THE HOUSING OMBUDSMAN TO RUN PRS OMBUDSMAN SCHEME
It has been announced that The Housing Ombudsman has been given the responsibility for the ombudsman scheme for the private rented sector. This will be a free service for tenants but landlords will need to pay an annual fee per property to fund and join what will be a mandatory scheme once it comes into force.
This is for private landlords not agents as they are already enrolled in other redress schemes. This looks like an area with great potential for confusion with tenants not knowing where to address complaints.
The Housing Ombudsman has been carrying out the role of ombudsman for the Social Housing Sector for many years with complaints by social tenants being mainly related to suitability, allocations and welfare reform.
However, the laws governing the two tenures are very different. The private rented sector is governed by around 170 Acts of Parliament, 400 regulations and a vast amount of associated caselaw. This will mean a huge learning curve by the staff at the Housing Ombudsman.
The learning curve is not the only issue, will there be the capacity to cover the potential workload considering there are millions of private landlords many of whom are self-managing?
The learning curve will not only be for the Ombudsman, smaller landlords will also need to review their procedures and paperwork. For example complaints procedures. Large companies including social landlords and agents have these procedures in place but how many individual landlords have them?