Two weeks ago David Cameron delivered his immigration speech which had a couple of key items of interest to landlords:
1) Confirmation that the ‘Right to Rent’ scheme where landlords are responsible for checking the immigration status of prospective tenants, will definitely be extended past it’s current pilot in The Midlands and rolled out nationwide.
2) The introduction of a new mandatory licensing regime.
More information on ‘Right to Rent’ can be found here and while it would have been interesting to see the results of the pilot before committing to nationwide rollout, it is actually the second item that has caused most concern.
There was little detail in the Prime Ministers speech about this licensing scheme except that it had the objective of ‘cracking down on those landlords who cram houses full of illegal migrants’.
However now the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG), has provided more detail. They have said that the scheme would be applicable only to shared housing or Houses of Multiple Occupation (HMO’s) and specifically reviewing the parameters for mandatory licensable HMO’s.
Currently a licensable HMO is a house of thee storeys or more with 5 or more tenants. Whereas a shared house is just anything from three people in two or more households (i.e. where the three people are not all related). Naturally the speculation is that the parameters will be widened to perhaps include properties with two storeys and/ or fewer tenants.
Apparently there will be consultation before any changes are made. If you have a shared house it will be worth looking carefully at developments.
If you are concerned about the impact that either of these items will have on your rental property please contact the office.
At Belvoir Lettings Enfield don’t sell property, we are lettings specialists, but we do guide people based on our experience as to what might make a good buy to let property investment in the Enfield, Haringey and Barnet areas.
