The controversial housing and planning bill is making its
way though the Lords and is likely to become law by the summer. EHN digital
editor, Tom Wall, lists 10 things you should know about the bill, which is set
to transform social renting and push more people into the private rented
sector.
1. Housing Minister Brandon Lewis believes the bill will
give 'hard-working families opportunities to unlock the door to home
ownership'.
2. Councils will be forced to provide discounted starter
homes, with funding diverted from existing affordable housing funding. But
starter homes are not currently affordable to most families on low-and-middle
incomes.
3.The end of secure tenancies. New council tenants will be
reviewed every two to five years.
4. Pay to stay. Existing tenants earning collectively above
£30,000 outside London and £40,000 in London will be forced to move out or gradually
be charged rents at market or near market rates.
5. The right-to-buy will be extended to housing association
tenants, funded by making councils sell ‘high value’ council properties. Shelter
calculates 19,000 council homes could be sold by 2020, with 113,000 at risk in
total.
6. The worse landlords will be banned. Councils will be able
to apply to the first-tier tribunal to ban landlords who have committed serious
housing offences from letting housing, letting agency work or property
management.
7. A national database of rogue landlords and letting agents
will be set up. Councils will be able to add landlords who commit ‘banning
order offences’, which will be determined at a later date by the government.
8. For the first time EHOs will have the power to impose
fixed penalty notices for housing offences, with fine revenue retained by
councils and ring-fenced for housing purposes.
9. Automatic brownfield land planning permission in
principle. The bill will introduce a statutory register of brownfield land to
support the building of new homes on 90 per cent of suitable brownfield sites
by 2020.
10. Councils will have to keep a register of aspiring
self-builders and take them into account when drawing up future house building
plans.