Clause 48 - Notification requirements relating to designations
Housing Bill
2:30 pm
Mr Keith Hill (Minister of State (Housing and Planning), Office of the Deputy Prime Minister; Streatham, Labour)
As I said this morning, I agree with the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr. Hayes) about the importance of proper and satisfactory notification of additional licensing schemes. The Government intend to ensure, for the sake of consistency between one local authority area and another, that standard terms and formats for the provision of information are universally understood and adopted. Whatever their local authority, landlords and tenants need to know how they can easily obtain information on designations for the additional licensing of homes in multiple occupation. They need to know where and how the local housing authority will make available copies of the designation and such information relating to the designation as we would prescribe.
The proposition to make such a designation will have been well adumbrated in the locality as part and parcel of consultation process. I am confident that the provisions will allow proper notification and information. I hope that I have explained clearly the approach that we have taken and the reason why the amendments are unnecessary, and I invite the hon. Gentleman to withdraw the amendment.
I take this opportunity to respond to issues raised by Committee members in the course of our proceedings, as I have done—helpfully, I think—on previous occasions. At last Thursday's sitting, my hon. Friend the Member for Regent's Park and Kensington, North (Ms Buck) raised an important and detailed question on the definition of a house in multiple occupation. Oddly enough, I was unable to answer in the detail required. However, I can do so this afternoon, and I will try to give my hon. Friend as thorough an answer as possible. However, I warn her that it is a complicated answer because it depends on consideration of types of ownership and management, on the numbers of dwellings and on the conformity of a property to building regulations. All those factors are variable, and each could lead to a separate conclusion about the designation of the property as an HMO under the Bill.
Let me make a stab at shedding light on the question, which envisaged a circumstance in which a house was divided into self-contained flats, some of
which were privately rented, others owner-occupied and some managed or owned by a registered social landlord. She asked whether such a property would come within the definition of an HMO. If the house had been converted to the standards required under the Building Regulations 1991, under clause 193 it would not come within the definition of an HMO, regardless of the ownership or tenure of the individual flats. Schedule 9 specifies which buildings cannot be regarded as HMOs other than for the purpose of part 1. Paragraph 3(1)(a) excludes buildings managed or controlled by a registered social landlord. If the RSL owns or manages the whole building, it would not be an HMO under the Bill. Likewise, any individual flats in multiple occupation in that building would be exempt from the definition if they were managed by a registered social landlord.
The building would not necessarily be exempt from falling within the definition of an HMO if the RSL managed or controlled only part of the building; that is to say, some of the flats. There is no question of ignoring those parts of the building managed by an RSL for the purpose of assessing whether the building as a whole is three storeys high. That does not mean that it would definitely be an HMO, because other factors, such as the proportion of owner-occupiers, and whether the building standards test were met, would be equally relevant in deciding this question. I tried to explain those conditions in more detail during our consideration of clause 193, when I said that the Government do not intend to extend mandatory licensing to those types of blocks of flats. Local authorities will have discretion to apply additional licensing in cases and areas where there are significant problems with those blocks. Primarily, however, bringing such properties within the HMO definition would ensure that they were properly and effectively managed through the approved code of management practice and the management regulations.
If a property were under the temporary management of an RSL—perhaps because it had agreed to act as a manager for the local authority under a final management order—the HMO provisions would not apply to the RSL during its tenure as manager. A licence would be required only when the property reverted to private management. I should add that these provisions apply equally to houses in which a local authority has an interest. I hope that that is helpful.
The short answer is that the local authority will have to deal with each property on a case-by-case basis judged against the criteria set out in the Bill. I hope that that goes at least some way to answering the questions raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Regent's Park and Kensington, North.