Councils need more government support to tackle rogue landlords
The Guardian and ITV News recently uncovered how criminal landlords are exploiting legal loopholes to continue operating, even though they have been convicted and found not fit and proper. Licensing PRS properties has many advantages, however councils need more government support to ensure tenants are fully protected.
Metastreet have recently produced a report and key recommendation relating to PRS licensing for Core Cities UK. The report reviews licensing across England, Wales and Scotland and analyses the impact of selective licensing in our great cities. Finally, the report makes a number of recommendations for government. A summary of the recommendations can be found below:
- Return selective licensing powers to local authorities: Since April 2015, local authorities have had to seek approval from the Secretary of State for selective licensing schemes which would cover more than 20% of their geographical area or would affect more than 20% of privately rented homes in the area. The current application process places a significant burden on applying authorities: it is bureaucratic, subject to lengthy delays, and based on unclear, outdated criteria. While acknowledging a potential role for central government in quality-checking the operation of schemes, decisions to implement selective licensing should ultimately rest with local authorities, where there is a greater understanding of local need.
- Introduce a national landlord registration scheme: This could support and complement selective licensing schemes by making it easier for local authorities to identify landlords in their area. While this would not completely remove the need for data matching and other exercises to find unregistered landlords, it would help local authorities to build a much better picture of the PRS in their areas and reduce the resources needed to start a new scheme.
- Introduce stronger penalties for the very worst landlords and support local authorities to step up enforcement: While local authorities can currently issue civil penalties up to a maximum of £30,000, we support calls for higher financial penalties and property forfeiture in the worst cases. The government should also look at a new fund to support local authorities with initial investment to step up enforcement.
- Review and simplify existing regulation around licensing: While licensing is valued by many councils and residents, landlords and many councils also find current regulations bureaucratic and costly. While acknowledging the value of selective licensing, the government should seek to simplify regulations and processes where possible. For example, reducing the mandatory application questions landlords must answer.
- Update government guidance on fees, licensing conditions, and enforcement
policy: the government could provide improved guidance to encourage greater
standardisation in the
operation of licensing schemes across the country, learning from existing best practice.
Areas where guidance could be updated include:
- Fees: Licensing fees vary significantly from scheme to scheme, and government should consider introducing clearer guidance on fees.
- Licensing enforcement policy: There is significant variation in how licensing schemes are enforced. Government could create a more consistent approach by encouraging councils to adopt a national enforcement policy and publishing clear guidance.
- Licensing conditions: The wording of licensing conditions varies outside of the mandatory conditions set by government. Government could consider introducing clearer guidance on what new licensing conditions can be set to help provide greater consistency.
A full copy of Metastreet’s PRS Licensing Research Report can be found here
Interested? Read our latest articles.
Predicting the location of housing crimes - the power of machine learning and property licensing
What if we could predict the time and location of environmental health crimes? This would be a regulator’s dream not unlike the 2002 fantasy Spielberg film Minority Report, in which a specialised police department apprehends criminals based on foreknowledge provided by psychics. Is that fantasy starting to become a reality?
Read this article >Tenure Intelligence (Ti) - Combining artificial intelligence and housing data
Multinational technology companies are not the only ones using big data and computing power to make predictions about the unknown. Councils have seen the benefits of machine learning and are now starting to adopt this approach to make public services more effective and productive.
Read this article >The building blocks of effective private housing multi-agency enforcement
A minority of landlords across the UK continue to commit housing crimes and expose tenants to life threatening hazards and poor housing conditions.
Read this article >What are the success factors for property licensing schemes?
Lots has been said and written about property licensing as a policy intervention, however there has been little discussion on why some schemes are perceived as a success and why others have struggled.
Read this article >Where have all the Housing EHOs gone?
There’s simply nowhere near enough qualified housing enforcers employed by councils to deal with growing levels of poor housing conditions in the private rented sector (PRS).
Read this article >