Politicians on the Housing committee haven’t seen legal advice confirming that changes to the Open Market housing register are human rights compliant, but have defended the legislation.
Deputy Steve Williams, President of Housing, said the advice is privileged and won’t be shared with other States members in response to several written questions from Deputy Rob Curgenven.
But he insisted that all laws, including the Open Market changes being brought to the States later this month, are subject to human rights legislation and receive scrutiny “by lawyers in the Ministry of Justice as part of the process of granting Royal Sanction.”
Outstanding applications for a property to be transferred from the local to open housing market will be returned to applicants under the changes, with new charges up to £750,000 to account for the uplift in property value and a cap of up to three new properties registered every year to be introduced.
Deputy Curgenven had raised concerns with the reforms, questioning if declining to process applications amounted to retrospective law changes and the deprivation of property under the European Convention on Human Rights.
The Committee for Housing rejected this, but confirmed there are 24 undetermined applications and one applicant has legally challenged the decision to not process their submission.
The Committee says it’s unaware of any further appeals, and doesn’t know the total financial exposure to the States from litigation in the worst case scenario.
Express understands an amendment challenging the implementation of the law will be brought to the States.
Deputy Williams reiterated that all applicants would have been aware that submissions wouldn’t be determined until a new policy was agreed and put into place.
The States previously put applicants on notice that no applications would be considered until this time, adding a disclaimer to the relevant forms.
Deputy Williams also noted that returning applications which haven’t yet been decided does not vary or change any existing property on the Open Market.
“The Committee does not accept that the policy of not considering applications for inscription until a relevant policy had been prepared and implemented constitutes a refusal to undertake a statutory duty. Legal advice received by the Committee in this regard is privileged,” he said.
“The only provision in the legislation which has substantive application to past events is the transitional provision dealing with applications for inscription in Part A that were submitted but not processed before the coming into force of the Amendment Law.
“Such procedural transitional provision in legislation is not uncommon.”
The legislation will be considered by the States during the meeting starting on October 22.