Migration Cause of Housing Crisis 

Renters Reform Bill Omits Decent Homes Standard

Landlord Insurance - just in case you missed the advice in earlier issues of this newsletter, ask for an excess of at least £1,000. It will reduce your premium by around £100 compared to the normal £250 excess and admit it, anything less than £1,000 is wear and tear and you are not going to claim anyway, so why pay for the  privilege of being able to do so.

Do you have an unheated toilet in one of your houses? Beware as in some Licensing inspections, PCC are asking landlords to add some form of heating because of the 'excess cold hazard' in the smallest room.    (This in a 2-storey, 5-bed HMOs that have the benefit of mains gas central heating, double glazing, and other energy efficiency attributes providing an above average EPC score)

The story of the negative impact of Portsmouth City Council's efforts to "improve" housing standards for a number of poor souls it might be assumed were already at the bottom of the heap in terms of both social support and housing...  

We worried that PCC's threatened removal of waste bins if they were consistently left on the pavement would impact landlords and leave them bin-less even where the landlord had paid for a larger bin and the problem was tenant caused and beyond the landlords control.

We need not have worried as you can see from PCC's response below. 

We seem to constantly debate housing standards and younger people particularly forget how rapidly standards improve - perhaps this reminiscence of one persons housing history will help put things in perspective.