Well known provider of landlord advice services, Paul Shamplina of Landlord Action, has been reported as seeing a rise in the number of landlords seeking recovery of rent arrears from former tenants after securing repossession of their properties.

Oxford City Council has announced that the Govt has signed off on approval of the city's selective licence scheme which will cover the whole of the private rented sector in Oxford comprising 30,500 properties (49.3% of all homes in the city).

In an eye catching statement the housing charity Shelter has said that new research that they have carried out shows that a section 21 eviction notice is served on a tenant every 7 minutes (no reason need be given by a landlord for serving this type of notice which gives the tenant 2 months to vacate their home if the notice is correctly served by the landlord). In addition, the charity says that, over the last 3 years, 230,000 such notices were served even taking into account the 14 month long eviction ban in place during the pandemic.

The Govt has announced that the movement of "legacy" benefits claimants to universal credit will resume next month. The process, which had been paused due to the pandemic, is set to be completed by the end of 2024 and includes all those currently still claiming housing benefit rather than universal credit.

DLUHC says "future home buyers" will see their "prospective property bills reduce" when the ban on most leasehold ground rent charges comes in to effect in June this year and that ground rent charges "provide no clear service in return and can be set to escalate regularly, with a significant financial burden for leaseholders".

After a successful prosecution under the Environmental Protection Act Hill City Council has given a warning to landlords that "there will be consequences" for failure to manage accumulated household waste at rented residential properties in the city.

Arguably, the April 2022 report into regulation of the private rented sector by the House of Commons public accounts committee (PAC) didn’t really tell us anything that we didn’t already know...

Following a joint investigation by ITV and The Guardian it has been revealed that the Salvation Army has failed to carry out repairs and rectify a number of category 1 and 2 hazards (under the Housing Health and Safety Rating System) in around 40 of its properties in Hadleigh, Essex.

ARLA Propertymark says that it has been asked by the BBC to survey its members on their views about the state of the private rented sector and the reasons behind the current shortage of private rented housing stock.

The Local Govt Association has said that its local authority members are warning that criminals are cold calling residents and asking for their bank details so that the government's £150 energy bill rebate can be processed and paid into the bank account of the resident receiving the cold call.

The chartered institute of environmental health has expressed strong approval for the recommendations of the report, published last week, of the Commons public accounts committee looking into regulation of the private rented sector.

A property manager operating an unlicensed HMO on behalf of its owner has been fined £6,500 along with £4,172 in costs and a £190 victim surcharge at Gwent magistrates court.

In 2019 an independent review carried out for the Government concluded that Selective Licensing is an effective tool for use by Local Authorities in dealing with private rented sector housing problems in their areas. But, and certainly in the current pandemic related financial situation, can partnership working be an improvement on the current way of working for Local Authorities that decide to use the Selective Licensing tool available to them?

The Supreme Court in the case of Trecarrell House Ltd v Rouncefield has rejected the tenant's appeal against the Court of Appeal's decision that where a landlord has previously obtained a gas safety certificate which is still in date when the tenant moves in but provides a copy to the tenant after the tenant has moved in.

The influential Public Accounts Committee which scrutinises government spending, value for money and efficiency has concluded that regulation of the private rented sector in England and Wales is not up to scratch.

The Debt advice charity Stepchange has said, in its January 2022 client insights report, (published in March) that two thirds of its new clients are renters with 35% in the private rented sector and 31% renting from a council or housing association.

Coventry city council has, for the first time, applied for a banning order against a landlord after a successful prosecution for failure to comply with HMO management regulations.

Whilst welcoming the Govt's "ambition" to improve the UK's long term energy security the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health says it is dismayed much needed energy efficiency measures have been excluded from the strategy in the context of spiralling living costs.

A Brighton landlord who had already been given permission in December 2021 to turn a 4 storey family home into a 5 bedroom HMO has been refused permission, on a subsequent planning application, to turn the living room into a 6th bedroom.

A landlord in Sheffield has settled a case against tenant rights campaign group ACORN and been awarded nearly £100K in damages and costs after suffering a campaign of harassment, intimidation and defamation by the group.

The Govt has published a very comprehensive factsheet outlining the protections for leaseholders included in the Building Safety bill which, when it comes into law, will see (post Grenfell tragedy) primary responsibility for remediation costs fall on building developers rather than residential leaseholders.

The Government's new right to rent code of practice comes into force from today. The code covers (amongst other things) who can occupy residential accommodation, what agreements come within the scheme and who can be liable for penalties.

Leeds City Council estimates that 200 to 300 private landlords have not yet applied for their selective licences in the city's Beeston Hill selective licence scheme which started in 2020.

The LGA has published updated guidance on support for Ukrainian nationals fleeing from the war with Russia who are or will be new arrivals in the UK.

A landlord who sought to blame his agent for allowing his property in Camden, London, to become an HMO without it being licensed such that it operated as an unlicensed HMO for 2 years has been fined £20,000.

Whilst welcoming aspects of the Chancellor's spring statement in relation to home energy costs Propertymark and Energy UK both come to the conclusion that the challenges of current market conditions mean that the Govt will need to do more...

At a council cabinet meeting on 22nd March Portsmouth Council gave approval for a public consultation to be commenced on a new city wide additional licensing scheme.

A recent report from the BRE (Building Research Establishment) estimates that the annual total cost to the NHS of treating patients suffering from the impact of their living conditions in properties within England is around £1.4 billion per year.

Evidence that just because streets were deserted during the Covid-19 pandemic "lockdown" it didn't mean all was quiet on the home front comes from the recently published CIEH annual Noise Survey for 2020/21.