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.