Council to buy 300 homes to deal with landlord repossessions

Reply to the comment left by Mick Roberts at 25/03/2023 - 16:24
I agree that 200 is 1% of 20,000 but it's 33% of 600 and statisticians would expect that same proportion across the board unless they deliberately selected properties that they already had reason to suspect of being below standard.

Of course it's not acceptable to be paying for inspections that will never take place but what would appear to be a 33% strike rate is an argument for increasing the number of inspections rather than showing that the whole scheme is a waste of time and money.

Reply to the comment left by JB at 25/03/2023 - 19:33
Our own houses, they may find faults.

Yes but they choose what the worst they can get. Often look from the outside at gardens & windows.
Like cars driving down the road, the Police pull over the worst looking when fault finding.

Some of the hazards was a Carpet tack loose on the stairs. EVEN IF it's the tenants carpet, but because in Housing law/rules (someone correct me), Landlord is responsible for stair coverings (And bathroom & kitchen coverings), it goes down as the Landlords fault.

Reply to the comment left by Seething Landlord at 25/03/2023 - 19:38
Even at 33% skewed in their favour, still means 67% paying for nothing. When some tenants are paying 70% of market rent, something has to give. My houses have got worse cause of Licensing. Less funds to spend on refurbishments.

Reply to the comment left by Mick Roberts at 26/03/2023 - 16:39
The trouble is that if they are finding faults in 1 in 3 properties it is difficult to sustain an argument that the inspections are not needed.

Reply to the comment left by Seething Landlord at 26/03/2023 - 20:16
Yes, many of us are arguing for more inspections. That's the problem, they had about £20 million in & by about Dec 2019 or 2020 (I've got more accurate figures elsewhere), they'd only done 600 Inspections. So to find 200 bad houses, that means about £100,000 to find each bad house. I think the figure was £51,000 per bad house found at one point depending on what date u went to what they had in.
Nottingham Council then PAID Birmingham Inspectors to come inspect Nottingham houses to get the number of inspections up so when they went to the Govt to ask permission to do Selective Licensing again, the Govt didn't say What, u going been 5 years & you've only done that many inspections? I think it was was something like 76 staff & only averaging 3 inspections a year. A MOT garage would go bust at only 3 a day.

And I'll go back again, why are tenants paying £890 in rent increases to pay for this & getting nothing in return....

Here is the Council's OWN Labour Councillors questioning the value of the scheme-They banned from talking to me, so I can't get any more info out them:

https://nottstv.com/doubts-raised-over-whether-scheme-to-stamp-out-rogue-nottingham-landlords-is-good-value-for-money/

Under the previous scheme, 666 improvements were made to a total of 446 properties. The council described it as a success, but some landlords argued otherwise.

It is anticipated the cost of the new licensing scheme would be £820 for five years with a proposed fee of £630 for accredited landlords. The original fee had increased to £670 (accredited) and £890 (non-accredited) in March 2020.

The new proposals would also introduce a higher fee for less compliant landlords of £1,110, as well as a proposed block licence for certain blocks of flats. These fees are £1,840 standard fee, £1,125 accredited fee and a £2,295 less compliant fee.

To run the scheme the council says it will need roughly £22.4m to cover overheads including 94 staff members. No profit would be made.

During a meeting on the plan, Cllr Jane Lakey (Lab), who represents Bulwell, questioned whether the scheme was value for money.

She said: “It’s a very, very crude indicator but if 950-odd properties have been improved and then you are going to double the visits to properties in the next 10 months, and let’s be generous and say the number of properties doubles, that is around 1,800 properties improved, which is nice, in terms of averaging the cost out if you take that measure it would cost about £12,000 a property?”

Cllr Toby Neal (Lab), portfolio holder for housing, replied to say it was a crude estimate but argued if it did work out to roughly £12,000 a property, the scheme stopping injury and making rented-properties safe would be “good value for money”.

iHowz helped negotiate the licencing scheme at Southampton, which ensures properties are inspected at the start of the licence (rather than unannounced visits several months or years later) and gives landlords the option of using an independent surveyor to inspect their properties to certify compliance.

https://ihowz.uk/southampton-licensing/

This has resulted in Southampton landlords having the ability to schedule several inspections on the same day, giving them certainty that they are compliant from day one. Doing this frees up council resources and has resulted in some of the lowest licencing fees in the country.

https://www.southampton.gov.uk/housing/landlords/houses-multiple-occupation/licence-fees/

It is hoped that the new Property Portal will pull together many of the compliance documents (EPC, gas, electric, deposits, right to rent, how to rent) and allow self certification of things such as furnishings, smoke, heat and CO alarms allowing good landlords to focus on providing homes for their tenants while making it easier for councils to identify those who may not be compliant. This would be a major step in reducing the need for licencing.

Reply to the comment left by Mick Roberts at 27/03/2023 - 05:54
Have they ever explained why the inspection rate is so low?

Reply to the comment left by Rod at 27/03/2023 - 10:08
So it seems in Southampton, you pay a reduced license fee if you shell out for an independant surveyor, which doesn't sound to me like it saves the landlord money.

As Rod describes, I question the role of licensing when the 'Renters Reform Bill' comes in. The bill, I understand, will give properties a 'Unique Property Number'' and a new 'Property Portal'

Reply to the comment left by Mick Roberts at 27/03/2023 - 05:54
Do they say what these 'improvements' were? I suspect most were minor, and definitely not a risk to life or health.

Reply to the comment left by JB at 27/03/2023 - 10:18
The advantage of appointing the surveyor is that you control the process, and potentially are able to secure a discount for inspecting multiple properties.
The other advantage of inspection on a predefined date is that it allows landlords to inspect their properties and address any issues prior to the inspection, helping reduce the risks of unannounced inspections, where tenants may have either not reported issues or are the source of the issues.

The Unique Property Number (UPN) already exists. You can find it on some sales agents packs if they provide open source data in their sales pack. This accesses things like EPC, council tax band (and cost), flood risk and mobile provider signal strength.