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March Members' Meeting

 Here you can find the details to join our next members meeting on Thursday 18th March at 6pm: https://mailchi.mp/234701bf0717/nw3-clt-agm2019-6246209

February Members' meeting

We are holding our next meeting on 3rd February at 6pm. Please join us online on Zoom, you can find the agenda and Zoom details here:

https://mailchi.mp/ff98cb219dba/nw3-clt-agm2019-6070009

Member 'Training' meetings August-September

We are doing a series of member meetings over the summer with the aim to give members more insights into the following aspects of the project:

• August 6th 6pm: Environment and sustainability (Melissa Merrywheather)
• September 3rd 6pm: Finance (Jim Norton)
• September 17th 6pm: Tenures (Josephine Field)

All meetings will be held on Zoom, unless otherwise stated. You will receive invites through Newsletter, which you are subscribed to as member. 

The meeting will start with a 'mini talk' on the above aspects, and include explanation of terminology and processes relevant to our current development project.

You will then be able to ask any questions that help you understand the project better.

We hope to see many of you!
Your NW3 CLT committee members

AGM 2020 on 21st May at 6pm

Our next AGM is on 21st May at 6pm held via Zoom. Members can join via Zoom: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/4945048698

The agenda of the meeting will be as follows:

1. Approval of minutes from the last AGM (2nd May 2019) and more recent special general meeting
2. Directors' report including reports from our sub-committees
3. Approval of Accounts and any auditor's report
4. Approval of any alterations or additions to any standing orders
5. Resolutions tabled by members of the AGM
6. Election of Directors
7. Q&A

Please RSVP if you plan to attend the meeting. If you have any questions please email clt.nw3@gmail.com.

COVID-19

In line government advice concerning social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic, NW3 CLT has decided to hold its future committee meetings on Zoom, a remote video conferencing service. 

We believe that this is the best way to ensure that we keep our members and our community safe and avoid potentially spreading the COVID-19 virus.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us on clt.nw3@gmail.com and a member of our Communications Team will get back to you as soon as possible. 

Ideas for improving private rented housing

Our MP, Tulip Siddiq, is leading a debate on housing in Parliament tomorrow. It will address in particular the private rented sector. She asked for our members’ experiences and ideas for her speech and we provided the list. We look forward to hearing the outcome of the debate.

• UK housing market underwent a notable change in the last 10 years. The percentage of house ownership declined and house rental increased. The rental market has tilted in favour of Private Rental Sector (PRS) and overtaken Social Rental Sector by 3% in 2017. 
• The Government needs to steep up financial stimuli of Social and Affordable Rental Market in order to increase not only the numbers but also the types of affordable products: Community led Housing, Co-Housing, and similar
• The number of private renters in long term rentals is steadily increasing while the number of older private renters is expected to double over the next decade. 
• If PRS continues to provide a large proportion of rental market, it is important to provide tenants with secure tenancies while balancing landlords’ needs. 
• The current regulatory framework lacks choice of tenancy agreements, providing only short term Tenancy Agreement of up to 1 year and the infamous Section 21 Notice enabling tenants’ evictions. This is particularly hard for tenants with families and older tenants and the Government should speed up its planned reform. 
• A consultation was launched on 2 July 2018 on overcoming the barriers to longer tenancies. This proposed a new three-year tenancy model with a six-month break clause and even longer, six year tenancies. When are they becoming available? Longer term Tenancy Agreements would provide tenants in PRS with more security and improve the sector. 
• Tenants are currently responsible for Council Tax even though landlords have benefitted in recent years from ever-increasing property values. One way of correcting this is to make landlords responsible for Council Tax without this simply reflecting in increasing costs of rents to tenants.
• Local authorities need to be given more enforcement powers. Currently, Secretary of State Approval is needed to regulate HMOs in more than two wards. This kind of policy is reactive and prevents local authorities from proactively reviewing landlords that have complaints filed against them and doing spot checks to ensure standards. 
• Minimum space standards, currently governing all SRS and HMO rentals, should extend to the entire PRS. 
• Minimum acceptable Energy Certificates, EPC level C, should be made a prerequisite for landlords in PRS and the Government should provide tax breaks in order to encourage it.
• Most Buy to Let mortgage lenders discriminate against those on benefits (including pension credit.) These restrictions should be lifted, giving all tenants the right to choose if they want to have the housing element of Universal Credit paid directly to their landlord, working with lenders to remove mortgage terms that prevent landlords renting to benefit claimants and ending the Local Housing Allowance freeze which has meant benefits bear little resemblance to rents.