New housing rules: What do they mean for landlords and tenants in Peterborough?

New rules for landlords aimed at improving standards in privately-rented accommodation have come into force in Peterborough – and more are in the works.

But what are the changes and what do they mean for landlords and tenants in the city?

Peterborough City Council’s (PCC) newly-published draft housing strategy for 2024–29 lays out the changes and its plans for even greater regulation of the sector in future.

Already, new rules have been implemented in Hampton, Fletton and Woodston and Park wards that mean landlords must obtain planning permission to establish houses in multiple occupation (HMOs) containing up to six people.

Before 1st January, permission was only needed for large HMOs, comprising seven or more people, but PCC has received permission from the Secretary of State to trial these new rules for two years in these areas.

Landlords will need licences to operate thousands of rentals from March

An even bigger change will come into force in March, affecting around 40 per cent of the city’s privately-rented housing stock or around 9,000 homes.

A new selective licensing scheme will mean that landlords have to apply for a licence to operate in 10 electoral wards.

They will then have to adhere to the conditions of their licence, which council leader Cllr Mohammed Farooq (Peterborough First, Hargate and Hempsted) says will ensure private tenants can live in housing that is “safe, of high standard, appropriately managed and offers appropriate tenancy protection”.

Conditions will include “ensuring the property has a gas safety certificate, working smoke alarms and safe electrical appliances and furniture”, he added in PCC column.

The scheme, which comes into effect on 4th March, has been in the works for over a year at the council and replaces a similar scheme that ran from 2016–21.

The new scheme encompasses Bretton, Central, East, Fletton and Stanground, Fletton and Woodston, North, Orton Waterville, Park, Paston and Walton and Stanground South wards – one more than the old scheme, which was based on different ward boundaries.

The bigger change, though, is that a third party company – Home Safe Scheme Ltd – will undertake compliance checks rather than PCC and refer cases in which enforcement action is needed onto it.

The council hopes that this will lead to a greater number of checks being taken: under the previous scheme, it only managed to check each property once, on average, in the five years it ran.

It adds that it expects the scheme to be cost neutral, with Home Safe making most of its money by collecting licence fees from landlords.

Greater regulation for landlords on the horizon

More changes for landlords and tenants are also on the horizon.

PCC says that “work is underway” to identify areas of the city where an additional licensing scheme could “assist raising housing standards”.

Similar to selective licensing, this would mean that landlords operating small HMOs would have to apply for a licence from the council and comply with certain standards of safety and housing management.

The city’s 453 large HMOs already have these protections, but PCC says that many of its 1,500-2,000 small HMOs could benefit too.

Beyond that, the council is “currently investigating commissioning a new stock condition survey” of the city’s private rentals, it says, “in terms of the presence of health hazards in dwellings, disrepair, energy efficiency and the vulnerability of occupants due to low income and fuel poverty”.

It also wants to further develop a “culture of partnership working and trust” with private landlords through the creation of a dedicated team to work alongside them to ensure rentals are “suitable, affordable, and sustainable” particularly for those at risk of homelessness.