Thursday 28 July 2011

Hurting tenants

The recent Benchmarks article by Richard Pates exposes the fact that the Court of Appeal has driven a coach and horses through the tenant deposit scheme inserted into the Housing Act 2004, which protects tenants against the widespread abuse by landlords of the rental deposit system.

The loss of this protection can have a devastating impact on low-income or vulnerable tenants in the current climate.

I was a solicitor for over 30 years and now run a charity which helps those on low incomes negotiate the civil justice system. We have recently had a proliferation of highly vulnerable clients who are either on the brink of homelessness, or forced to remain in sub-standard conditions because of their inability to recover deposits.

Click here to read the full article Hurting tenants

NetRent Comment

The author of this article, Joanna Kennedy, certainly has her own agenda but as our Facebook campaign 'The Damage That Some Tenants Do' shows there are two sides to this story.

The Deposit Protection Schemes are now effectively dead and the current system does not help tenants or landlords. The Government needs to act quickly to resolve this issue. NetRent do not believe that simply tightening the legislation is the answer, in our opinion Deposit Protection Schemes are not the answer, they are simply money making exercises without any real benefit to landlords or tenants.

The pity is that one of the major landlord associations also happens to run one of the three Deposit Schemes so can hardly be called an impartial observer. This could mean that landlord's views are not being represented at the highest level. The outcome is likely to be be a tightening of the legislation and a nice little earner for the NLA. Quite how this will benefit landlords is open to debate.

Click here to see our Facebook campaign The Damage That Some Tenants Do