Newham Council in East London have began a 10-week consultation on proposals to introduce a licensing scheme.
The scheme aims to check that every landlord can pass as a "fit and proper person", which may therefore involve all landlords having to have a Criminal Record Bureau check.
The licence will also require them to show that all gas and electrical installations meet regulations, they are issuing legal tenancy agreements, keeping up with repairs and managing any anti social behaviour from their tenants.
The landlord licence is expected to cost landlords £500.
So with Newhams 35,000 private tenancies it could generate a nice boost in revenue for the council at a time when the austerity measures are starting to hurt. Handy!
The council is hoping to get the landlord licence scheme up and running in time for the Olympics, and are hoping to be able commemorate it by issuing special gold medal licences that landlords can tie around their neck with red ribbon, or should that be red tape.
Gold! Comedy gold, what will councils look to do next to save their jobs!
How about a residents licence scheme involving CRB checks and a test to see if you are going to be able to manage the recycling of glass, plastic and cardboard correctly and that you bring your bins in within 12 hours of collection.
I've got to be honest I'd fail. It's just I always leave the tops on my plastic milk bottles and I know I shouldn't, but its the only way that I can stop them expanding in the recycling box and.......
Read the Guardians view on the nasty landlords
Read Inside Housings view on the licence scheme
Landlord insurance - special rates - great cover.
Newham is one London's most deprived Borough, but it also has one of the cheapest housing and rent in London. It is a vital area for cheap housing to support London's economy. Think of all the low-wage staff and budget accomodation.
ReplyDeleteNewham Council is using the excuse of some rogue landlord to LICENSE EVERY single Landlord. It thinks that £500 in its pocket will suddenly improve the quality of housing.
The sad this is that this £500 license is a tax on tenants. It will get passed on.
The Government should step in!
What about the Dodgy Tenants? They keep running from property of property. 60 % of the problems are created by the tenants and nt the landlords.
ReplyDeleteWhy not creat a register of all Dodgy tenants. At least the landlords will have something to check the tenants.
Dodgy landlords support dodgy tenants, they deserve each other. The good landlords and good tenants desrve each other as they help each other for a more comfortable lifestyle..Think about it !
What a fire starter and what utter nonsense. Do people actually get paid to think-tank schemes such as this?!
ReplyDeleteTenants do not need the safeguarding, Landlords do. Don't Landlords have enough on their plates already from entities such as the tenancy deposit scheme which (primarily) safeguards and rules in favour of tenants? Rip off Britain just keeps on taking the biscuit.
Here we go again another tax on the landlord. Keep it up we will all move out the country as I will be doing on retiring
ReplyDeleteI think we are missing the point here.
ReplyDeleteIt is not landlords that need licencing it is tenants.
After all a landlords property can't move around ripping off other landlords.
A landlord's property could be repossessed, sold at a loss.
The landlord could face bankruptcy.
A tenant who choses not to pay rent faces none of those risks.
Therefore it should be that a tenant is licensed so that a landlord will have an idea that they won't be ripped off.
Also people there are 2 companies which do have registers of GOOD and BAD tenants.
They are both free.
EVERY landlord and letting agent should use the services.
They are landlordreferencing.co.uk and tenantid.co.uk.
These are 2 organisations which allow landlords and LA to communicate with eachother.
Join both and carry out credit checks aswell and they willl go someway to stopping bad tenants; but will also show good tenants.
These are the Morons running our local authorities across Britain with no financial imperative or consequences, who have feathered their own wage packets and pensions and keep bleating on a bout fairness and the vulnerable! The very same they abuse, kill, protect and encourage time and again to commit crimes against society and in particular landlords. They use millions of our taxes to take landlords to court for not correctly registering a £750 deposit which has been repaid, yet they enforce a £10,000 fine for the landlord for this heinous crime. If they were taken to court for similar activities such as the gross mismanagement of almost everything they touch, the utter waste of the public purse and the equivalence of theft of the same in their awarding themselves huge recompense for shocking performance, they would be fined billions. I hate these morons with a passion for this and their landlord bashing. Look in the mirror you bunch of useless cnuts!
ReplyDeleteIt is a fact that Councils all over are imposing charges where ever and when ever they can on landlords and local taxpaying residents to bolster their dwindling funds from central government.
ReplyDeleteOur Council has just imposed discriminatory Article 4 Directions on landlords in certain areas where they get competition from landlords offering reasonable low cost rentals - as the Council itself is building with taxpayers money huge HMO's for students without the restrictdions they are placing on local landlords and residents.
This £500 license for Landlords is one more fee for landlords to pay and is pure harassment of landlords Councils have thought up to obtain funds for their incompetence and over spending.
By so doing they are reducing economic growth in the area as the landlords and their tenants are part of the SME group that increase the economic growth of the nation. Eventually it will be too costly to be a landlord and they will give up and leave
There is more poor planning of the Councils as they are asking landlords to co-operate with them as they are 40% + short on social houseing and they want us to help with the green deal as well.
So much for the green deal if the council's policies dont match the criteria and they refuse planning permission for solar energy and fuel efficient technology in conservation areas - just about every where in our town.
Policies that dont match their aims, policies that dont support economic growth but fleece the local enterprises, policies that dont protect our planete from co2 emissions etc, policies that are so bureaucratic and undemocratic and anti competitive it makes one wonder why we have Councils at all.
Would these Councils / Housing Associations be able to meet such standards with their own housing stock ?
ReplyDeleteAre their flats fully up to date with fire regulations risk assessed as rented properties (not just Building Regs)
What is their own repair records like ?
Are their Housing Departments fully reactive to tenant complaints,
or are they all sitting at desks using their clip boards to support large mugs of tea, as they work out there petrol allowances and flexi time forms.
This license for landlords could prove to be even more costly for some landlords if they have properties scattered around in different boroughs. The proposed £500 plus let’s say £80 or perhaps £100 for the CRB check for each and every borough council that a landlord holds property in. Not forgetting the high level of probability that the £500 charge will double second time around if this needs to be renewed on a regular basis. Alternatively this charge could be related to the number of properties a particular landlord holds in one borough, and then this would definitely represent another layer of tax on property. This idea of a landlord license definitely has the smell of a nice little earner for the local councils yet again. Is anyone fighting our corner? Who is objecting to this proposal?
ReplyDelete