Petitions Seek Better Tenant Protections

Campaigners aiming to improve housing conditions for private renters and social tenants are backing a scheme to regulate service charge disputes.

The Social Housing Action Campaign - SHAC for short - wants to link private landlords and social housing groups to make public housing less commercial.

SHAC secretary Suzanne Muna is spearheading a petition at Parliament that has garnered 1,650 signatures in a call to set up a regulator to arbitrate service charge disputes.

"Unreasonable and inaccurate service charges can cause immense financial and psychological strain on those affected - renters, shared owners and leaseholders," says the SHAC petition.

Selective licensing protest

"Although laws already exist specifying that charges must be accurate and reasonable, many people are expected to pay up then seek refunds.

"We feel this and other factors put people challenging charges at a huge disadvantage in the current judicial system. None of the proposed new housing laws address this enforcement gap."

Leftwing activist Simon Fletcher is calling for the government to repeal a law allowing councils to set selective licensing zones for buy-to-let homes and shared houses in multiple occupation (HMO).

Fletcher claims councils may implement selective licensing in neighbourhoods without considering the impact on diverse communities.

His petition has attracted 983 supporters.

Second home tax

New petitions include a call to make squatting or entering a home without permission of the owner or tenant a criminal offence (113 signatures) and a plea to charge property owners an annual tax costing between 5 and 10 per cent on second homes that are not a home for the owners or let at a social rent (114 signatures).

Here are this month's petitions impacting landlords and buy-to-let property:

• Create and fund third party regulator scheme for service charge disputes 1,650 signatures
• Revoke The Selective Licensing of Houses (Additional Conditions) Order 2015 983 signatures
• Improve regulation of letting agents including new statutory regulator 148 signatures
• Make it a criminal offence to enter a domestic dwelling without permission 113 signatures
• Introduce a new secondary property tax 90 signatures
• Impose rent caps in major cities to stop rent hikes by landlords 67 signatures
• Allow letting agents to access tenants' criminal records before accepting 55 signatures
• Ban credit checks and requiring tenant income to be 30x monthly rent 46 signatures
• Abolish Section 21 'no-fault' evictions with immediate effect 41 signatures
• Implement a dynamic Land Value Tax 36 signatures
• Ban insured deposit protection schemes 33 signatures
• Exempt properties rented by three unrelated people from HMO rules 25 signatures
• Review and strengthen enforcement of housing and equality laws in rental sector 24 signatures

At 10,000 signatures, the government makes a written response to the petition, while those reaching 100,000 signatures are considered for a debate by MPs.

Click here to go to the Parliament website and a full list of petitions.