“Jeremy Corbyn tried to pass through a law that would required private landlords to make their homes safe and “fit for human habitation” last year – but it was rejected by the Conservatives.
Labour proposed an amendment to the Government’s new Housing and Planning Bill – a raft of new laws aimed at reforming housing law – in January last year, but it was rejected by 312 votes to 219.
According to Parliament’s register of interests, 72 of the MPs who voted against the amendment were themselves landlords who derive an income from a property.”
Whatever you think about the man as an individual or politician, he sure is on the right side of history a lot.
More regulations driving up the cost of housing <—-> Right side of history
the regulation about not cladding the outside of high rise buildings in flammable material tho
having sufficient fire escapes
for that matter fire alarms
very poor choice of example of regulatory harm
I’m sure our dear Voxette wouldn’t mind losing the regulations in favor of requiring all landlords to carry insurance against the death or debilitating injury to occupants with a cap at $1 million per occupant, reflecting the cost to the rest of society of people dying in unsafe housing. After all, it would be terribly immoral to give the landlords a subsidy, right?
They will of course also be required to carry sufficient insurance for neighboring buildings. It wouldn’t be very fair if they got away with a huge fire burning down someone else’s property just because they were bankrupt.
Right, and the insurance company needs to prove that it can actually cover these policies, which requires them to inspect the properties and regulate their safety, such as not covering the exterior with fuckin’ inflammable cladding.
You’re going to get regulation one way or another.
The Landlord and Tenant Act 1985, section 8, required landlords to guarantee that their homes were fit for human habitation, but only where rents were £80 or less (in London) or £52 or less (elsewhere). Jeremy Corbyn wanted to eliminate the cap.
But I’m not sure that the property in question would be “unfit” under the Landlord and Tenant Act. Section 10 indicates that the standard for “fitness for human habitation” is determined in respect of enumerated matters. Houses are regarded as unfit for human habitation if and only if they are defective in one or more of the enumerated matters:
In determining for the purposes of this Act whether a house is unfit for human habitation, regard shall be had to its condition in respect of the following matters—
- repair,
- stability,
- freedom from damp,
- internal arrangement,
- natural lighting,
- ventilation,
- water supply,
- drainage and sanitary conveniences,
- facilities for preparation and cooking of food and for the disposal of waste water;
and the house shall be regarded as unfit for human habitation if, and only if, it is so far defective in one or more of those matters that it is not reasonably suitable for occupation in that condition.
If the house is not defective in one or more of these enumerated matters, the house cannot be condemned as unfit for human habitation. “Flammability” is not on this list. Nor is “hazard to human life.” It isn’t clear that the enumerated matters include anything that would have condemned this residence: If the residence was constructed with flammable materials, there was no defect of “repair.” If the residence was stable, there was no defect of “stability.”
If “repair” or “stability” under section 10 include fire hazards, then there are few principled reasons why the landlords should not also be caught under section 11 of the Landlord and Tenant Act, which is unaffected by inflation, which requires short-term lessors undertake to:
(a) to keep in repair the structure and exterior of the dwelling-house (including drains, gutters and external pipes),
(b) to keep in repair and proper working order the installations in the dwelling-house for the supply of water, gas and electricity and for sanitation (including basins, sinks, baths and sanitary conveniences, but not other fixtures, fittings and appliances for making use of the supply of water, gas or electricity), and
© to keep in repair and proper working order the installations in the dwelling-house for space heating and heating water.
If “repair” or “stability” include flammability, then the housing here should be condemned because it had failed to “repair the structure and exterior of the dwelling-house”.
The language of section 10 is less impressive. There is no declaration that the house is “unfit for human habitation” if the landlord fails to abide by section 11. But no one has any statutory authority to condemn the house in section 10, either. The Landlord and Tenant Act didn’t empower anyone to go around condemning houses or forbidding sales.
All it did was this:
In a contract to which this section applies for the letting of a house for human habitation there is implied, notwithstanding any stipulation to the contrary—
(a) a condition that the house is fit for human habitation at the commencement of the tenancy, and
(b) an undertaking that the house will be kept by the landlord fit for human habitation during the tenancy.
If the landlord failed to comply with section 10, he was in breach of a statutory and contractual duty. There might be some action for damages or specific performance. There might be some action for negligence if house caught flame. Do you know what else would be grounds for such a suit? If the landlord failed to keep the property in good repair.
But those actions would lie with the landlords and tenants, who have the contract, not with any public authority. You can’t sue to enforce a contract you’re not privy to. The Landlord and Tenant Act doesn’t grant any statutory authority to prevent any sale or lease from happening. It doesn’t even have an inspection regime.
Do you know what does have an inspections regime? The Housing Act 1985. In section 604, the Housing Act includes the very same language that was included in the Landlord and Tenant Act:
The difference was that section 10 of the Landlord and Tenant Act created an implied covenant between landlords and tenants. Section 604 of the Housing Act set the terms by which local housing authorities could condemn houses as unfit for human habitation, which they were empowered to do by section 606:
This was the public regulation regime to complement the private regulation under the Landlord and Tenant Act. But if you look for sections 604 and 606 in the Housing Act 2004, you won’t find them. If you look for “unfit for human habitation”, you won’t find it anywhere. Why? Because sections 604 and 606 were replaced by a regime that covered fire safety.
The House of Commons Library explains:
The ‘old’ Housing Fitness Standard
Prior to the introduction of the HHSRS housing fitness was governed by section 604 of the 1985 Housing Act. Section 604 embodied a pass or fail test of housing fitness based on similar considerations to those set out in section 10 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985. Where a local authority identified a property as unfit it had a duty to take action; it was left to the authority to decide upon the most appropriate course of action. A number of problems were identified with the Housing Fitness Standard. Some of the most serious health and safety hazards, including fire hazards and fall hazards, were not covered by the standard. In addition, it was seen by some as a blunt instrument that could only pass or fail a house, and therefore sometimes did not distinguish between defective dwellings and genuine health and safety hazards.
So there we have our answer: the amendment wouldn’t have covered flammability, wouldn’t have prevented rentals, wouldn’t have been enforceable by statutory authorities, and wouldn’t have empowered an inspection or sanctions regime. It wouldn’t have granted anything but a private right of action, which they should have had anyways.
The United Kingdom already has statutory authorities empowered to inspect houses for safety – the local housing authorities empowered by the Housing Act 2004 and the Housing Health and Safety Rating System (England) Regulations 2005 to inspect and condemn houses where “exposure to uncontrolled fire” (reg. 3(1)(24)) might result in “death from any cause” (reg. 2(1)(a)). Under section 5 of the Housing Act 2004, local housing authorities had a duty to take action.
It seems the fault here lies with the Housing Act regulators, not the unamended Landlord and Tenant Act 1985.
