Shelter calls for action on homes built under permitted development rights

Housing charity Shelter has said that the Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation) Act 2018 could be used to improve the quality of homes built under permitted development rights.

It has been campaigning against cases in which homes that are “tiny, overcrowded and potentially unsafe for residents” were created from former employment space using the rights, which since 2013 have allowed change of use to residential without fresh planning permission.

The new Act could be used to force developers and landlords to improve standards, Sheller said.

It took effect on 20 March and requires that rented houses and flats are fit for human habitation, allowing tenants to take landlords to court if they are not.

Courts can order the landlord carry out repairs or put right health and safety problems and pay compensation to the tenants.

But the charity noted: “We should not be relying on this Act to fix fundamental quality and safety issues with housing that was created at most six years ago.

“It goes without saying that these houses should have been up to scratch in the first place – which they would have been if they had the proper quality checks from the outset.”

If excessively small homes had been built using the right which less than a decade later required resources spent to fix them  “clearly something going seriously wrong”, Shelter said.

The charity said these permitted development rights should be withdrawn and replaced by a major social house building programme, under which affordable homes would be built to adequate space standards.

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