Housing News Digest
The Tenants' Union Housing News Digest compiles our pick of items from all the latest tenancy and housing media, sent once per week, on Thursdays.
Below is the Digest archive from November 2020 onwards. From time to time you will find additional items in the archive that did not make it into the weekly Digest email. Earlier archives are here, where you can also find additional digests by other organisations.
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Archive
Chaos for landlords as Purplebricks evictions rendered invalid
Melissa Lawford (Paywall)From the United Kingdom ... Landlord customers of beleaguered estate agent Purplebricks face more chaos and thousands of pounds in costs as hundreds of evictions running through the courts risk being dismissed. This comes after a systemic error by Purplebricks where it failed to properly serve documents to tenants regarding the government's deposit protection scheme. Failure to do so has meant landlords, and subsequently the estate agent, must pay up to three times the deposit as recompense. The Telegraph revealed the online estate agent's error this week and estimated the firm's liability at £30m. However, this newspaper has also learnt that any Section 21, or so-called “no-fault” eviction notice issued by a landlord using Purplebricks cannot pass through the courts. When a landlord serves a Section 21 notice, they must declare the tenant’s deposit has been properly registered. Therefore, notices served before Purplebricks' error came to light will have been made incorrectly. Thousands of Purplebricks tenants already evicted via Section 21 notices that were invalid can also claim back up to three times their deposit. This must also be paid for any time the lease was renewed and proper documentation was not served, meaning a renter who renewed twice could claim nine times their deposit as recompense. [Read on]
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/property/uk/chaos-landlords-purplebr…
# International, Eviction, Landlords and agents.Securing the city, making the city
Elara Shurety (No paywall)From the United Kingdom ... This article addresses the phenomenon of contemporary property guardianship, a type of building security by live-in occupants, who pay below-market rents, as a growing method of dispersed policing. (Radical Housing Journal)
https://radicalhousingjournal.org/2021/securing-the-city-making-…
# International, Rent, Housing market.Singapore moves to cool housing market
The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Read item at 2:29pm by Bloomberg ... Singapore introduced residential property curbs for the first time since 2018 to cool a surge in home prices over the past year ... the government said it’s raising additional stamp duties for second-home buyers and foreigners purchasing private property.
https://www.smh.com.au/business/markets/asx-set-to-rise-fed-sets…
# International, Housing market.CBA raises fixed rates again
Clancy Yeates The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Read item at 11:02am ... Commonwealth Bank has made the latest increase in fixed mortgage rates, as the cost of locking in an interest rate continues to rise in response to market changes. The country’s largest lender on Thursday increased owner-occupier fixed rates by between 0.05 percentage points and 0.25 percentage points.
https://www.smh.com.au/business/markets/asx-set-to-rise-fed-sets…
# Australia, Housing market.Brisbane has more tree cover than any other Australian capital, new aerial imagery shows
Tony Moore (Paywall)Greater Brisbane has more suburbs with good tree cover than any other Australian capital city, new aerial analysis has revealed. However, like other Australian capital cities, Brisbane is feeling the pressure of rising city temperatures as developers remove trees to provide less expensive housing in small-lot, high-density estates.
# Australia, Climate change, Housing market, Planning and development.Finally, dangerous power cuts are in the past for NT's first public housing tenant with rooftop solar
Samantha Jonscher ABC (No paywall)Norman Frank Jupurrurla's yard is green and tidy, no easy feat in Tennant Creek's often sweltering dry heat. In the past 12 months the small town in Central Australia experienced temperatures above 40 degrees on almost 50 days. Now, the Warumungu community leader and his family are more prepared than ever to face the heat, thanks to his brand new rooftop solar system. ... [The NT's Minister of Indigenous Essential Services, Chansey Paech] said the NT government was in talks with regional councils and land councils to understand how rooftop solar could be rolled out more widely.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-12-19/tennant-creek-rooftop-sol…
# Australia, Aboriginal renters, Public and community housing, Utilities water energy internet, Climate change.Vulture landlords and the justice-washing of housing struggle
David Kelly, Kate Shaw and Libby Porter (No paywall)Activism in St Kilda in the 1970s and ‘80s produced community-centred provision of housing for low-income households ... It resulted in a portfolio of truly affordable housing and a small local non-profit to manage it—a model since emulated in other council areas in Australia. Port Philip council protected the local affordable housing stock it had through the establishment of the housing trust, but was powerless to subvert a future where its own creation became the bedfellow of vulture funds. By policy design and necessity under the neoliberal economic regime, CHOs must expand or be swallowed up by a bigger entity. As they become small empires, CHOs maximise public subsidies by attracting private capital. Private investment funds now have optimal conditions for entry into the new social housing market, with minimal capital expenditure, guaranteed market rent, a not-for-profit managing the tenancies and full control of the assets after 10 years. Governments have created a social housing market that delivers dividends to private capital, dressed up as a solution to the deepening housing crisis. (Overland)
https://overland.org.au/2021/12/vulture-landlords-and-the-justic…
# Australia, Public and community housing, Affordable housing, Landlords and agents.Living conditions of rental properties must improve
Kayla Canberra Times (Paywall)You shouldn't have to choose between heating for bone chilling days in winter or air conditioning for more frequent and severe heatwaves in summer - but that's exactly what I was forced to do. In early 2019, myself, my partner and our beloved cat secured a rental in Orange, NSW. Our condition report indicated our ducted gas system and split air conditioning worked fine. Turns out neither worked reliably. ... That's why I am taking part in Better Renting's Healthy Homes for Renters campaign. It's calling on the federal and state governments to implement minimum energy efficient requirements for rental properties.
https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/7542769/living-conditions…
# Australia, Rent, Utilities water energy internet, Health, Housing market.