Sales pitch

Social landlords are required to obtain consent from the Tenant Services Authority for all disposals of land under section 9 of the 1996 Housing Act.

Landlords must either apply to the TSA for a specific sealed consent or, if the transaction falls within one
of the specified categories of the General Consent 2008, they can self-certify.

Section 9 is due to be replaced by section 172 of the Housing and Regeneration Act 2008 next year.

While the new regime is similar to the old, the good news is that section 172 will be limited to disposals of ‘social housing’ by landlords, rather than disposals of all land as at present.

Once consultation is concluded, the TSA will issue new general consent categories under section 172. The current proposal is to substantially broaden the current categories to include many more types of disposals commonly undertaken by social landlords.

The rationale is that social landlords should be allowed to self-certify in a greater number of situations because the regulator will be able to monitor disposals (and any concerns) through the provision of asset management reports within the quarterly returns that they receive from landlords.

The new regime is yet to come into force, and there is clearly quite some way to go before it will - current projections are April 2010, at the earliest.

However, given that an election is in the offing, it could well be longer than that before changes to the current regime are brought about.

Ben Halsey, associate, Lewis Silkin LLP
ben.halsey@lewissilkin.com

Have your say

You must sign in to make a comment