“Level playing field” against rogue landlords

Tuesday 06 January 2015

People in rented homes have more protection under new rules to protect them from unscrupulous landlords – but more action is needed to protect deposits, according to the head of the Citizens’ Advice Bureau.

Malcolm Ferey of the CAB says that even though the situation is improving, more action is needed. He said that the introduction of the Residential Tenancy (Jersey) Law and mandatory condition reports last year was a big step forward, but what is needed now is a system so that security deposits are held independently, and not by landlords. That, he says, would give tenants a better chance of getting back their money if there is a dispute.

Mr Ferey said: “On the whole, I do think that things are getting better, and I see what happened last year with the changes for people in rented accommodation as having brought significant improvement.

“You do not fix those problems in six months, but we are taking steps in the right direction and bringing things up to date.

“From the moment that we had the law in, it improved things for people who were having problems with leases. It made sure that people were on more of a level playing field, and now that we have condition reports it makes a huge difference in terms of getting deposits back.

“Locally, the problem that we used to see – and still do in fairness – is about return of deposits, that is where the landlord has the power.

“We still need a deposit protection scheme where the money is held by an independent authority. All of these things, over time, will really start to solve the problems that people in rental accommodation have been having.”