Buy to let and shared home landlords renting out homes in Wales face another raft of new legislation.
The Welsh Government has already started a principality-wide licensing scheme and now wants landlords to complete a rental checklist covering almost 30 points for every tenancy.
Some of the checks are at a change of tenancy, while others are ongoing obligations.
The consultation also wants landlord views on a new tenancy contract to replace assured shorthold tenancies.
On top of this, landlords with private rented homes in Wales are also subject to new energy efficiency regulations that start in April 2018.
The Renting Homes (Wales) Act 2016 calls for landlords to carry out electrical safety checks every five years and to fit and test working smoke and carbon monoxide alarms at the start of each tenancy.
The law also adds more than 20 other checks, including:
- Monitoring damp and mould problems
- Detecting asbestos and other artificial fibres in a property
- Assessing carbon monoxide, lead, fuel gas and electrical hazards
- Managing excess cold and heat
- Improving security so intruders cannot easily enter a home
- Maintain adequate sanitation and drainage, noise controls and domestic hygiene, including pest and waste control.
- Provide clean water supplies, avoid overcrowding
- Check for lighting and trip hazards
Welsh Government communities’ secretary Carl Sargeant said:
“Quality homes are crucial to people’s well-being. We all know poor living conditions affect a person’s physical and mental health.
“Poor housing conditions such as overcrowding, damp, and cold have been linked to respiratory diseases as well as illnesses such as eczema and hypothermia.
“Housing should go beyond putting a roof over people’s heads. Everyone should be entitled to live in an environment that is as safe and healthy as possible.
“There is a need for us to address poor housing conditions, alongside our ambition to raise standards generally.”
What are the Guild’s responses to the new raft of proposals?
We attend various stakeholder meetings with Assembly members and staff both during consultations and then during implementation. I sometimes think we should live in Cardiff! These are all minuted but I’m not quite sure where the information is accessible. I will take a look and see if I can find out. All responses are provided when a response to a consultation is made by the Welsh Government.
I was hoping to read them so that we (as landlords) could respond to the consultation in a more complete and informed manner. Thanks
Increasing responsibilities are having two effects with landlords I know, they are either increasing rents to cover the additional burdens or selling properties as they are sick of the hassle of dealing with tenants.
Also the older landlords are increasingly looking to exit the market when their next 5 year licence expires and put the profits from sale in the bank instead of income from rents and dealing with multiple people in retirement and who can blame them from wanting some peace.
There is a noticeable shortage of rental properties in this area and I feel it is going to grow into a crisis over the coming years when the tax changes start to bite as well.
It seems shortsighted to me, but maybe there is method in the madness, when individuals get priced out then corporations with their tax perks will have an open market to charge what they want.
I was contacted to respond to the consultation but cannot find much detail about what is proposed. The information given above is spine chilling.