In a guidance update on the Leasehold Reform (Ground Rent) Act 2022 for residential leaseholders, the Department for Levelling up, Housing and Communities has said that it will use civil penalties including fines of up to £30,000 against freeholders who charge ground rent in contravention of the Act.

The requirement for private rented properties to have an EPC rating of at least C from 2025/26 onwards appears to now be changing significantly the purchasing behaviour of buy to let landlords.

According to new research by the national residential landlords association (NRLA) 56% of english local authorities don't record the number of complaints they receive related to private rented accommodation.

The Home Office is asking for input from private rented sector landlords and letting agents on amending the unlawful discrimination provisions in the Right to Rent Code of Practice for Landlords carrying out such right to rent checks.

The Leasehold Reform (Ground Rent) bill is now an Act of Parliament. This means that once the act comes into force (in 6 months) new leaseholds will be subject to a "peppercorn rent", in other words the ground rent will be a nominal amount.

A landlord, described as a "slum landlord" has been fined a total of £57, 577.92 including £5k per offence, costs and a victim surcharge by Reading magistrates.

After changing his plea to guilty the landlord of an HMO property in Newport, Wales, had his fine for operating an unlicensed HMO reduced from £16,000 to £14,000 and was ordered to pay costs of over £3000 and a victim surcharge of £180.

An article in The Guardian has quoted Hackney MP, Meg Hillier, as being worried that many HMO tenants may not receive the fuel bill rebate promised by Chancellor Rishi Sunak because their council tax is bundled up within the rent payment that they make to their landlord.

Only 61 criminal landlords have been placed on the Rogue Landlord Database since its set up in April 2018. This is 61 out of an estimated (by the Government as justification for the database) 10,500 operating in the private rented sector nationally. The number was provided by housing minister Eddie Hughes MP to Labour MP Gill Furniss's 25 January 2022 request for an update on the current number of entries on the database.

The release of the Govt's white paper on its Levelling Up agenda has been met with mixed reviews, certainly with regard to the plans to improve property standards in the private rented sector...