Amnesty International has described the criterion of being intentionally homeless, used by english local authorities when deciding whether or not they have a statutory duty to provide accommodation to someone who presents to them as being homeless, as being "outdated and cruel" and says that it should be scrapped.

Oldham council's new selective licensing scheme will go live next week on July 4th and any non exempt privately rented properties in the designated areas will need to be licensed from that date in order to be rented out.

East Cambridgeshire DC has announced that it is revising its private rented sector enforcement policy and that it has opened a public consultation on the revision saying that it "would particularly like to hear from anyone who rents privately, and from landlords, letting agents and landlord/tenant associations.".

In a criminal case currently (June 2022) being heard before Canterbury Crown Court a Thanet based letting agency and its staff are accused of an orchestrated campaign of violence and vandalism directed at tenants.

On 4th May we reported on a case - Rakusen v Jepson - heard in the Court of Appeal concerning rent repayment orders (RROs) and noted that, following that court's decision, the case would now go up to the Supreme Court. The NRLA (national residential landlords association) has announced that it has now applied to "intervene" in the appeal to the Supreme Court.

Additional licensing of smaller HMOs is to commence in West Bromwich on 1st July 2022 under a licensing designation made by Sandwell borough council.

A letting agent fined by Greenwich council for falsely claiming to belong to a client money protection scheme (CMP) was correctly fined £12,500 by the council according to a judge who said that the fine was "fair and proportionate". The tribunal hearing was held after the agent appealed against both the amount of the fine and its imposition in the first place.

“Reform” of the private rented sector (PRS) has been a long time coming, so long that it’s often seemed like every administration, no matter the political colour, has in the past been scared off by the size of the task.

Many of us are aware, not just from TV screen images of queueing ambulances outside hospitals but from our own personal experiences or those of family or friends, that our health service is under very serious strain. If more proof were needed then the news that, such is the backlog, 6.5 million people in England alone are awaiting hospital treatment, should be proof enough.

The Govt has now made available the white paper on rental reform that it announced on 16th July.