Labour’s Mayor of Greater Manchester and former Cabinet minister Andy Burnham says this year is when he will ”get serious” about the private rental sector.
In a New Year message Burnham says: “2024 should go down as the year we got serious about housing.
“Next week, we will begin a public consultation on the new Greater Manchester Good Landlord Charter. I am grateful to the working group of tenants, landlords and other experts who have helped us draw it up, and I am optimistic about the change it will bring. We know there are many decent landlords in our city-region and the introduction of the Charter will give them a way of being recognised as such.
“That said, we know there are others who do not treat their tenants properly and do not respect our communities. For the first time, our residents will have a greater ability to distinguish between the two. Alongside the Charter, we plan to give all renters the right to request a property check and, working with our councils, we will be boosting our inspection and enforcement capability. Put simply, the days of bad landlords being untouchable are coming to an end.”
And on BBC Radio Manchester, Burnham followed up the message by claiming that the health of tenants was being "put at risk" by those who refused to pay for the upkeep of run down homes which "drag down communities”.
He stated that the city would "not accept this whole culture of landlords sometimes taking money through the benefits system, public money, and then not putting a penny of that back into their properties.”
Burnham first raised the idea of a Good Landlord Charter early in 2023, having made the commitment back in 2021.
At the time he said it would cover both the private and social housing sectors, and he commented: “Once again, Greater Manchester is leading the way and making a decisive move towards a new approach – one that we hope will join the dots between housing, health, wellbeing, and everything in between.
“From the way he led the government response to the appalling death of Awaab Ishak in Rochdale, I know that the Secretary of State understands the importance of this, and why we need better housing, stronger enforcement, and greater accountability across the board.
“So do many partners across our city-region’s social and private rented sector – which is why we want to work with them to create a Charter that is as fair and robust as possible, and establishes a clear set of expectations for landlords and tenants.
“Our devolution journey has already enabled us to make a difference to people’s lives by integrating public services and aligning priorities right across the system. Our ongoing trailblazer talks now present an opportunity for us to work with government and go even further, with greater powers and responsibility at local level, and housing is a key priority for us in this process.”
Currently, social housing providers are subject to a national set of regulatory standards, covering economic and consumer responsibilities, while a different set of standards applies to the private rented sector. But Burnham’s ambition is that a Greater Manchester Good Landlord Charter will give both sectors a clear route map to raising standards in all rented homes.
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Another muppet show boating himself. All it will do is reduce stock and harm those he reckons he’s helping. The lengths these people go to in an attempt to make themselves look so righteous is frankly quite sickening.
Stupid comments from Burnham,
"not accept this whole culture of landlords sometimes taking money through the benefits system, public money, and then not putting a penny of that back into their properties.”
Who was in the working group he mentioned? If there was any landlords in it he would not have come out with the above statement.
Peter few of us take public money as we don't touch anyone on benefits
Peter - I think Burnham has done previous consultation of rented property. No landlords involved :)))
Another one for the band wagon, landlord Charter he only dreamt up this in 2023.
What checks is he on about the Tenants wants to keep us out.
So we’ll have good landlords and bad landlords but the good landlord looses his title as soon as the first Tenant complains about him and that’s anyone.
This will affect me 🆘 let me think 🤔 will there be a charge 💵💵 too right there will 🤷♂️🤷♂️
Probably a fine when the inspector is the judge and jury as well, with the right to fine you. No doubt even minor breaches will be enthusiastically sought for so that this revenue generator brings in the loot.
In theory this sounds like a good thing if applied properly and fairly, across all tenure types and at reasonable cost. Big ifs! As with all such ideas, the devil is in the implementation. If licensing is anything to go by it will be a money making scheme, bad landlords will not join it and, due to the shortage of rental properties people will still have no choice but to rent from unregistered landlords and put up with conditions as they find them.
It will be interesting to see when and how it gets going and if it works.
Ellie
I might agree with you if there was also a Good Tenant Charter, but there's no chance of that!
Lefties always prefer confrontation and litigation over cooperation and compromise.
Few private sector employees tolerate unions in their workplace as they have been found to be counter productive but the public sector is still infested with unions and workshy employees protected by them.
This is another version of the politics of envy promoted by the lefties who won't put in the work or take the risk which allows others to become better off.
Tenant ants a property check, fine, all costs incurred will be added to the next rent increase.
Then we implement rent controls, and when you lot start crying about it, we remind you you only have yourselves to blame. Then we drink the tears.
James, who is we....?!?!
You coming on here I have never seen you ask any landlord for an opinion or even a direct question. So here is your opportunity, ask any question you like and I personally will answer for my portfolio of 11 properties both and good aspects.
@ James Turner, then you are homeless and we remind you that you have only yourselves to blame. Such a blinkered view you have.
James
Tears are salty and poisonous in sufficient volume.
Drink your fill!
Do tenants not already do a property check when they come to view the property?
Surely they need to take some accountability?
I do believe there are some landlords that need this legislation (HMO renting 10 bed houses with one bathroom to students. I have seen some awful conditions in that sector)
He is only talking about private landlords and not the council's or housing associations, I believe. Awaab Ishak in Rochdale family was in social housing. I cannot believe any landlord would rent out a property in that state or not respond to tenants about the work to be done in the property. If the social housing are not part of licensing, then it will not work at all. A lot of private landlords have started to depart the market. He talks about working with landlords, needs to have more data about this. What sort of LL's? He has an idea in his mind and no evidence of the discussions with the tenants and landlords. I have sold our property in Manchester. It was a new one bedroom flat. Never made any money. Sold it after more than 12 years later with about 5k more than I paid. Not much work needed to be done, just painting regularly or when tenants broke the front door and I paid for it, as the tenants said (via agents) that it was not their fault. The agents were expensive.
You are right. The worst landlords I've met are social housing landlords. Try getting them to do timely repairs!! I work in welfare and they are in need of an overhaul
The Awaab family were in Social Housing
I do an annual check of all my properties every January. As required by insurance. That's in addition to attending promptly for any reported issues at any time of the year. My tenants are generally helpful but they don't really see the need for it. I can't see the need for someone else to start inspecting my properties, but if they wish to do so then I think they will be wasting their time. Any tenant that was to request such a thing from local authority without first notifying me that there is a perceived problem would soon become an ex-tenant.
The whole purpose of the inspections will be to do a detailed inspection to pick up any problem however small, so that you can be fined with no opportunity to put the perceived problem right and no appeal for your accidental non compliance, as the council are inspector, judge and jury. Nice little earner.
@worried landlord you've spoken my mind.
More rules and regulation, more cost to comply which can only be passed on to the tenants pushing the costs of rental up. If the the labour party want rents to be more reasonable they need to help LL's reduce the cost of doing business and encourage more LL investment. This policy is doing the opposite.
The vast majority of LL are good people providing good quality property on very limited margins (specially after increased government taxation, removal of the ability to deduct mortgage interest as a cost of business, increased mortgage interest rates, etc, etc). Increasing the rules / regulations and consequently costs further, will just convince more LL's that it time to give up, as the politicians clearly fail to understand the basic economics of renting out property and are destroying the sector with unreasonable policy and regulations.
What’s it got to do with Burnham? Housing is not a mayoral function. Manchester annd other GM boroughs already have a landlord charter and various licensing schemes- selective and HMO. More grandstanding from the architect of The 500 sq mile Clean air Zone that cost £60m and is suspended - the greatest public waste of money.
No mention of tackling Social Housing who were the landlords of Awaab Ishak’s family, a fact conveniently ignored.
although in fairness the sad death of Awaab was 100% the fault of his bone idle parents
Once again, another spineless career politician, exploiting the fact that councils have consistently failed to enforce existing laws on rogue landlords and so more new schemes are brought in to fleece the law abiding landlords.
Rogue landlords were never untouchable - but many councils chose to ignore them because it’s more profitable to fleece the law abiding. Until people like him address these inconvenient truths, they will never have any credibility and will not fix anything.
Meanwhile, tenants in his area can look forward to more rent rises for zero improvement.
I will also challenge wholeheartedly his statement of lies that there is a culture of landlords using the benefits system and not putting a penny back into the property. There is not a culture of doing this, the majority of landlords maintain their properties. And they do not use the benefits system - tennants rely on the benefits system to pay their rents. If he wants to go down this route, he will only increase the amount of landlords that refuse to rent to tenants on benefits.
Benefit tenants cannot afford my properties.
I wouldn't have thought that the majority of landlords on this forum, actually rent out properties to benefit claimants?
Rent (not so) Smart Wales were initially setup supposedly to route out rogue landlords, but they are not proactive in doing so, instead, relying on tenants and members of the public to report any misdemeanour.
Just another Quango-like organisation that really doesn't merit the need to exist at all. 'Jobs for the boys' created by our communist inspired WAG here in Wales.
Steve, legally you can't "refuse to rent to tenants on benefits" but I suppose as long as you have a range of interested applicants and you know their sources of income, landlords will be making their own choices about whom to accept.
Landlords not wishing to tangle with the benefits system can also of course make sure that the quality of their properties justifies rents that always substantially exceed the local LHA.
The chances of getting the rent paid by tenants on benefits are little and none, they look upon housing allowance money as their own and normally keep most of it themselves
Antony yes we can refuse to rent to benefit claimants, we just cannot put '' no DSS'' in the advert, benefit claimants can waste their time viewing, but they won't be offered a tenancy
The whole Business is strangled, suffocated with rules, regulation’s and administration now more time consuming and expensive than the Housing we are supplying, any landlords that thinks is not complying and haven’t the time or money to deal with the function of supplying quality affordable housing just another computer button pressing exerciser.
Annoyed landlord. I think in many cases Benefit Tenants out bid working Tenants especially when family they have the bulk of the money from the Stare in so many ways, usually some partner there as well unofficially who can contribute, isn’t it far easier to find the extra money to top up the rent rather than having find the whole lot. I live in the real World and don’t know any family renting that are not claiming something.
My properties only suit professional singles or couples so are priced accordingly.
I do see that having an inspection done on the property by a third party can be a good idea, however I also think that it should be able to be requested by either the tenant or the landlord and the inspection should be paid for by the requester.
I also think that the tenant should be forced in law to allow access to the property for such inspections, as we all know that at the moment landlords have no such right and can be prosecuted for attempting to get access. It should also state that a representative of the landlord, tenant, and the inspection team should be present at the time of the inspection and that the whole inspection should be documented with video evidence. Failure by the tenant/landlord to attend after having suitable notice given should also be noted and the offender made to pay for any out of pocket expenses by the other parties as well as for the inspection.
Now i know that this idea won’t be put in place by Mr Burnham because it is fair and not bias towards the tenant, and we can’t have fairness now, can we?
But done by a council is not a third party, we will need to have our own independent inspections,
@Peter Lewis thank you for clarifying this whole debacle. You've arrived at a very workable solution. I hope someone will take this forward to Burnham. I am tired of Land lord blaming. We struggle every year to get access to complete inspections. Our properties are rented in excellent condition we never get them back in similar condition. We spend months between each tenancy correcting the problems and making good for next tenancy. I would happily live in any of my properties once prepared for rental.
Headlines like this freak me out and I'm close to selling up, although reading the article its not as bad as I thought and I think Andy Burnham has been good for Manchester generally. When I was buying property in Manchester I did see some appalling conditions and the estate agent had a few horror stories to tell so I do think there is a small minority of bad landlords in Manchester that don't reflect the majority. I do feel a lot of pressure to sell though and now would be a good time as two of my tenants have expressed an interest in buying their homes and another has given notice that he's moving soon. It just feels like such a bad time to be a landlord.
I think he does not have a clue about Landlords, the benefit system is of no use to landlords it wholly inadequate more trouble and hassle for Landlords and the tenants well one wrong move from them their benefits are stopped and thus rent payments. So think again Andy before you start mouthing off.
issue is ounce tenants start to expect rental accommodation be like a Hotel they should expect to pay Hotel prices
Another ignorant moron, bashing landlords to disguise the fact that he hasn't built enough social housing!
Its all hot air! they haven't got enough money to even fund the checks! Nottingham City Idiots took my nearly £1000 and never came once!
However like 99% of us , my houses were well maintained....why would we not maintain them when we have so much invested in them???
So keep going Andy and soon you will be able to take the crown from Nottingham as the city with the highest number of homeless people! Nice Work!!!!
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