PDPLA committee members, Tony Athill and Joannie Goldenberg, attended the RLA Future Renting conference at Imperial Collage, London in September.

The all-day event, hosted by 30-year veteran of radio and presenter of the popular Property Hour on LBC radio, Clive Bull, was attended by more than 200 landlords and letting agents.

Speakers included MP's, senior civil servants and a wealth of experts from across the industry.

Anne Frost Deputy Director of the Private Rented Sector (PRS) at Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) gave the first presentation. Anne has overall responsibility for implementing government policy and feeding opinion from stakeholders, including landlords, back to Government ministers, she values the views of the RLA and seemed genuinely interested in our issues. She told delegates housing is the top domestic priority at the moment for the Government, ministerial interest is growing as is external interest.

The Government"s current housing priorities are:

• Increasing the supply of homes
• Affordability
• Property standards
• Landlord and tenant rights
• Enforcement

They are clearly thinking hard on the merits of licensing, she doesn't think she has seen so many varied views on this issue. MHCLG will undertake a proper review of selective licensing and will talk to landlords, tenants & local authorities to understand whether it is useful or not, this review is set to start in the next month. We hope PCC will hold fire on a decision locally until this has been completed.

There were over 8,500 responses to the Government's barriers to longer term tenancies consultation, this is a record for any MHCLG consultation. Responses are now being considered.

A consultation on housing courts will be coming out in next couple of months. A vital requirement for the maturing of a private rented sector in MHCLG"s opinion.

The Government is currently reviewing Housing Health and Safety Rating System (HHSRS) the system local authorities use to identify and act upon poor housing standards.

Anne Frost thought it likely that Ministers would take some form of action to either encourage or insist on longer tenancies.

A delegate asked about the number of landlords selling properties- who is keeping track of who is buying these properties? Anne Frost responded, "it is really crucial for us to understand what happens to those people and we're running a survey on the issue." A show of hands showed around a quarter of landlords at the conference are considering selling off homes.

There was then a panel discussion - Tenants in Control? On the panel were David Cox of ARLA Propertymark, Katrine Sporle CBE, The Property Ombudsman (TPO) and Karen Buck MP and Labour Housing campaigner.

Katrine Sporle from the TPO told us we were good landlords, and have the important job of telling everyone how good we are in order to change the narrative around landlords. She believes there should be universal access to an Ombudsman for everyone.

Karen Buck MP said she was pleased to have had the support from the RLA for the Bill she has tabled; the (Homes) Fitness For Human Habitation Bill, this will allow tenants to seek legal redress where the property is substandard. The Bill will be in the statute book early next year. She also told us we were good landlords and are being let down by the minority, who rent properties that are substandard.

David Cox was concerned regarding the tenant fee ban also set to be introduced early next year.

Next came a talk from Ian Halton of NAPIT on electrical safety in the home. Change is on the way. He advises landlords to do a visual check every 12 months and on the change of every tenancy.

Then we had an energetic talk on market prospects from property insight expert Kate Faulkner. Clearly some places are more profitable than others to be a landlord. Future capital growth is very uncertain. Rents in most parts of the country are going up at less than 2% per annum. They are likely to go up in line with wages. Kate thinks purchasing affordability will get easier and this could reduce rental demand. It is not all doom and gloom.

The buffet lunch had to be moved into our hall at the last minute due to interference downstairs from protesters from the London Renters Union. A small group were playing small violins showing sarcastic sympathy for Landlords who they considered were only there to complain about the "increasingly hostile environment". They caused no trouble and John Stewart from the RLA explained what the conference was really about.

After lunch Richard Tacagni of LP Licensing ran through the changes to mandatory licensing due to come into force on 1st October, it is important to note that there is NO grace period so if your rental property is being shared by 5 people who are split into 2 or more households (i.e. not all one family) you will need a licence wherever the property is situated REGARDLESS of the number of storeys. This was well covered by Bruce Lomax at our July meeting.

Richard was formerly an Environmental Health Officer (Housing Standards) with a Local Authority and he pointed out that the profession has not grown at a level that meets the demands of licensing. A warning for any local authority considering further discretionary, additional licensing.

Next up, as some of us were starting to flag, was RLA Policy Director David Smith. He gave more details on the complex changes to HMO licensing outlined by the previous speaker. He then went through the nonsensical change that will prevent Local Authorities from licensing the use of smaller bedrooms. This will affect many landlords in Portsmouth but in theory only if they have 5 or more sharers. One perverse way around this for those not wanting to leave smaller rooms empty is to rent the property to the local authority as they are desperate for accommodation and are not bound by this limitation.

He also reminded us that new HMO licences must include conditions requiring the licence holder to comply with any scheme which is provided by the local housing authority and which relates to the storage and disposal of household waste at the HMO pending collection. An issue we continue to discuss locally. Tenants will still be responsible for disposing of their waste - the focus is on landlords providing adequate bins and storage facilities.

David then reminded us that from October 1st the Deregulation Act changes that prevent us from serving a Section 21 to repossess a property apply to all ASTs. Make sure all tenants have received a copy of the EPC and the Gas safety certificate. He stressed the importance in serving the most up to date version of the How to Rent guide to tenants.

https://news.rla.org.uk/how-to-rent-guide-updated-make-sure-you-have-correct-version/…(Not applicable to any tenancy that pre-dated 1 October 2015 if the tenancy is merely continuing, only on new or actively renewed tenancies.)

David concluded by mentioning Banning orders, MEES (a new acronym for us - Minimum Level of Energy Efficiency" standard now EPC band E) and GDPR.

Dr Tom Simcock of RLA PEARL then spoke on building the evidence for change. PEARL exists to help inform the Government, as part of the decision-making process. Tom explained how important it is for landlords to share their experiences in quarterly surveys, in order to present credible evidence on key issues. Yes, occasionally, they really do listen.

Sherrelle Collman explained to delegates how Universal Credit will affect landlords in the private rented sector, a problem covered at our May monthly meeting. It is really important for landlords to keep informed about Universal Credit and to build a good relationship with tenants who are in receipt of it.

Sean Hughes of Comprehensive Tax Planning discussed the Section 24 changes explaining the benefits of incorporation and for whom it may be appropriate. He also touched on the importance of inheritance tax planning.

To sum up, it was an interesting day especially the political perspective but some of the later speakers went over subjects that we have covered at recent meetings. It would have been very useful for those who have not been keeping up to date with the weight of recent changes, so we recommend attendance for as many members as can make it at next year"s event.