Meeting of the Parliament 23 May 2018
It would have been easy to lodge a motion on housing attacking sluggish house building under the Scottish National Party. A sector that is flatlining and an obsession with ill-defined affordable housing—whatever that means—would indeed be worthy of this Parliament’s time, but there are other issues in housing that also deserve our attention, and I want to concentrate today on our current housing stock.
By 2050, 80 per cent of our current homes will still be in use. In Scotland, a quarter of all domestic dwellings are tenements, and 38 per cent of those are pre-1919 buildings. According to the Scottish house condition survey of 2016, 6 per cent of all properties need extensive repairs, 28 per cent require urgent repairs and 48 per cent have disrepair to critical elements. Further, 5 per cent of pre-1919 properties have critical, urgent and extensive disrepair.
Members across the chamber have realised that we need to act. A number of us got together and formed a working group—that is different from a cross-party group, as it is a group with work to do. In January, Ben Macpherson led a members’ business debate on this issue. It was consensual but, of course, there was no vote. That is why, today, we wanted to give Parliament the chance to say that it thinks that something should be done.
When we talk about tenements, we are talking about buildings in common ownership, and we could mean any block of flats of any age or one of those four-in-a-block buildings. In such buildings, problems arise because the ownership and the responsibility for the properties is shared. Someone who lives on the ground floor of a four-storey block that has a roof that needs work is not going to be happy to pay for that work, even though it is their roof, too. Very often, basic maintenance is not carried out. Gutters are not cleaned, checks are not done, so problems mount—and so do the bills.
Councils have powers to ensure that buildings are kept up to scratch but, with one or two exceptions, they do not use them. We are standing at a condition cliff edge, and something has to change. We think that it is inevitable that there will have to be legislative changes, so it is good to see that, in its amendment, the Scottish Government agrees that there should be a review.
The Scottish Federation of Housing Associations has said that the issue is of “real concern” and that
“there is no clear legal requirement for tenement flat owners to fund the maintenance and report of common parts”.
There have been some good ideas. The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors mooted the idea of buildings having regular health checks. We agree with RICS, and the Government amendment backs looking at that.
We also think that factors will have to play a part. That is where we come to the second part of the motion, which would be left untouched by the Government amendment. We back that amendment. If we are to have mandatory factoring, we must have a system that ensures that factors perform well and are struck off if they do not. The Property Factors (Scotland) Act 2011 provides for the performance of factors to be regulated and for them to comply with the code of conduct. If factors do not measure up, residents can appeal to the First-tier Tribunal for Scotland housing and property chamber. Since 2013, that tribunal has issued 169 enforcement orders against factoring companies. One in five of those orders has never been complied with. Last week, Kevin Stewart told the Parliament that just two property factors have been removed from the register since 2013 as a result of having failed to comply with the code and the enforcement orders. Five factors have been removed for technical reasons.
A number of factoring firms are repeat offenders, and there have been multiple complaints and rulings against them. Apex Property Factor has had 13 hearings and 10 rulings against it. Charles White Ltd has had 23 hearings and 19 rulings against it. James Gibb Property Management has had 17 hearings and 13 rulings against it. They are only examples. There is no system in place to flag up repeat offenders. Firms just have to comply with an order, and they can then carry on as before. That must be wrong.