On the 9th December, our Leicester Area Manager, Hannah Cleaver, attended the Leicester City Council Landlords’ Association meeting, the last one of 2024.
There was an introduction from the Selective Licensing managers, Rajbinder Johal and Louise White.
We discussed the agenda for their next Landlord Forum, which is 25th March 2025 and the schedule is jam-packed with topics such as Renter’s Rights Bill, Additional Licensing, Property Upgrades for incoming EPC legislation change being covered, amongst others.
Rajbinder updated us with regards to the figures on the Selective licensing, which have moved to 4169 Licences obtained to date. The council is now at the Enforcement Stage, working alongside Justice for Tenants, to encourage landlords to work with them to obtain their Selective Licensing. The door-knocking exercise, carried out in conjunction with Justice for Tenants, resulted in 798 properties which were found to be un-licensed and 374 pieces of information were gathered regarding tenancies/landlords.
Leicester City Council are offering sessions at a Drop-In Clinic, which will offer support to those affected by Selective Licensing. The drop-in sessions for this will be Tuesday and Thursday in the New Year. The department have asked for you to email them if you wish to attend a session….Information for landlords
Additional Licensing will go to consultation in the early part of 2025. The additional licensing will be targeted at Small HMO’s, with 3 or 4 bedrooms. More to update on this at the Landlord Forum in March.
We received a further update from the Housing Options team, who advised that, since August, when they increased their offers to landlords to 35% above LHA, they had subsequently superseded their targets, taken on new properties and were hopeful that this would continue into the next quarter, so that they could house more people.
The Housing Options team are still promoting the ‘Call Before you Serve’ service, which is a good proposition for qualifying landlords and tenants, if they find themselves in an untenable position due to rent arrears, hopefully offering a resolution to all parties to continue an otherwise sustainable tenancy.
Hannah Cleaver of EMPO, covered the Renter’s Rights Bill, due to be passed in 2025. She discussed the body of the Bill and the implications this will have on landlords as the most significant piece of legislation to affect our industry in 40 years.
We are covering this again in our bitesize webinar on January 7th 2025, with our trainer, Darrel Kwong.
Please join us on this webinar, by clicking the link below.
EMPO Renters Rights Bill update – EMPO
If you would like to ask any questions about the above or require support on a certain matter, please contact Hannah on hannah@empo.co.uk / 07463 541804.