Andy Burnham will introduce the Good Landlord Charter in autumn next year to ensure better housing standards and renters’ protections, providing “a healthy house for all” by 2038.
Off the back of the government’s Renters Reform Bill, the charter will define renters’ rights in Greater Manchester and grant councils the ability to intervene in cases where housing standards are not being met.
Recently published data from the government’s Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) estimated that in 2019 almost 50,000 homes across the city-region come below the Government’s decent homes standard.
At the Housing 2023 conference, Burnham said: “We will only get the sea change on housing that we need when we make a good, safe, secure home a human right in UK law.
“Until that time, we are using what powers we have in our Trailblazer Devolution deal to set ourselves a 15-year new mission for Greater Manchester: a healthy home for all by 2038.
“We are proposing a complete re-wiring of the system to put power in the hands of tenants – but, in doing so, make it work better for everyone: tenants, landlords and local communities.”
Housing standards were at the forefront of public outrage last November, when coroners confirmed that black mould in substandard social-housing caused the death of two-year-old Awaab Ishak in the Manchester borough of Rochdale, 2020, despite the family asking numerous times for help.
The DLUHC announced ‘Awaab’s Law’ in February as a result, tabling amendments to the existing Social Housing Bill that are yet to come into effect.
Under Burnham’s Good Landlord Charter “decent landlords” will receive recognition, and landlords not maintaining their properties to a decent standard will face action underpinned by a ‘Property Check’ system.
The checks and subsequent certificates will provide tenants with more information about their homes, while landlords will be presented with tailored, practical improvement plans to address any health and safety hazards.
The GMCA said: “This includes stepping in where public money is effectively being used to subsidise housing that doesn’t meet the decent home standard.
The Government currently spends more than half a billion pounds a year of public money through the housing element of Universal Credit or Housing Benefit in Greater Manchester’s private rented sector alone.
According to the GMCA, this is despite “no assurance about the quality of the homes that landlords are providing.”
DLUHC experimental data estimates 12 per cent of all homes in Greater Manchester had a category one health and safety hazard – the most serious category where a hazard poses a serious risk of harm – while over 17 per cent did not meet the current decent homes standard.
A spokesperson of the North West Landlord’s Association said: “We will do everything we can to ensure that people comply with the regulations. We as a society need to get housing right and we need to look after people. But it has to be a two way conversation. The local authorities need to work closely with landlords – particularly where there are social problems at play.”
Burnham called on Ministers to support the new measures and give the GMCA the ability to apply a mandatory decent homes standard to all rented homes.
A DLUHC spokesperson said: “We welcome any plan to take action against the minority of rogue landlords. It is unacceptable to see bad practices by some landlords, putting tenants’ health at risk and forcing them to live in homes that don’t meet basic standards.
“This is why we are providing over £2 million of funding to Greater Manchester for a pilot project to improve enforcement and crack down on bad landlords.
“We launched a consultation in September 2022 to ensure the Decent Homes Standard is applied and enforced appropriately and fairly. We will set out the next steps in due course.”
The GMCA aim to bring in the new set of measures by Autumn 2024.
