October 2018

Today a number of changes related to property law have come into effect. These include: 
  • HMO licensing and regulations – properties will now require a HMO licence if there are five or more people in two or more separate households. This includes two storey households and one storey properties, removing the requirement that a licensable HMO must be three storeys. There are also new room size requirements.
 
  • Section 21 notices – sections 33 to 38 and 40 of the Deregulation Act 2015 (related to retaliatory eviction, prescribed forms, and compliance with prescribed legal requirements) will now apply to all tenancies, as opposed to tenancies commencing on or after 1 October 2015 as previously was the case. This could cause difficulties for landlords with older tenancies in obtaining possession.
 
  • Suspended possession order – there is now no requirement to make a separate part 83(2) application for permission for a warrant for breach of a suspended possession order where the breach is failure to pay rent and/or arrears instalments. 
 
  • Rogue landlord database – a local authority may place any person on the database who has been convicted of a banning order offence or has received a fine in respect of a banning order within the same 12 month period. 

The PLA’s boundary dispute protocol has recently also come into effect. We’ll be blogging about that shortly…
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