Housing and Planning Act 2016

CHAPTER 4 Reducing regulation of social housing etc

92 Reducing social housing regulation

Schedule 4 contains amendments to reduce the regulation of social housing.

93 Reducing local authority influence over private registered providers

(1) The Secretary of State may by regulations make provision for the purpose of limiting or removing the ability of local authorities to exert influence over private registered providers through—

(a) appointing or removing officers of private registered providers;

(b) exercising or controlling voting rights.

(2) The regulations may in particular—

(a) limit the number of officers that a local authority may appoint;

(b) prohibit a local authority from appointing officers;

(c) confer power on a private registered provider to remove officers appointed by a local authority;

(d) prohibit a local authority from doing things that would result in it obtaining voting rights in a private registered provider;

(e) require a local authority to take steps to reduce or get rid of any voting rights that it has in a private registered provider.

(3) Regulations under this section may override or modify any contractual or other rights (whenever created) or anything in a private registered provider’s constitution.

(4) Regulations under this section may—

(a) confer a power to amend the constitution of a private registered provider in consequence of provision made by the regulations;

(b) make provision about the procedure for exercising that power.

(5) In this section—

• “appointing”, in relation to an officer, includes nominating or otherwise influencing the selection of the officer;

• “constitution” includes rules;

• “local authority” has the meaning given by section 106 of the Housing Associations Act 1985;

• “officer”, in relation to a private registered provider, has the meaning given by section 270 of the Housing and Regeneration Act 2008;

• “private registered provider” means a private registered provider of social housing.

94 Recovery of social housing assistance: successors in title

(1) Section 33 of the Housing and Regeneration Act 2008 (recovery of social housing assistance: interest and successors in title) is amended as follows.

(2) In subsection (6)(b), after “another person” insert “(“the successor”)”.

(3) After subsection (6) insert—

“(6A) But subsection (7) does not apply if—

(a) the successor is a person other than a registered provider of social housing, and

(b) at any time since the social housing assistance was given—

(i) a person has enforced a security over the social housing, or

(ii) the social housing has been disposed of by a body while it is being wound up or is in administration (which, for this purpose, includes housing administration under Chapter 5 of Part 4 of the Housing and Planning Act 2016).””

(4) In subsection (7) for “that other person” substitute “the successor”.