{"id":140,"date":"2019-11-01T08:59:26","date_gmt":"2019-11-01T08:59:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/getrentback.org\/blog\/?p=140"},"modified":"2019-11-01T09:00:56","modified_gmt":"2019-11-01T09:00:56","slug":"rro-applicants-the-power-is-in-your-hands","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/getrentback.org\/blog\/2019\/11\/01\/rro-applicants-the-power-is-in-your-hands\/","title":{"rendered":"RRO Applicants: the power is in your hands"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

It\u2019s difficult to emphasise how important this appeal decision is for Rent Repayment Order (RRO) applications: https:\/\/www.bailii.org\/cgi-bin\/format.cgi?doc=\/uk\/cases\/UKUT\/LC\/2019\/311.html<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many Applicants are confused about who should be the Respondent (R), as tenancy agreements (if available) often don\u2019t have the landlord details or the agreement names the agency as the landlord or, often, it is simply ambiguous who the landlord is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is especially the case for Rent-to-Rent (R2R) situations,\nwhere an agent has made an agreement with a property owner to pay them a\nguaranteed rent in return for the agency being able to assign tenancies\ndirectly in the property. Usually, the agency makes some kind of tenancy\nagreement with the owner so that they can have a claim to be the landlord.\nThere are then two landlords: the owner and the agency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Normally, we advise Applicants to target the property owner\nas the R: we know of several cases where agencies have liquidated their Ltd.\ncompany after a RRO award, so frustrating justice. Applicants who have paid\n\u00a3300 in fees, gone through months of evidence preparation, have run the\ngauntlet of the hearing and come out the other side with an award, are left\nwith nothing. In the meantime, a new R2R company has been formed and the agency\ncarries on with impunity. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sometimes the R2R agency, however, may be the more\nlegitimate R, depending on the circumstances. For example, they may have a\ngenuine commercial lease with real responsibilities for the property.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Up to now, the Tribunal assessed the choice of R on\napplication and could direct that a different R be assigned. Often this has\nbeen based on simply who is named as the \u201clandlord\u201d in any tenancy agreement. This\nis what happened in this case and it was this decision, at this stage of the\nprocess, which we challenged. This led to a preliminary hearing in May this\nyear to decide who the R should be. The Decision of this preliminary hearing\n(to maintain the Tribunal\u2019s choice) was the subject of our appeal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Housing and Planning Act 2016 (HaPA), under which RRO\napplications are now brought, does not define who can be prosecuted for a RRO\nany further than the word \u201clandlord\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The elegant and imaginative aspect of the UT decision in this appeal is that it accepts the use of the term landlord, does not define it but simply allows the A to decide who their real landlord is and who the R should be. Any arguments regarding whether the chosen R is the \u201cappropriate person\u201d are then left to be made at the hearing in First-tier Tribunal (FtT). Of course, the A needs to choose their R carefully to ensure that they can make the case that they are the most \u201cappropriate person\u201d according to the Housing Act 2004 (HA) s73(10). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This UT decision effectively deprives the FtT of the power to intervene in the choice of \u201clandlord\u201d by the A at the application stage and, in so doing, drives a coach and horses through the R2R scheme shams that attempt to protect the real landlord from RRO legislation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the FtT, the decision may well be welcome: it relieves\nthem of the need to decide who is the \u201cappropriate person\u201d to be a R before any\nhearing and will remove the need for preliminary Case Management Conferences in\nmany cases. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We will be writing soon to the FtT to ensure that procedural\njudges are made aware of this judgment and that As be allowed to decide who is\nthe landlord for their application. We will also be updating our website with a\nguide for As to help them decide who is the Respondent landlord.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s difficult to emphasise how important this appeal decision is for Rent Repayment Order (RRO) applications: https:\/\/www.bailii.org\/cgi-bin\/format.cgi?doc=\/uk\/cases\/UKUT\/LC\/2019\/311.html Many Applicants are confused about who should be the Respondent (R), as tenancy…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/getrentback.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/getrentback.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/getrentback.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/getrentback.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/getrentback.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=140"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/getrentback.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":142,"href":"https:\/\/getrentback.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140\/revisions\/142"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/getrentback.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/getrentback.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/getrentback.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}