Rent smart?

At some point in February, Rent Smart Wales put out their most recent newsletter.  For those of you not in the know, Rent Smart Wales is the organisation, run out of Cardiff City Council, which is responsible for the regulation and licensing of landlords and letting agents in Wales under the Housing (Wales) Act 2014.  Registration and licensing are almost de rigueur across the devolved governments, although they all do it slightly differently (we have a paper on an R&R on why licensing has been adopted, but that’s for another time).  Even the Westminster government is moving in that direction in the Renters’ Rights Bill, although they call it something else (a database), but to all intents and purposes that’s the same thing.

Under the 2014 Act, failure to register as a landlord gives rise to a fixed penalty notice of £150 – again that is a different approach across the UK (and the fines in England will be more significant) – and will mean that your claim to possession will be difficult to make and a Tribunal can make a “rent stopping” order.  Licensing requires the landlord or agent to be a fit and proper person and, innovatively, there is an education requirement (Rent Smart provide that too).  The licence is granted on conditions, including to comply with a code of practice.

However, the problem remains that it is known that some landlords don’t register and don’t get licensed.  At the outset, that might have been vaguely excusable – the “new law” excuse, although that shouldn’t wash.  But, Rent Smart found themselves in a significant enforcement role and probably running to stand still.

What is quite sensational about Rent Smart Wales – no irony intended – is their datasets which appear on their webpages, which are really impressive.  They show how many properties are licensed and landlords/agents registered by local authority area, which I know local authorities in England would love that level of data.  They also provide details of enforcements, including the fact that, in 2024, they issued more fixed penalty notices than ever (n=537), and by quite some way.  I wonder why?  The pandemic effects might have something to do with that, but not everything – indeed, one might have thought that there would be more fines at the outset.  One might suspect that, like other regulators, they got overwhelmed at the outset by the extent of the operation.

Anyway, the point is that Rent Smart Wales are a really significant player in renting homes as a national registration and licensing authority.

In the absence of actual cases on Renting Homes, their newsletter does provide an example of a failed eviction by a Neath landlord.    The issue was about the lack of a carbon monoxide detector.  We are told

“The landlord argued that a CO detector was in place at the time the notice was served, but there was no photograph or paper trail to show a detector had been purchased or installed.”

Their claim was unsuccessful.  Rent Smart Wales use the case to advert to the need for a routine visit and to maintain a checklist.  Reg 5(2), The Renting Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation)(Wales) Regulations 2022, SI 2022/6 provides that

“The landlord must ensure that, during each period of occupation, a carbon monoxide alarm which is in repair and proper working order is in each room of the dwelling which contains a gas appliance, an oil-fired combustion appliance or a solid fuel burning combustion appliance.”

And, for those of you following from Coastal 1, our old favourite is in Reg 5(3) that failure to comply means that the “dwelling is to be treated as unfit for human habitation at a time when the landlord is not in compliance with [that] requirement …”.  If a dwelling does not comply with the requirement for a carbon monoxide detector such that it is unfit for human habitation, along with the other issues raised in Coastal 1 & (possibly) 2, then para 5A of Schedule 9A to the Renting Homes (Wales) Act prescribes that the landlord cannot serve a six month s 173 notice.

You can’t say that they haven’t been warned but, still, #ouch.  Not particularly rent smart.  I wonder how many of my students’ properties have working CO detectors.  Equally, whoever raised the issue in those possession proceedings, major kudos.