Every three years all National Code Members are required to re-join the Code and this three yearly period begins in January 2021.

It is important that the National Code Administrator receives a new completed Declaration to continue membership of the Code in time for them to process new Membership Certificates before the old ones expire on 31st January 2021.

A copy if the new Code can be found as part of the suite of these documents. A tracked-change document was sent to all Members earlier but a copy can be requested at any time from the National Codes Administrator at [email protected]

Declarations should be returned as soon as possible but no later than 31st January 2021.

Further Information

The Code is also reviewed every three years and changes are made to keep the Code in line with legislative or regulatory changes, to enhance clarity in the wording or to introduce new areas in order to keep the Code up-to-date and fresh.

The review process has been delayed by the Coronavirus pandemic and therefore the work on a fully revised Code has not yet been completed. The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) has also indicated that it wishes to update the aspects of the Code that are Government approved and that this will not be possible until the middle of 2021.

On that basis, only a few changes have been made to the Code for 2021 and the fully revised Code will not come into operation until September 1st 2021. All Members will be fully consulted before the main changes are implemented.

Members are still being asked to join the Code for a three-year period and when the fully revised Code comes into operation Members will be asked to sign the new version and agree to adhere to its provisions for the remaining term. If that is not done then Unipol will reserve the right to terminate membership of the Code following the 31st December 2021.

Important Changes Now

There is a new section on Health and Wellbeing. On 15th July 2019 the ANUK/Unipol National Code launched a consultation to all Members and other interested parties on inserting a new section into the Code, recognising the importance of wellbeing and mental health support and proposing that all members of the Code should ensure that they meet a specific set of standards as part of their commitment under the Code to provide the best and most appropriate service to their tenants that they can. The consultation closed on Friday 23rd August 2019 and the standards were finalised by 16th September 2019 and were circulated to all Members shortly after that.

These standards have now been incorporated into this new Code in a new Section 5. This is an important step forward for the Code and Members are thanked for supporting this important change.

As part of implementing Section 5, there is a feed-in time relating to training which needs to have been undertaken by 1st May 2021.

At the time Unipol said it would put together some further Guidance on Sharing Tenant Data together with a suite of associated template documents which seeks to provide a framework for the compliant sharing of data and this information ca be found within this suite of documents. These templates are provided to assist providers in the sector who do not have the legal expertise or resources to draft their own complex documents. It is expected that providers with larger portfolios will have their own documents in place. Those with more formal longer-term underwrite agreements will frequently have a bespoke data sharing agreement as part of that commitment.

Thank you for your continuing support of the Code and upholding the standards that it represents and for working so well throughout this very difficult time.

Download a copy of the 2021 Code

Download a copy of the information sharing agreement