Review of Private Rented Sector Housing
A response by
THE RESIDENTIAL LANDLORDS ASSOCIATION
to the Review of Private Rented Sector Housing
published today – 23 October 2008
by Julie Rugg and David Rhodes
of the Centre for Housing Policy at York University
for Communities and Local Government
RICHARD JONES – Residential Landlords Association lawyer:
“At last … an independent report that appears to understand how a largely misrepresented private rented sector really works and the potential it has to make a genuine contribution to the national economy and housing market.
“The Residential Landlords Association - whose members own over 100,000 private rented properties throughout the UK - shares the belief in having a wider variety of accommodation, of differing types, within a sector where scarcity is the biggest problem. But instead, of late, we have suffered the same kind of ill-conceived, ill thought-out, poorly implemented legislation that imposes growing regulatory burdens on so many UK businesses.
“We also believe in landlords being regarded and treating differently too. The report is correct about the lack of understanding, at national and local government levels, where policymakers have leaned more towards increased licensing and statutory controls, with criminal sanctions for non-compliance. That is not the way forward. The answers lie more in raising the levels of professionalism, training, education, accreditation, self-regulation …and working to do more together than we can ever achieve separately.”
Here at the RLA, we have made the review available for download and have also published our full response to the review. To see this and to have your say, please click here