 year point. There is no requirement to actually renew it until the property is remarketed to rent or indeed for sale.

HEALTH & SAFETY

As a landlord, you are responsible for the safety of your tenant or any visitors to the property. Whilst it doesn’t currently specifically cover electrical inspections, (which we will detail later), it is a bit of a catch all requirement. The bottom line is, and we accept this is a worst case scenario example, if someone died at your rented property due to faulty electrics or Legionella, you, as the landlord, could be sued for manslaughter.

For all properties under full management, if we haven’t already started, we will undertake a Risk Assessment and continue thereafter on our visits. Our systems already highlights the safety certificates in place and when they expire. 


GAS SAFETY

This is an annual requirement and certainly all landlords under full management are compliant.

ELECTRICAL SAFETY

Whilst not specifically noted as a requirement, we have long been recommending it is undertaken. The requirement is for it to be renewed every 5 years.

We understand that this will become mandatory by 2020 and expect the certificate to be a required document to enable notice to be served.

LEGIONELLA

Again, not specifically mentioned as a requirement. As many of you will know, I think this one is down to the common sense of the occupant and is unlikely to affect a residential property. But, you as the landlord are responsible for the safety of the tenant and, if something is wrong with the water system, you would be in the firing line.

Most of our landlords already have a Legionella inspection, which is done every two years. we will be contacting those that don’t have a report on file.

PRESCRIBED INFORMATION

This is the three page document that attaches to the main tenancy agreement. In most instances, at the moment, we sign on behalf of a landlord.

However, a recent Court case where a Section 21 notice was being contested, the Judge dismissed the notice because the page had been signed by an employee. It seems nit-picking but, in order that we make sure you are compliant, we will need to arrange for you to sign at least this part of the agreement.

We are investigating facilities such as DocuServe whereby you, and the tenants for that matter, will be able to sign online. The facility will also date stamp all the relevant documents and certificates that we need to provide to the tenant at the beginning of a tenancy so, on signature, there can be no dispute what has been provided.

In the meantime, we are likely to either post, email, or invite you to the office to sign the relevant form.

DEFECTIVE PREMISES

This is largely covered by Health & Safety but since March 2019, there has been a 29 point check list that needs attention known as The Fitness for Human Habitation.

We are already undertaking Risk Assessments and, as noted previously, we think the best way to show a written record will be to include it within our quarterly inspection reports


Carbon  ALARMS

This is expected to a mandatory requirement from the Autumn of 2019.

An alarm will be required in all rooms with a gas or oil appliance.

LANDLORD REDRESS SCHEME

Ridgeway are members of a redress scheme, the PRS. There is currently no requirement for self managing landlords to be a member of such a scheme – but it’s coming. The suggestion is that this won’t be until sometime in 2020 but all self managing landlords will need to belong to a redress scheme.