[Apols – slightly later today as my scheduled post didn’t upload for some reason]<\/p>\n
With a degree of fanfare (at least in housing circles<\/a>), Caerphilly council announced a new policy of “intermediate rent”<\/a> which is designed to assist those households on their waiting list who have annual incomes below \u00a325k (or \u00a340k for two or more adult household) and are unable to afford to buy a property.\u00a0 Intermediate rent means that rents are set at 80 per cent<\/em> of market levels.\u00a0 The idea is that, after a fixed term of five years, households will have saved enough to buy a property (although it is recognised that “it was still challenging for households and therefore saving for future home ownership was a possibility under the scheme rather than a requirement”: Report to Cabinet, 20th May 2026<\/a>, 10.4.3).\u00a0 It will reduce waiting lists, and by “providing alternatives to social housing the Council can help people resolve their own housing situations, thereby reducing the pressure on social housing provision” (5.1.7).\u00a0 And, it will help promote balanced and sustainable communities (para 5.1.5).\u00a0 Intermediate rent attracts a Social Housing Grant subsidy of 25% (compared to 58% for social rent).\u00a0 The Caerphilly policy applies only to new builds, and not existing stock.<\/p>\n Prioritisation is as follows: armed forces personnel (within three years of discharge); Caerphilly social housing contract holders subject to satisfactory reference; housing register applicants with priority award for homelessness; PRS contract holders with identified hazards subject to a satisfactory landlord reference; all others.<\/p>\n The policy provides that the purpose is “not to create a ‘lifelong’ contract” (6.1) successful applicants will be given a five year fixed term “standard periodic” (I suspect that they must meant fixed term) occupation contract with a break clause after six months either way.\u00a0 There is no automatic right to renew although it can be done “in highly exceptional circumstances” (6.3).\u00a0 Before the contract is signed, the applicant will have to provide two current reference, including from “a previous or current landlord, employer or person of suitable standing who is known to them” (10.5).\u00a0 There will also be a credit reference check and affordability assessment; a person with a low credit rating may be required to have a guarantor (10.8).<\/p>\n I have gone through this with some care, in part because intermediate rent for local authorities in England have caused some issues with respect to landlord termination during the fixed term: Croydon LBC v Kalonga<\/em><\/a> [2022] UKSC 7.\u00a0 That point about whether the contract holder gets a fixed term or periodic standard contract may be significant.\u00a0 I cannot say I have given a great deal of thought to whether the issues raised and discussed in Kalonga<\/em> would apply in Wales after Renting Homes (absent significant rent arrears: ss. 187-8, RHWA), but presumably Caerphilly have done.\u00a0 Quite a few issues present themselves as five years elapses.\u00a0 I also have some concerns about the requirements of references and guarantors for applicants with low credit scores – the report suggests that this is standard practice in the intermediate rent sector – given the potential there for discrimination or potentially natural justice issues (eg over disputed ASB complaints).\u00a0 I also might worry about the three year plus local connection eligibility criterion (except for certain personnel leaving the armed forces\/veterans).\u00a0 That criterion might exclude, for example, certain survivors of domestic abuse (see TX v Adur DC<\/em><\/a> [2022] EWHC 3340) – presumably, that will have been carefully considered as the equalities impact doesn’t’ mention this point.<\/p>\n Ultimately, the Caerphilly scheme is small potatoes – not many units will be created (33 pa) under the scheme.\u00a0 But. sometimes, the smallest number create the most significant and hardest legal issues as Croydon and others have found.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With a degree of fanfare (at least in housing circles), Caerphilly council announced a new policy of \"intermediate rent\" which is designed to assist those households on their waiting list […]","protected":false},"author":7123,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[19,20,27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-373","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-landlord-and-tenant","category-rent","category-social-housing"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"meta_box":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/housing-law-wales\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/housing-law-wales\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/housing-law-wales\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/housing-law-wales\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7123"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/housing-law-wales\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=373"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/housing-law-wales\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":374,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/housing-law-wales\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373\/revisions\/374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/housing-law-wales\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/housing-law-wales\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/housing-law-wales\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}