Shadow housing minister - Grant Shapps calls governments HMO 'bombshell' - "Heavy handed"

Landlords reeling from the latest barrage of regulation from the government may be interested in the Tories response. Talking exclusively to Property Hawk Grant Shapps the Shadow Housing Minister comments:

"As ever this government turns to heavy handed legislation without really thinking through the consequences. The idea that all dwellings with three or more people should require planning permission is cumbersome and bureaucratic. It will lead to planning departments being bogged down with pointless applications. The government has already been warned off precisely this approach by their own housing reviews from experts like Rugg and Killian & Pretty.

"A lighter touch solution would be to provide the powers for councils to identify areas in their own local plans with a saturation of HMOs and then only require planning permission in these zoned places."

Property Hawks view

We absolutely agree that any change in planning permission of this nature should be localised and have gone through the proper process of consultation and community involvement. This would give landlords and residents the right to decide on the policies right for their local area.

Where we perhaps differ is that we think that the number of residents sharing a single HMO property of 3 unrelated tenants is too low. Previous regulations for both housing and planning has regarded the trigger for HMO properties to be 5 residents and above. To our mind this would be more consistent and also reflect the fact that it is the intensity of use that in some cases causes the stresses identified in certain communities where HMO properties proliferate.

Again, the government have responded in a knee jerk reaction to an issue, without understanding the balance between public benefit, consistency and over restriction of the rights of the individual and of wealth creators; in this case landlords.

A gentle reminder to all politicians. Twelve per cent of households live in accommodation provided by private landlords at no cost to the public purse. In these times of public sector austerity - this is something that should not be overlooked.

In our view politicians should be looking at ways that they can encourage more private landlords to invest in rental housing and provide the additional accommodation that the country needs.

They should not try to beat us into submission with more and more pointless legislation!

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