To worry about the changes to asylum seeker housing rules?

[wildfirewonder]

Just reading today the government plans to change the rules on housing of asylum seekers to remove all protections, so no HMO licence required, no gas/electrical checks, no room size rules, no registration with the council, presumably no enforcement of maximum occupancy.

Is this not just legalising the worst type of housing and rewarding rogue landlords?

Sounds really awful for the people who will live in these houses and also not great for neighbours. No gas or electrical checks is surely dangerous?

https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/asylum-seekers-hazardous-hmo-licence-accommodation/

This feels like a really bad plan.

Awful. Typical dehumanising of asylum seekers by the current government.

This is positively encouraging slumlords to exploit desperate people.

I was hoping it is just a stunt really, as surely the Lords will kick it out for all sorts of sensible, safety reasons?

I can't imagine legislating to create more unsafe housing

I thought they were planning to use ex-army bases to house asylum seekers. I know they are preparing at least two or three sites. I know they want to move away from using hotels.

I don't think they intend to use HMOs

I expect landlords will go for that then instead of renting to anyone else, as there's less effort on their part.

Scandalous.

Asylum seekers already get treated badly. Moved with put notice. Families split up. Creating hostile environments.

Here is the legislation - specifically about HMOs https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukdsi/2023/9780348246889

I had only read about it today too, but it appears they are indeed planning it.

They've been housing them in family council/private homes where I live. Homes meant for families.

They're turning living rooms and dining rooms into bedrooms. 5 men in a 3 bed house with only one bathroom. I don't know how they're allowed to get away with it

They can't use council housing for asylum seekers. It is illegal.
The proposal is shocking and will enable the overdevelopment of bad quality HMOs for asylum serkers with no local authority oversight.

It applies only to AASCs who anre contracted with the Secretary of State to provide Aslyum Seeker housing and landlords AASCs contract with to provide that housing.

So it doesn’t just open up the private rental market to any old slum landlord chasing after vulnerable asylum seekers. I’m not saying it won’t lead to atrocious conditions for asylum seekers, because it relies on the government setting and enforcing contract conditions and doesn’t give charities or anyone else a legal route to enforce humane conditions. But it isn’t quite the free for all it initially sounds like.

The article I read says any landlord can rent their property through the company with the contract?

But more to the point - no electrical and gas checks??! No registration. No rules on room sizes.

There should be minimum housing standards for all human beings. Hate that slumlords are tolerated in a civilised society.

This is pretty standard practice, HMOs for students are pretty much all like this, and cost around £150 a week per person.
What do people expect from a Tory government? Of course they are on the side of the landlords, they ARE the landlords.

Well yes, landlords rent through a contract with a provider (AASC) who has a contract with the government. That’s what I wrote above. It’s not a free for all with slumlords targeting asylum seekers with what ever they want, there will be contracts in place that specify standards.

My point is that it doesn’t mean the contracts won’t include requirements for gas and electric checks or room sizes or anything else. It means whatever standards the government wants asylum seeker housing to meet will have to be detailed in the contracts and enforced through civil law by them and the AASCs. There will be no mechanism for third party enforcement through the Housing Act.

In fairness that's pretty much the case for all student rentals in the UK. Lounge & dining room both converted to bedrooms- kitchen being the only communal space.

The proposals are outrageous- completely play into the hands of the worst landlords the HMO rules were designed to protect people from.

Looking more closely at the proposed regulation, it doesn’t seem to remove normal rental requirements from asylum seeker housing, it only stops this housing being classed as HMOs.

There is a lot of regulation specific to HMOs, but electrical and gas checks appear to be requirements for renting more generally, not just for HMOs? (Housing act 2004 is huge and hard to parse Could use a housing lawyer who understood this, really).

So I think If a single house is provided to two families, at the moment that’s not enough to have it classed as an HMO, so HMO regulation wouldn’t apply but it’s still covered by normal rental regulation. The proposed legislation would seem to put this asylum seeker housing in the same category as a house rented to two families.

Most of the HMO regulation seems to place authority (and the burden of processing, checking , etc.) in the hands of LAs. So the major reasons for taking asylum housing out of the general HMO regulations looks like it might be more about stopping councils from being overwhelmed by processing or being able to block them by denying licensing if the council consider them undesirable.

When we've seen on telly the dire social housing for our own citizens this does not surprise me . It's desperation- we just don't have enough housing for everyone .
Unless more is built I'm not sure how the situation will change .
In fact we'll probably see slum tent cities soon .

This is nasty stuff. Now precedent has been set, they will do the same to poor people.

Wait until we have a tragedy where the asylum seeker house catches fire due to poor maintenance and takes out the houses next to it.

Most things this government does are sticking plasters that solve nothing. Sadly the opposition is rubbish too. I mainly drink wine to solve this.

You do realise that this is how most students live whilst at University don’t you?

We have a housing crisis why are you so surprised?? People here can't get anywhere to live let alone anyone else. Are you concerned about them too ??

What on earth can Labour do?

They come up with a housing building policy and the Tory front pages accuse him of concreting over the UK's countryside..... they cannot win.

The Tories have a substantial majority, they can do as they as they wish.

I just feel sorry for all the existing residents forced to live next to these new asylum HMO's with little or no safety checks.

I'm sure I'd read student accomodation can't be used for asylum seekers as the standards are too low.

@Alexandra2001 Well Labour could maybe start with setting out what they stand for. So far, all I hear is very vague. They do have talent on the front bench, but it's not clear to me what model I'm voting for if I vote Labour. They can't even bring themselves to capitalise on the abysmal failure of Brexit. They won't talk about the trade-offs needed if people want lower immigration. Momentum is still there too, so they also don't want to address the Marxist wing.

Its a bit off topic but whilst i also share your frustration, i also realise that if Labour start coming out with specifics ( and they have no idea what they will inherit in 12/18months time) the Tories will cherry pick the ones they like and distort policies on the others.

They have to vague but i do agree with you on Brexit, how anyone can defend that and "make Brexit work" is living in laa laa land.

Time is running out for Labour though, they can get away with it now but very soon, say 6 months, they will have stand up and start stating some very clear policies.

An open goal is this migrant housing policy and the new rent reform bill going through the commons right now.