Representatives of the property industry will give evidence to the Parliamentary Work and Pensions Committee this week relating to the discrimination of people who receive housing benefit.
It is an important hearing because the ultimate aim is to stamp out letting agents and landlords stating in adverts that they will not accept those who are known as DSS claimants.
It is a disgrace in this day and age that those who are on benefits are excluded by landlords because of certain social associations and the Housing Minister Heather Wheeler has already told the industry to take action.
By the end of this month Rightmove and Zoopla will both take down listings that say ëNo DSS. Others are likely to follow suit and it is a start. As Rightmove pointed out in its letter to agents the term DSS is outdate anyway as it refers to the now defunct Department of Social Security.
On 24 April the committee is hearing evidence from a selection of lenders, agents and landlords including Natwest and Co-op Banks, Kensington Mortgages, Nationwide building society, Shepherdís Bush Housing Group, Hunters and Your Move estate agents and OpenRent ad platform in Parliament to give evidence on their policies. The Committee will also hear from a panel of benefit claimants and private landlords.
According to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, about half of landlords say they would not be willing to let a property to tenants on housing benefit. But, while we are seeing the first positive moves towards stamping out discrimination much more will need to be done to make this significant on the ground. Behind the scenes choices will be made.
The debate comes at a time when the letting market is looking more robust, particularly in London. The average cost of a new let increased by 1.9% nationwide to £969 per month in the year to March 2019, according to the latest rental index from Hamptons International.
The biggest rise was 4.1% in Outer London to £1,563 while Inner London saw a rise of 2.4% ton £2,655 and in Greater London rents increased by 3.7% to £1,737. Aneisha Beveridge, head of research at Hamptons International, pointed out that following a sluggish 2018, rents in London have now reached a record high, 2.3 times more than the average rent outside of the capital.
The research also looked at where London landlords are now investing and found that 59% are doing so outside of the capital. Some 34% of London based investors bought buy to lets in the Midlands and North during the last 12 months, up from just 14% in 2015 and 4% in 2010.
The latest letting data from Rightmove also shows asking rents in London soared by 8.2% year on year to a record £2,093 per month and in the first quarter they increased by 2.9%. It was the highest annual rent growth in London since Rightmove began reporting this data in 2012.
The data also shows that the reason is that demand is outstripping supply with the number of available rental properties in the capital down by 33% compared with two years ago. Supply in the rest of the UK fell by 13%.
The rental sector also has a new enforcement team, led by National Trading Standards, set up to provide greater protection for tenants in England from letting agents who charge illegal tenant fees.
It will be responsible for regulating the private rental sector in England, protecting tenants and safeguarding compliant letting agents and will provide a single combined enforcement function to protect consumers and legitimate businesses in the property sector.
It brings together new letting agency enforcement work with the existing regulation of estate agents, which has previously been operated by the National Trading Standards Estate Agency Team.
Letting agency regulation for England will be led by Bristol City Council and estate agency enforcement across the UK will continue to be operated from Powys County Council. The team will work closely with local authorities who have local enforcement responsibilities. All of this reinforces the move towards the lettings sector becoming more transparent, orderly and business like and can only be a good thing.
