Where can landlords pay £1.85pw to Nottingham Licensing?

Reading all these frustrations is an upsetting picture of how local government interact with businesses who are providing a crucial local service to it's inhabitants. Would they treat any other essential service in the same way?

Reply to the comment left by at 30/07/2018 - 12:34
That's the thing. It's a vote winner for them. Well from the big Govt.
But little council Govt seeing it as cash cow, but not working with the sister Homeless department seeing the bad sides of this.

We are providing crucial service, they don't see it as that though.

Reply to the comment left by Heather G. at 30/07/2018 - 12:18Heather, I also made the point about the length of the licence and the fee to Croydon when we applied for a licence there towards the end of 2016. But it is completely ridiculous to still be charging the same fee now. I'd be curious to know whether they ever inspect your property. It took them nearly 18 months to confirm that we had indeed been granted a licence, but to my knowledge they never visited the property.

Someone needs to do a complaint about these short licenses.
This will become more prevalent as time goes on, & some new Landlord buys a house 6 months before License period finishes & then is asked TOLD to pay £780 for 5 year License which runs out in 6 months.
It's a tax on thin air. Air we breathe. Poor tenants. More stuff to put Investors off who ultimately end up housing people. And a lot of homeless people.

Reply to the comment left by Mick Roberts at 31/07/2018 - 07:30
If it were me and only six months remaining, I'd leave the property sat empty and make it public knowledge that the licence was cutting the numbers of properties.

Correct again Mick. I think these rotten councils could be vunerable to a legal challenge on this very point. Charging a landlord for a 5 yr licence where their scheme has a year to run. The landlord then would have to purchase another 5 year licence. The Housing act is also drafted to allow the greedy councils to collect muntiple times. Ie everytime a property changes hands they can extort another fee.
Incidentially Mick, i reviewed Nottinghams scheme and believe it to contravene the provisions of the DPA. Firstly the tell landlords to get DBS clearance but to protect themselves from possible criminal charges ,state that the DBS check is voluntary. Therefore dont bother with one and report them to the ICO. Secondly these cowboys state on their data section that they will retain landlord details for 7 years after expiry of licence. This is grossly excessive and should be brought to the attention of the ICO without delay. I have not read the actual conditions but im pretty sure they are also flawed.

They've also timed this to be paid at exactly the same time we have to make tax payments on account (31/07/18).
No doubt unintentional as councils are clueless about the realities of running a business.

Re Lukes point about leaving a property empty for the last few months rather than be blackmailed in to a 5 year licence .excellent point, however the landlord is then on the hook for 6 months CT.
Instead id make it clear that the unit was not available to the public. Lets create a housing shortage. Secondly rent the unit to a limited company not an ast which puts you outside the licensing legislation. Finally the company is liable for CT not the landlord. This approach addresses the 5yr fee for a 6 month licence and absolves the LL of any CT liability.
Ladies and Gentlemen. Time to fight back hard. Hit the councils hard

Reply to the comment left by Larry Sweeney at 31/07/2018 - 09:10
So non-AST tenanted properties do not fall under SL, Larry?

Reply to the comment left by Luke P at 31/07/2018 - 09:43I think it is simply that the liability is perhaps transferred to the company (if they then sublet the property to tenants), so if you plan to lease the property to your own ltd company then you still end up paying.
The only way I see this benefiting the owner landlord is if they lease the property to a rent to rent company not connected with the owner landlord, (or to a council or housing association, running a rent to rent scheme, sometimes referred to as a private sector leasing scheme) so that they become the organisation that is liable for ensuring compliance. However, surely they would factor the costs into their business model and reduce the rent offer to the owner to take account of this added financial burden.