After my post on water meters I’ve followed up with a related article on other utilities. Take a read over at the Landlord Law Blog.
Posts Tagged ‘housing’
Tenants’ Rights and water meters
Posted: August 20, 2013 in articles, housingTags: housing, landlords, tenants, water
I’ve got a post over at the Landlord Law Blog on what the legal rights are for tenants on water meters. Somewhat ironically, it seems there’s a stronger set of rights around water meters for tenants (you can have one installed if you’re there for longer than 6 months) than to other things like security of tenure, affordability of rent etc. So, to be blunt, you can insist on having a water meter installed – but at the end of the day a landlord could just give you your two months notice without a reason, so there’s not much of an incentive to fight for your consumer rights. I’ll be following this up with a post soon about other utilities, and how things work in more complicated housing situations.
“Many green-minded and money-conscious tenants look to water meters to help them cut back the costs and their environmental impact. However, there is often confusion between landlords, tenants, and agents as to what the rules are.” Read the full article here.
In this month’s 24 Housing (a magazine for housing professionals), I’ve looked into what’s happened since the introduction of ‘For-Profit’ providers in social housing. Read the full article here.
Practical justice in housing law can be a difficult thing, which is one of the reasons why I wrote this post for Bright Green Scotland. It takes you through the legal rights you do have versus the practical problems in exercising these rights. I’m also working on a follow-up article about some work being done between a Council and local Police force on improving their response to illegal evictions. Watch this space.
“Since the start of the recession there has been a rise in illegal evictions, and with the changes to Housing Benefit coming in next year there could be an even bigger rise.” Read the full post on Bright Green Scotland.
Bedroom Tax investigation for Inside Housing
Posted: March 30, 2013 in articlesTags: bedroom tax, housing, inside housing
Another project I was working on at Inside Housing, but which has only been published this week. A survey and analysis of 73 housing associations, councils, and a handful of ALMOs (Arms-length Management Organisations) on the impact of the Bedroom Tax (aka the under-occupancy penalty).
Check out the full story here: Tenants choose to stay and pay Bedroom Tax.
Last week I did a work experience placement at Inside Housing magazine, a trade mag mainly aimed at social housing professionals. It was a week dominated by the Bedroom Tax and the Budget, and a great place to work at.
Here’s a selection of articles with bylines from the week:
Tory council to force 21-year-olds to share rooms – where digging into the background papers to a press release really came in handy.
Bedroom tax faces second legal challenge – a good story we were first to report on.
Landlord apologises for ‘patronising’ welfare advice
Scottish landlord signs deal with north east group
Universal credit threatens eviction amnesty
HCA staff strike over pay offer
Developers pledge to build more homes
Tessa Shepperson and the folk at Landlord Law and EasyLaw Training put on a conference this week to provide an overview of housing law for landlords. I provided the live blog, which you can see here. Particularly interesting for me was learning about the differences between tenancies and licenses – something which came up a lot when I was researching my post on property guardians.
Samir Jeraj - Freelance Journalist 