Code for protection of sale-and-rent-back consumers being drafted

Posted under General by Alan

In order to protect vulnerable consumers from selling their homes at throwaway prices before renting the same back, the National Landlords Association of the UK has drafted a code of practices to be followed in sale-and-rent-back schemes. It has sought feedback from people on this code.

Sale-and-rent-back schemes study of the scheme undertaken by the Office of Fair Trading revealed that homes of many consumers are being repossessed by the landlords due to economic downturn.

The National Landlords Association (NLA) chairman, David Salisbury appealed to the interested people to submit their suggestions and views for incorporating improvements in the proposed draft. The NLA draft contains following codes:
● Mention of discount over market price in the offer to the consumer
● Cooling off period of 5 days to be given to consumer
● Fixing rent in advance for minimum one year
● No increase in rent to be made significantly above the retail price

Chief executive of Shelter, Adam Sampson, welcomed the move within the industry to provide protection to the vulnerable consumers, but warned that code was not stringent enough to deal with rogue landlords.