If you run social housing within the United Kingdom, measures to ensure the safety of tenants will be of no surprise to you. This year, however, there are amendments to the laws in place that aim to keep tenant satisfaction and prevent any unwanted instances from occurring.
This article will look at what is included in the Social Housing (Regulation) Bill and what it means for each stakeholder.
What changes have been made to regulating social housing?
Parliamentarians are mostly in support of the newly implemented Social Housing (Regulation) Bill that comes into effect in April.
The bill is important, for tenants and landlords alike, to make sure the property in question is in a habitable condition and presents no apparent dangers to those living there. Amendments, which were approved by members of parliament, were made to the bill.
Key points within the bill include:
- When a problem has been reported by the tenant to the social landlord, the landlord will address the issue and rectify it within a reasonable timeframe to make it livable. Otherwise, the social landlord must provide an adequate alternative living.
- An appointed Housing Ombudsman has greater influence to assist social landlords in identifying where issues might occur, thus guiding them to strive to improve living conditions when needed.
- Social landlords must now show tenants how they can make complaints in a formal manner so issues are resolved, as overseen by a tenant satisfaction measures regulator of social housing.
- It’s now viewed that the best way to maintain high standards of providing adequate living conditions in social housing must be done via social housing managers obtaining qualifications to do so.
What does this mean for landlords?
Tenant satisfaction measures must now be adhered to more strictly and regulated by impartial external bodies. This means that landlords must take even greater care to ensure their tenants are safe and adequately comfortable.
Now that all tenants must be shown a clear and obvious way of going through the complaints process to their social landlord, the landlords must decide the best way to approach this.
One way would be to install digital noticeboards that present all the relevant information to tenants, becoming more informed about the ongoings in their building and where to submit complaints should they need to.
The safety of tenants is of the utmost priority to any social landlord, but there is more emphasis on this now than ever. To see live status updates of the building in question, and to make sure everybody living at the property is secure, would be to use a remote management system.
This grants the social landlord the chance to monitor ongoings in the building from wherever they are and at any time.
What other measures can be taken by landlords?
Providing tenants with everything they need to make this property feel like their home is crucial.
It’s for this reason that many landlords introduce intercom systems into their buildings so that tenants can decide who may or may not enter the property, plus receive alerts when deliveries are made to their address.
Regularly and routinely undertaking assessments of their property will not only create a sensible habit for landlords to stick to but will also show the tenants that care has been taken in inspecting the property to provide them with a safe home.
Stay on top of everything that needs to be conformed to and keep your tenants safe while also keeping how you operate your tasks in compliance with the law.