Deregulation Bill — House of Commons, 2015-03-10
Topic: Housing
Thomas Anthony Brake (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): I thank the hon. Gentleman for that helpful intervention. He thinks that the figure is lower, at 6,000 evictions. I said 80,000, and then generously halved it for him to 40,000. If it is indeed 6,000, then that is 6,000 retaliatory evictions too many. His amendments would facilitate the process of retaliatory evictions, which the Government are, instead, seeking to avoid The amendments would extend the time within which a landlord must respond to a request for a repair from 14 days to 20 working days. This Government believe that renting out a property is a business and that tenants should be able to expect a much swifter response to a complaint than 20 working days—in other words, a month—particularly where the problem is serious. To clarify, this time frame is only for responding to the concern raised, not fixing the problem. There is a further amendment to the effect that any complaint must be within the scope of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985. However, that legislation is not the framework under which local authorities operate for the purposes of inspecting a property and deciding whether there is a health and safety risk to the tenant. Inspections are carried out under the Housing Act 2004 and involve checking for the presence of 29 potential hazards in the home Amendment 5 would remove protection against retaliatory eviction where a landlord intends to sell the property within six months. However, the proposed legislation already provides that it does not apply where, at the time when the section 21 eviction was served, the property was generally on the market for sale The next amendment would provide that protection against retaliatory eviction does not apply where a landlord wants to move into or redevelop the dwelling, or the dwelling is subject to a compulsory purchase order, or the landlord needs vacant possession to comply with a legal duty to carry out works in the building. Compulsory purchase orders are rarely used, but even where they are, the acquiring authority would become the landlord and could terminate the lease under separate powers The final amendment would introduce a five-year time limit on the life of the legislation or require that a review shall be commissioned within three years of the legislation coming into force. As the hon. Gentleman will be aware, it is standard practice to evaluate legislation after a certain period, and we will of course do this. However, we do not necessarily believe that the issue of retaliatory evictions will be resolved in five years, so we do not want to limit the powers as they stand Where a landlord wants to move back into a property that they are renting out, the legislation will not prevent them from doing so, provided that they follow the normal process and deal with any repairs before a local authority becomes involved. The legislation contains safeguards to ensure that a tenant cannot benefit from making spurious or unfounded complaints. A complaint in itself will not be enough to trigger protection against retaliatory eviction. In all cases, the local authority will have to confirm that a repair needs to be carried out and that failure to do so would probably involve a serious health and safety risk to the tenant. In addition, the legislation makes it clear that a tenant cannot claim protection against retaliatory eviction where they have failed to treat the property in a tenant-like manner—in other words, to take care of it, rather than to damage it wilfully and negligently—including by carrying out small jobs around the property.