Mike4 wrote:Yes but... who here expects there to be any meaningful enforcement?
Without it, only the rule-following, compliant landlords will take any notice while the ignorant and/or 'rules are for the little people' types of landlord will carry on as currently.
The broad thrust of the proposals is the introduction of a new use class, C5, for short term lets and that there will be a permitted development right (meaning no planning permission required) to change to/from use class C3 (normal dwelling). This is similar to what happened when use class C4 (smaller HMO) was introduced at the tail-end of the last Labour administration. Only where a local authority perceives that there are issues, and after consultation, can it apply to the Secretary of State for an Article 4 direction which, once granted, removes a specific permitted development right in a specific geographical area and instead requires planning permission to be granted for a change of use to take place.
In the case of C4, university towns and cities (including Durham where I operate) have successfully applied for Article 4 directions to prevent even larger swathes of housing being converted to student lets by removing the C3 to C4 permitted development right. Generally there will be planning policies in place (through local plans) which will guide the planning permission decisions. In Durham's case permission to convert from C3 to C4 will normally be refused if "
more than 10% of the total number of residential units within 100 metres of the application site are exempt from council tax charges (Class N Student Exemption)" (see Policy 16, part 3 on p108 of the
County Durham Plan).
The intent of the government's proposals is to provide similar tools to local authorities for controlling changes from C3 to C5.
When AirBnB and its imitators started out the underlying idea was a hippy-ish one of occasional letting out of a room for short stays. It has clearly come a long way since then with, in some places, housing being diverted wholesale into the tourist sector as
this 3 year old article from the Grauniad notes (other newspapers and articles are available).
I do expect that there will be reasonable enforcement once Article 4 directions are granted. Local authorities have to jump through quite a few hoops to get an Article 4 direction approved. If there is evidence that there has been a
de-facto change of use of a property without planning permission being obtained (and I would expect that evidence to be pushed through routes like local Councillors, noise complaints, etc) then planning officers will normally take action as would be expected in any other case - unauthorised conversion of an estate agent's office to a fish and chip shop, for example.
The real stumbling block though will be the government's ability to get anything coherent and meaningful onto the statute book. It is was at the tail end of Theresa May's administration (remember her?) when proposals were first floated by government for abolishing section 21 (no-fault) evictions. Still not done.
modellingman