Additional Licensing – how to sneak it through?

Whilst I applaud high standards of safety in rented accommodation, there are different ways of achieving this. Some of the conditions under licensing schemes are un-necessarily heavy-handed and open to interpretation, often by over-zealous EHO. These schemes are seen as the answer to rubbish problems, anti-social behaviour and crime, however there is no evidence to support this. The money and time setting them up could be better spent on tackling the problems in other ways and enforcing more action on the rogues that are discovered.

When did a shared house with kitchen facilities, only in the kitchen, suddenly became a house of bedsits, for example, or what constitutes a low risk property (which is then allowed close fitting doors rather than fire doors) or is there ever a time when kitchen fans are not required? These definitions exist but are often ignored by EHO and once licensing is introduced these are simply mandatory conditions and there is no room for negotiation.

Cardiff Council wants to add another area to the list of Additional Licensed properties. Normally this Council is exemplary in its dealings with landlords and has created a good working environment, however in the rush to get this through during an overturn of the Welsh Cabinet, they have chosen to issue a consultation document the week before Easter and for the minimum 6 week period. The document did not appear in any public domain for at least a week that I can find and was inaccessible for a few days. The questionaire is rather loaded if you log on as a tenant.

Please can you help by contributing to this survey? There were only 6 objections in a previous consultation as the 150 signatures (approx) from the local forum were counted as one! It does not say you have to be a landlord with a property in this area – nor a tenant. If the tenant is happy with their property and has never had any cause for complaint there is no box for them to tick. This rather assumes than none exist (:

A consultation questionnaire, together with a link to the Public Consultation document can be found at http://www.surveys.cardiff.gov.uk/HMOPlasnewydd/

Please can you help? I know this is happening all over the UK and is seen by most decent landlords, who already provide good homes, as another stealth tax and unlikely to solve the problems. I would love some comments from the Milton Keynes landlords who overturned the decision to introduce licensing in their area.

Many Thanks

Gilly

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