Here is the annual report from the HCA.
Every organsiation has a risk map – make sure that the content of this is thorouhgly embedded or be prepared to explain why.
Sector_Risk_Profile_September_2015_full
They are the common risks for most landlords and what the HCA suggests you do to mitigate them
The government has committed to increasing free childcare hours for 3- and 4-year-olds in working families from 15 hours per week to 30 hours per week, for 38 weeks of the year. Increased investment in childcare is clearly to be welcomed. High quality, affordable childcare and early years education achieves three key outcomes: better child development, higher maternal employment, and greater gender equality.
However, there are concerns that the government will significantly underfund the planned extension, and that this will result in a poorly-delivered policy with negative outcomes for families and for the sustainability of the sector.
This briefing explores two key concerns.
There is also a broader question about whether the government’s proposed reform is the best and most strategic way to invest in childcare. We propose the following alternatives, which would better achieve the outcomes of increasing maternal employment and equalising school-readiness across socio-economic groups.
The lack of strategy for the 3- and 4-year-olds offer reflects a broader short-termism in childcare policy. In this briefing we argue that the government should develop a long-term strategy for childcare that corrects historic imbalances, and utilises the extensive evidence base to design a system that delivers better outcomes for families.“
The government has decided against exempting all supported housing from the 1% rent cut, an official document has confirmed. An impact assessment of the policy, said “a complete exception for supported accommodation has been considered but is regarded as disproportionate”.
Providers of ‘specialised supported’ accommodation are unlikely to have to reduce rents by 1% over four years, as laid out by the Welfare Reform and Work Bill.
However, sector figures have said very few properties are classed as ‘specialised supported housing’.
According to Inside Housing:
“Such housing usually has to offer ‘a high level of support’ for residents, receive no or negligible public subsidy, and have been commissioned in line with local health, social services or Supporting People strategies.
The impact assessment added: “We are considering whether the existing definitions are appropriate in light of the revised policy and will be setting out details in secondary legislation and working with the sector to ensure regulations laid out under Clause 20 of the bill protect vulnerable groups.
“Housing providers will be able to apply for an exemption from the rent reductions where financial viability is threatened. Excluding specific vulnerable groups on the face of the bill from the rent reduction policy change, with no prior evidence that it was needed, would raise serious questions of fairness and lead to a negative impact on protected groups.”
According to the National Housing Federation, a large provider of supported housing estimates that the change would lead to the loss of 104 schemes, including 228 spaces in domestic violence services.
The impact assessment also said the rent reduction would have “no impact on the majority of social housing tenants”.
This is because the two-thirds of social tenants who receive housing benefit will have their claim reduced when their rent goes down.“
The Charity Commission has raised concerns over the National Housing Federation’s voluntary offer to extend Right to Buy to housing association tenants.
In a statement responding to a letter from shadow housing minister John Healey, the commission said it raised “a number of concerns” about the Right to Buy extension with the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) during meetings earlier this summer.
In a statement on Friday, the commission said “there are aspects” of the new Right to Buy voluntary offer “which reduce some of the charity law concerns” it had previously rasied with the DCLG.
It said: “However, they [the new plans] also raise, as did the original proposals, issues about their impact on how trustees administer charitable housing associations in the best interests of their beneficiaries for the public benefit.
“The commission will be speaking to National Housing Federation (NHF) and DCLG to explore these further and contribute to the detail of any proposals taken forward in the coming weeks.”
Home HA has revealed details of a new ‘flexi rent’ scheme, which it claims can deliver affordable housing without government grant.
Home Group will publish a paper later today outlining its plans for a new development model specifically tailored to attract institutional investment.
The model would enables a developer to change the make-up of a large mixed tenure development in order to ensure a continual level of rental income.
A ‘flexi-rent’ scheme would have set a target for rental income, locked into a planning agreement, and the provider would be able to switch the tenure of homes between market and affordable rent to meet this target.
If market rent levels dropped, homes would be converted from affordable to market as they became void to hit the target, which would rise with inflation.
The mechanism means investors are protected against a fall in real rent levels of up to 20%. Home Group believes it would be attractive to institutional investors seeking a stable return.
Homes would switch tenure when a tenancy ended, meaning the scheme would have to be large enough to provide a churn of properties and allow for conversions to react to market rents. The scheme would require a specific type of planning consent to allow the flexibility to switch tenures.
Mark Henderson, Home Group chief executive, said to Inside Housing:
“’Flexi rent’ would allow us to build homes for those who are able to pay 100% market rent and also cross-subsidise rents to levels as low as 65%.”
Poor or late data submitted by housing associations to the regulator is undermining the Homes and Communities Agency’s new system of in-depth assessments, Julian Ashby has warned.
Julian Asbhy: Poor data returns reflect “poorly on the provider’s control environment.”
The Homes and Communities Agency’s (HCA) regulation committee chair, said the HCA will later this month downgrade the governance rating of an unnamed “repeat offender” over its data submissions.
It will be the second landlord penalised by the HCA in the space of three months for submitting late, incomplete or inaccurate data returns.
Mr Ashby also revealed that the HCA has written “several warning letters” to housing associations in the past six months over the issue.
Under the new system of in-depth assessments (IDAs), landlords are subject to more intensive but less frequent scrutiny. Mr Ashby said the HCA has freed up time for IDAs by making better use of data submitted by landlords.
Mr Ashby said: “This key trade-off is being undermined in some cases by continuing problems with late, incomplete or inaccurate data returns.
“This gives us an unwanted data cleansing role and reflects poorly on the provider’s control environment. Boards need to ensure that they give this area the consideration it deserves.”
A poor regulatory data return was partly behind a decision by the HCA in July to keep St Mungo Community Housing Association at a ‘G2’ rating for governance despite improvements on VFM ‘G2’ means providers comply with HCA standards but need to improve.
Mr Ashby also in his column cautioned providers grappling with the social housing rent cut against cutting back “on development and a range of other social valuable programmes”, rather than first looking at other options such as costs or asset churn.
Councils will no longer be able to insist on affordable rented housing in planning agreements, following a radical change in government housing policy.
David Cameron announced a rule change meaning Starter Homes will be able to be counted as ‘affordable housing’ for planning purposes.
The government view is that councils cannot hold out for one type of affordable housing over another in section 106 agreements.
Ministers will say that significant delays based on the type of affordable housing are unacceptable, and will give “flexibility” to developers to bring forward sites with different types of affordable housing.
The government believes that demands for “unrealistic” types of affordable housing “hinders house building”.
The Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) will strengthen current section 106 guidance to ensure councils are “flexible” on what type of affordable housing they demand.
It will also write to the Chief Executive of the Planning Inspectorate and to Chief Planning Officers.
According to research by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, 16,193 homes were delivered through section 106 agreements in 2013/14, 37% of new affordable homes.
Starter Homes are a new type of property, sold at least 20% below market price for first time buyers under 40.
Current planning guidance says: “low cost market housing may not be considered as affordable housing for planning purposes”.
Ministers are also bringing in new measures to ensure Starter Homes are built on all reasonable sized sites.
The government has previously announced it will press ahead with measures in the Spending Review to “refocus” support for low-cost home ownership.
Housing associations should consider sharing chief executives in order to save cash, Brandon Lewis has said.
Speaking to Inside Housing at the Conservative Party conference on Tuesday, the housing minister signalled he believes the sector has too many chief executives.
“The minister also said landlords should consider whether they should be providing extra services, such as welfare to work programmes, if they are not using their asset base to build homes.
Mr Lewis said housing associations should be more aggressive about saving money and “like local authorities” should look at “sharing chief executives, sharing management, coming together and joining up”.
There are more than 1,500 housing associations in the sector, the majority of which have fewer than 250 homes.
Mr Lewis said: “That’s roughly double the number of local authorities; some local authorities have three or four housing associations in their area.”
The minister also responded to housing figures who have argued that many associations are not primarily house builders, but are chiefly landlords with specific social and care functions.
“If housing associations are doing welfare work, as well as building houses, that’s great,” he said. “If it’s at the expense of building houses, they’re not using their asset base to build houses. I do expect them to start looking at themselves and asking why.”
I picked this up from the federation of small business – legal update – hope you find it useful:
“Further significant changes made to the law relating to Assured Shorthold Tenancies
The Deregulation Act 2015 is designed to reduce the burdens resulting from legislation for businesses or other organisations or for individuals and to make provision for the repeal of legislation which no longer has practical use. Amongst other areas, it impacts upon the law relating to Assured Shorthold Tenancies (ASTs).
Some of these changes already came into force on 26 March 2015 and were covered in a previous news item. This news item deals with the other changes, the majority of which will come into force on 1 October 2015. It is important to note that these changes only apply to properties in England. The law with regard to properties in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland is unaltered by the Act. These changes will also not apply to ASTs which commence prior to 1October 2015, nor to statutory periodic tenancies which commence after 1 October 2015 but which follow directly on from a fixed-term AST which started before that date.
Preventing retaliatory eviction (section 33)
The Act includes provisions to protect tenants who are living in poor and unsafe conditions from being evicted by the landlord if they complain about the conditions of the property. From 1 October 2015, the landlord is restricted from serving a valid section 21 notice if:
If these conditions are met then the landlord is unable to serve a section 21 notice within six months from receipt of the remedial notice.
Exemptions from restrictions (section 34)
However, a landlord is not prohibited from serving a section 21 notice if:
Section 21 notice no longer needs to expire on the last day of the tenancy period (section 35)
From 1 October 2015, where the AST either has become periodic, or has always been periodic, whilst any section 21 notice must still be at least two months long, it no longer needs to end on the last day of a period of the tenancy.
New time limits for section 21 notices (section 36)
From 1 October 2015, under the Act, landlords will no longer be able to serve a section 21 notice within the first four months of the start of the tenancy. Landlords whose practice it is to automatically serve a section 21 at the start of the tenancy will no longer be able to do so.
Section 21 notices will no longer last indefinitely and, under the Act, will only be valid for six months after the notice is given. If legal proceedings haven’t started within six months, the landlord will have to serve a new section 21 notice and start again. If a landlord is required to give more than two months’ notice, however, the proceedings must be brought within four months from the date specified in the section 21 notice.
Prescribed form of section 21 notice (section 37)
Since 1July 2015, the Government has had the power to make regulations introducing a prescribed form for a Section 21 notice, but these regulations have not yet been produced.
Obligation for landlords to provide certain prescribed information to tenants (sections 38-39)
Since 1July 2015, the Government has had the power to make regulations setting out certain prescribed information which a landlord must provide to a tenant regarding the property, but these regulations have not yet been produced.
The prescribed information will include details of the condition of the property and its common parts, the health and safety of its occupiers, and the energy performance of the property.
Failure to prove this prescribed information will mean that the landlord is prevented from serving a valid section 21 notice.
Repayment of rent where tenancy ends before end of a period (section 40)
From 1October 2015, the Act requires a landlord to refund a proportionate amount of rent to a tenant if a section 21 notice terminates the tenancy before the end of a period of the tenancy for which the tenant has paid rent in advance. There is a formula under the Act to work this out, but essentially the tenant should be reimbursed the amount which represents the period for which they were no longer in actual occupation. ”
