In England Newham Council has completed the first phase of
its plan to introduce mandatory licensing throughout the borough – a plan that
is being closely monitored by other local authorities.
The last Labour Government looked closely at mandatory
licensing but chose not to introduce it. The current Government say that they
have no plans to introduce such a scheme. But it now seems that many local
councils will introduce mandatory licensing no matter what Government may
think.
Sir Robin Wales, Mayor of Newham, said about the first phase
of licensing: "We want this to be just the start. Good landlords have
nothing to fear from this scheme. For the bad ones, this a clear message they
must clean up their act”.
This is despite Newham already having access to around 70
pieces of legislation they could use against bad landlords. Newham have not
explained why they are not robustly using existing legislation to tackle what
they clearly believe is a serious problem of bad landlords.
Kay Boycott, director of communications, policy and
campaigns at Shelter, said: "We are delighted to hear that Newham Council
could be introducing this scheme, which would help protect vulnerable tenants
from rogue landlords who are making their tenants' lives hell”.
Landlords will note the use of the emotive phrase ‘rogue
landlords’ which ties in neatly with the current Shelter campaign called Evict
Rogue Landlords.
At the same time landlords will note, without any surprise
at all, that neither Newham or Shelter have announced any plans to help
landlords deal with bad tenants.
Whilst everyone would agree that eradicating bad landlords
would be of great benefit to the vast majority of good landlords throughout
Great Britain, it is difficult to view these schemes as anything more than a
money raising exercise for local authorities at the expense of landlords.
What Newham and Shelter seem to fail to recognise is that
landlords will have to pass the cost of licensing on to tenants. They also seem
to fail to understand that this will also put people off becoming landlords.
Ultimately this will only serve to increase costs and reduce options for
tenants. This is at a time when the country is crying out for more decent,
affordable housing.
The whole landlord licensing exercise is one-sided. It
assumes that there are only rogue landlords and that there are no rogue
tenants. Only landlords need licensing according to councils like Newham and bodies
like Shelter and the CAB. There is no initiative to license or regulate tenants.
As our Facebook campaign ‘The Damage that Some Tenants Do’
showed there is a significant minority of tenants who cause massive damage to
rental properties costing landlords £ millions a year. This is ignored by
councils like Newham and campaigns like Shelter’s Evict Rogue Landlords.
To help landlords and letting agents identify bad tenants
NetRent will shortly launch a brand new service. Landlords and agents will be
able to register good and bad tenants on a nationwide database which fully
meets Data Protection and Human Rights legislation.
This database will be free of charge and open to every
landlord and agent in the UK. We will also be working with our business partner
to offer this service to every local authority in the country. We believe that
this database will be of huge benefit to landlords, agents and tenants and will
help start and maintain a partnership between good landlords and tenants that
is so desperately needed.
Good landlords, good agents and good tenants
working together – this is just what the UK lettings industry needs – not more
cost and regulation. Our next newsletter will bring you full details of this
exciting new service and how you can join to make the whole industry better for
everyone involved in it.
