Bristol City Council – The lights are on but no one’s home!

Yes,
We had the same in Nottingham with normal houses Selective Licensing. I've forgot now, but something like 39 conditions & each condition has sub menu's A to G, so something like 273 rules to abide by.
And yes, they have no clue about being a Landlord, or more importantly what it requires to rent out houses.
The main man at the time said 'Well New builds have got thumbturns' To which I said Bingo, we ain't got New builds. And New builds cost more money.
He then said What u get on with your tenants? He was flummoxed that a landlord got on with his tenants & thought all tenants hated all Landlords.
One of their conditions, we have not suddenly got to leave our phone on 24 hours a day, IT MUST ANSWER BY US!
No wonder Nottingham homeless has shot up since Licensing was introduced.
Most of Nottingham's rents went up or sold.

Just finishing a renovation of a flat I plan to let as a HMO next year, there are already 2 other flats in the building that are up and running HMOs, plus mine and another currently owner occupied - I've lived there several years and haven't had any problems with the other occupants. I'm not against these regs to be honest, unless I've missed something, there's nothing particularly onerous there and we - FMC - have ensured the house is compliant with the requirements (fire alarm systems etc) as part of keeping the communal areas of the building compliant, and we are working towards other things highlighted on the fire safety inspection like replacing oil based paint with a water based product in the communal areas (it'll be on the list for the planned refurb of that area). This does highlight the sort of issue that will crop up in reality though, how much private owner occupiers should have to contribute towards 'communal' costs that might be incurred primarily for the purpose of the HMO licence, including buildings insurance. BTW, we also have a social media group for all the occupants/owners so problems can be raised and dealt with quickly and so far it's all worked really well and I can recommend trying it. Perhaps we've just been lucky. Must say I think the licence is very expensive.

Interesting - you should ask them to confirm that they or their outsourced providers (social housing landlords or care agencies and sometimes private landlords) do all the same within their community living houses. Some councils have not yet realised that community living comes under their HMO rules. To clarify community living consists of 2 or more adults, with learning difficulties, sharing a house, having a tenancy for their room and sharing areas, ie kitchen, loos, lounge, halls. They may or may not have 24hr support who also live in (either employed by the council directly or via an agency) who have their own bedroom. They should also have all the safety requirements, gas cert, elec, energy, fire blankets etc etc etc. Surprisingly one council has recently realised none of these types of houses have any of the above and are in urgent discussions with the landlords because the council have a duty of care to the vulnerable clients they placed there.

Most HMO licensing schemes will include a similar list of requirements. In most cases for good/experienced landlords, the list is a bit of an insult. Let us know how you feel when you receive the letter that gives you the licence but then goes onto say you may not be inspected for another four years! They told me they had "no resource problems"!

most are ultra vires? need legal opinion?

Our top councillor earns £172000pa with a nice big fat pension to follow, the money has got to come from somewhere the poor thing!

When I first heard the news of the licensing I contacted BCC to get further information and they sent me a detailed 3 page PDF with the below information on what they are trying to achieve.;

1, Benefits for Private Landlords.
The compliant landlords will be rewarded for responsible letting practices with reduced fees.
Their reputation will be enhanced because their properties are licensed but poor landlords will be forced to improve standards of their properties.
Better management and tenancy agreements will enable landlords to have more control over the property and will receive support to deal with tenants who commit ASB.
Should lead to more sustainable tenancies.
2, Benefits to Tenants.
Peace of mind that the property you live in has been inspected and is safe.
Landlords will have to undertake repairs to bring property up to standard and may be penalized if he/she doesn’t to the work when we request it.
Landlords may decide to let more family units rather than HMOs which may make the area more stable.
Standards include limits on the number of permitted occupants per property so will reduce the likelihood of cramped and overcrowded accommodation.
Advice and guidance will be available for tenants.
Reporting hotline to report anonymously properties that let but are not licensed which will investigate further.
3, Benefits to the Community
No cost to the tax payer – it is self funding.
Increase in numbers of properties meeting standards and better management practices which should help decrease ASB.
Reduce incidence of overcrowded properties and the ASB most associated with these properties eg noise and rubbish.
Register of landlords/managers made publicly available so neighbours can report disrepair or ASB more easily and police will be able to get details of the owner if ASB is reported to them.

To clarify my thoughts on the Additional Licensing required by Bristol City Council.
I am completely fine to comply with the safety requirement such as Gas Safety Certificate, EPC, fire alarm, smoke alarm, CO alarm, emergency lighting, fire evacuation plan etc but where it gets difficult is the subject of Anti Social Behaviour conditions 4, 6, 8, 9 and 11.
How am I expected to deal with anti social behaviour by a tenant or visitor except to evict that person?
My personal power to do anything about this is very limited by law and may disapear completely with the end of S21 evictions.
I responded to BCC and the previous information about three types of expected benefits with an email as below,
Dear xxx,
Does BCC realise the Landlord has NO CONTROL over the behaviour of a tenant and often is as much a victim as the neighbours? When we hand over the keys to a very valuable property we have just lost legal control of that property for months into the future, anything can happen.
The term Rogue Landlord is often bandied about but hardly anyone in the mainstream media talks about the Tenant from Hell.
The above tenant will require expensive and time consuming court action to evict, what support will BCC give to Landlord with that situation?
I can predict the result of new legislation, licensing fees and prohibition of S21 will lead to,
1. More Landlords exiting the Private Rental Sector.
2. A further shortage of rental properties available in the PRS.
3. For Landlords not baling out, rents will be going up as fast as possible to compensate for the higher costs and risks of the PRS.
4. No Landlord in his right mind will be taking on DSS tenants as the risk will be even higher than already for a normal working tenant.
Often the LA advises non rent paying and/or anti social behaving tenants they will not rehouse them until the last moment and they have been actually evicted. The introduction of Universal Credit has lead to many tenants being starved of funds to pay the rent. This policy just increases the cost and misery for both neighbours and Landlords alike and doesnt really do the tenant any favours in the long run.
BCC should be preparing for a further shortage of properties to rent in the PRS and a much higher demand for social housing, plus a lot more homeless people on the streets than you already have, a bad situation is about to get much worse.
Sorry to say the above but I do feel these are the potential effects of various LA and Government "initiatives" on the PRS and especially in Bristol as it is already an expensive city to live.
Regards,

BCC replied, Dear XXX
Thank you for your email. XX has passed this to me to respond.
This scheme unlike Stapleton Road has been approved under a different set of criteria and the focus is not on ASB but on poor housing conditions and poor management of HMOs. For your information the scheme in Stapleton Road was very well received by people in the community and outcomes were better than we had expected.
Eastville and St George is a different scheme again as is not restricted to HMOS but the criteria here was also poor housing conditions and poor management.
The fees are calculated based on the work involved in delivering the scheme and has been fully checked by both Legal and Financial services team to ensure they meet legal requirements. The scheme cannot make a profit and all income can only be used on delivering the scheme that was designated.
Your comments on ASB and S21 etc. have been noted and unfortunately some of these things are outside our control. We do appreciate that it is hard managing some tenants and we do support landlords when we come across these as part of our intervention in licensing but we do expect landlords to handle some of the lesser ASB issues like rubbish and noise complaints through their management of the property.

Regards
xxx

Whats interesting is that under Benefits to Landlords they say landlords "will receive support to deal with tenants who commit ASB."
Then in the email to me from a BCC employee they say "Your comments on ASB and S21 etc. have been noted and unfortunately some of these things are outside our control. "
Therefore BCC are selling the licensing as tackling ASB but then say in the above email "This scheme unlike Stapleton Road has been approved under a different set of criteria and the focus is not on ASB but on poor housing conditions and poor management of HMOs" and "some things are out of our control".
So exactly what support is BCC offering to a landlord who has a tenant committing ASB?
I would say not very much but we will make sure your house is nicely decorated and we get our money for the once in five years inspection.
Plus on top of that they have encouraged Bristol landlords to exit the market, this has helped create a shortage of housing in the Bristol PRS and also is leading to Landlords still operating to massively increase the rents of the houses they still have due to much increased work, expense and risks of operating a licensed HMO within the City of Bristol.
So one group of people, the neigbours of an HMO, benefit from reduced incidents of ASB - good- but another group, prospective tenants, can expect a shortage of houses to rent and drastically increasing rents (bad for them).
This why I wonder if with BCC the lights are on but no one's home.

Our experience in Nottingham, the good landlords reputation didn't need to be enhanced by Accreditation & License, as had no problem & a queue of tenants. It was the bad Landlords who needed the accreditation to enhance their reputation.
Do a Freedom of Info request on BCC's homeless bill now & then do it in a year & say Told u so.