Local authorities could have the power, later this year, to declare their own “no-go” zones for privately rented shared houses.This would replace the current need to obtain planning permission if a landlord wanted to rent out an existing family home to a group of tenants such as students, nurses or young professionals.
But the government’s policy of reducing the burden of national legislation on the sector could create a local mass of new red tape – says the Residential Landlords Association.
That’s why the RLA is lobbying the new housing minister Grant Shapps on his planned revision of the new planning regulations that came into force three months ago.The association has already attacked the current position - where a landlord with planning permission to rent out a shared house, and then lets it to a family, may not be allowed to switch back to a shared house at a later date.
That was part of the former government’s plans to restrict the numbers of small ‘houses in multiple occupation’ Grant Shapps, however, plans to relax that legislation but instead, from 1st October, he proposes to allow local authorities to apply the rule in areas they consider to have an HMO ‘problem’.
And that, says the Residential Landlords Association, could create ‘no-go HMO zones’.
“The minister has declared his intention to reduce the legislative burden for private sector landlords and he may achieve that at national level,” says RLA lawyer Richard Jones. “But locally this gives local authorities too much additional power.
