The Week in Housing: rent convergence, renters’ rights and multimillion-pound building safety bills

On the same day, MPs on the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee heard from the boss of the National Housing Federation how 90% of funding from the Cladding Safety Scheme and Building Safety Fund had gone to private building owners.

There was also some talk of whether for-profit providers are actually the answer to the housing crisis. Fiona Fletcher-Smith, chief executive of L&Q and chair of the G15, spoke about housing associations’ development plans and finances. She told MPs that skills shortages and court backlogs had affected some remediation cases.

Sticking with remediation, house builder Persimmon reported a £160m decrease in net cash in its latest trading update, down from £420m in 2023.

The 38% drop in cash was driven by £60m spent on remediation in the year, with work underway or completed on 70% of its known developments.

Crest Nicholson has had to delay its annual financial accounts as it reviews its estimated £250m remediation bill for hundreds of buildings.

With house builders’ finances being hit by the scale of their remediation work, there was a worrying admission from the Building Safety Regulator (BSR) this week.

A senior executive at the BSR told elected City Hall members that 40% of general applications were not able to assure that regulations were being met.

Peter Apps, contributing editor at Inside Housing, shared his thoughts about how state oversight of building safety may be the only route out of this ever-expanding crisis, as part of our #PlanForHousing campaign.

Across the Irish Sea, the Northern Ireland government has begun to assess the scale of building safety issues with a new consultation on how to address the challenges it faces.

The sector in England continues to lobby the government ahead of the Spending Review in March, when a decision is expected on the next rent settlement and the new Affordable Homes Programme.

With that in mind, new research by London’s largest landlords has found that reintroducing rent convergence at £3 per week would raise an additional £773m over 10 years.

In a comment piece for Inside Housing, Jo Savage, chief executive of Greatwell Homes and board member of PlaceShapers, set out why the sector “must reintroduce rent convergence to boost growth and avoid community investment trade-offs”.

Additional analysis by the G15 group revealed that nearly half of London’s social renters have experienced prejudice because of their housing status.

Fresh research from a thinktank has claimed that the government would need to find £50bn to restore affordable housing to 2010 levels of sub-market rent homes.

Those ministers who will have to make a decision on a future rent settlement may want to take a look at the approach of some of their counterparts across the European Union.

Research by a major credit agency looked at how social landlords in France and Germany are financially outperforming UK providers thanks to an ability to increase rents to pay for repairs and maintenance.

Funding continues to pour into the sector this month. Homes England has nearly doubled the funding available in its lending alliance with Invest & Fund for small and medium-sized house builders. The refinanced agreement will increase the fund from £25m to £47.5m.

The Gloucestershire Pension Fund invested £30m in a social impact investor’s property fund focused on homelessness.

In addition, investment giant Octopus spoke to Inside Housing about aiming to double the size of its affordable housing fund to £485m this year.

Two big stories came out of Wales. The ombudsman revealed it will reissue its first release of complaints data for landlords after concern in the sector about its accuracy. This was followed by news that a construction company has been fined and ordered to pay costs totalling more than £10,000 for polluting a stream in South Wales.

There was also a flurry of new hires in the devolved nation. One North Wales landlord appointed two new executive directors.

Caredig made two hires, a new director of growth and development and a director for finance and governance. South Wales landlord Valleys to Coast made four new appointments to its leadership team.

North of the English border, the sector has its sights set on next year’s Holyrood election. Three Scottish housing organisations launched a research project to identify the number of new affordable homes needed.

There were a number of judgements from the regulator and watchdogs that could provide an opportunity for learning across the sector.

One local authority apologised after a care watchdog investigation found it had been “gatekeeping” access to its homelessness services when people approached it for help.

Two city councils received non-compliant consumer grades from the Regulator of Social Housing (RSH) over a lack of stock condition surveys, overdue disrepair cases and poor repairs services. The RSH also handed three landlords financial viability upgrades to V1.

A for-profit housing provider missed chances to act on safeguarding concerns, according to an independent review commissioned by the Housing Ombudsman.

At the same time, the Competition and Markets Authority extended the investigation it started in February last year into eight house builders into whether developers may be sharing commercially sensitive information.

For the people in the sector who can still remember the 1980s, Inside Housing took a dive through some declassified files to revisit the Housing Act 1988 and how then-prime minister Margaret Thatcher had a “visceral dislike” of council estates and local authorities and was concerned “left-wing activists will take over” trusts.

Her government also wanted to put the “true cost of council housing” on a “more business-like footing”. I wonder how that has turned out?

Have a great weekend.

Stephen Delahunty, news editor, Inside Housing

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