Landlord Licensing Schemes – Raising Standards or Raising Funds?

Reply to the comment left by "HB Welcome" at "11/08/2013 - 12:56":

Now on this one I'm not going to argue for lack of resources. HB dont visit properties because it isnt part of their remit. All HB do assess a persons entitlement to benefit, they exists in a financial bubble and the directorate they work under isnt even a housing one. HB always sits in the finance directorate.

If housing benefit is cut for some reason it is always because there is a problem with the tenant's circumstances.

Property conditions are the preserve of EHOs and planning teams.

It has always frustrated me that there is a housing benefit regulation that allows HB to be stopped where the landlord is not a fit and proper person to receive rent but the fit and proper person has a definition under the regs (Not the same as fit and proper for HMO licensing terms) and HB can only be stopped if the landlord has offended in housing benefit fraud. So a landlord can be a complete psycho and criminal but we cant stop the housing benefit if he hasnt committed housing benefit fraud.

In know of a case where an agent is in serious trouble and getting £180,000 a month direct from the council but they have stopped paying the landlords so we know they are going down.

We stopped all monies going to them to protect the landlords but the agents got onto us and pointed out that under law we couldnt do it, so we had to start paying again. Everyone involved thinks this is mad butu we are tied by laws we didnt invent which prevent us from using common sense

The obvious answer to that Ben, is to make it part of their remit.
The 'not council policy', 'computer says no' attitude isn't working.
(Not having a pop at you BTW)
I'm sure our beloved Shelter have knocked up a report detailing the cost consequences to the state from bad housing.
The savings of that would far outweigh that of employing a load of Mini-Bens to carry out the most basic of cursory inspections.

@Gareth and HB Welcome - I think you could be on to something here, especially if the landlord could be prevented from serving notice whilst the HB payments were being withheld. It would be a nice quid pro quo for direct payments of rent before applying the benefits cap too.

As Ben says, it would require cooperation and joined up departmental thinking and strategies and those directives and associated red tape issues can only come from the top, i.e. government.

I accept the above alone wouldn't deal with criminals operating in the non HB sector but it would be a great starting place.

Combine the above with Ben's joined up departmental thinking concept, what's being done in Birmingham as described by Mary, recycling funds by allowing Councils to keep Court awarded penalties and I think we may well have found a very sound basis for a solution!
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Reply to the comment left by "Mark Alexander" at "11/08/2013 - 13:21":
Well that’s what this very interesting conversation seems to be swinging around to doesn’t it Mark? How joined up, multi team working could achieve much more than the simplistic licensing mantra.

HB Welcome is right, it should be part of the remit. Council tax do it. They visit to asses the banding but it wouldn’t have to be housing benefit who do it.
You only need a dedicated, trained visiting team who go to properties to make a variety of determinations for the different council roles. Check out property standards and planning permission, utilities, safety and run checks on the landlord to find out if they are who they say they are and if all checks out then green light the property and the person for the various teams who can advance all the work they need to with a clear run.

Look I’m on one now.

This is what a visiting team would need to do.

• Visit the property and check for breaches of HHSRS.
• Check gas safe certs
• Phone call to planning team if it’s a conversion to ascertain that all has been done with permission. (3 minutes)
• Land reg check to ensure the person you are dealing with is actually the owner (£3 and 2 minutes)
• Experian check for the same reasons as above (£6.99 10 seconds)
• Council tax check for any outsanding bills and history if use (5 minutes)
• Check past HB claimanats which cross references info you have about landlord (5 minutes)
• Call to EDF and British Gas to make sure all utilities are above board. (5 minutes & free)
• Run companies search to see if company are solvent. (Free or just £2 for a director check)
• If landlord is not resident in UK check NRA certificate. (free)
• Run landlord or company name through Google (You’d be amazed what comes up sometimes & free)
• Call EHO to see if they have any dealings in the past with the property or the landlord/agent. (2 minutes & free)

I do most of these when a complaint comes in and its amazing what I find about the dodgy ones.

Its not an onerous search, it doesnt take long and costs are minimal.
What it would take to put in place is political will at a higher level in the council which would level any inter-team objections or procedures and Bingo. You are policing the PRS to everyone’s satisfaction and promoting joined up working to take the criminals out

Exactly Ben.

It costs a tenner and a couple of hours work.
It could even be phased in gradually with new claims only to minimise the workload.
I don't know what the average HB tenancy costs the taxpayer but it can't be far off ten grand.

My kid rented a property recently and I carried out very similar checks, it's just common sense.

It doesn't make sense not to check unless my earlier theory is correct;

"It is because they could not cope with the huge demand for decent accomodation if they did. They know full well what the situation is out there."

Am I becoming a conspiracy theory nutter or are they just incompetent tossers?

Reply to the comment left by "HB Welcome" at "11/08/2013 - 15:39":

There is no average cost per claim on HB because it varies depending on family circumstances, size of property, area the property is in etc but the principle is the same HBW and I agree, joined up working would be a very cost effective way forward.

Having said that, being intricately entwined in council shenanigans most of my life I have a very clear idea where the blocks are and what an uphill struggle it would be to make it work. But it doesn’t have to come from government, it can be done in-house if the right people see what needs to happen.

Frontline enforcement officers see it because we work at the coal face. Senior council managers are focussed solely on keeping politicians happy and middle managers are just there to crack the whip, sack people, bring projects in on budget and panic over any bad press the council may get.

Yes there is a lot of people at the coal face who just turn up and do 9-5 without any performance monitoring. Even if they started out with any enthusiasm it got squashed out of them by the way councils work.

What was it Cromwell said about giving him 10 plain russet coated captains who knew what they were fighting for and he could win the war? If I ruled the world HBW I would employ committed people who knew their job and encourage the many competent enthusiastic people who are actually in the job already and I could run the housing department on half the staff and take the criminal landlords off the board at the same time.

To do so you have to dump all the data sharing protocols out of the window and change the culture so that every directorate, department and team realise they are all working towards the same ends, not just ensuring that their performance statistics are met to keep Whitehall happy. Get that out of the way and we might just be able to get on with doing the jobs we signed up for.

The incompetence is all at this middle management end, where the worst of the back covering politics exists.

And this is the LAST I shall comment on this in case I get called to task by the people who pay me

Hi All
Mary just finished the book which I have enjoyed and will defiantly be using it as a future reference guide (If I decide to stay in the (“game”) that is?

On the note of the general debate this may go against the tide of the debate of avoiding further legislation, bureaucracy and maybe more costs in the PRS, But licencing both Landlords and agents is the only answer, It will not and has not worked with the gentle approach. Those of you that are regular visitors on P118 will know I am a Letting Agent and have been since 1992.

In the early years of accreditation about 1997/2000, I sat on the LA panels on behalf of landlords, of both Liverpool and Wirral LA helping deliver the Landlord and Tenant charter pre the introduction of accreditation, in the years since, although I have had little direct involvement since 2005 it has failed miserably to attract the day to day decent landlords in any numbers, never mind the dark horse!

Just last month July 2013 the leading officer and driving force behind our local accreditation and part of her team have been made redundant by WBC, leaving a much smaller team to keep this sinking intuitive afloat.

I predicted in the beginning that it was doomed as their simply wasn’t and hasn’t been enough voluntary take up of accreditation, as it often costs the LL more money to make good items in the property that may or may not need doing as the accreditation inspectors become more “enforces” Than “encourages” and when LL’s know they will need to invest to improve their property they will avoid it if they can and certainly avoid any involvement with the “Enforcer”

What is needed is the whole PRS culture to change, so one can be proud of being a Landlord and all involved looked up on as a professional and the only way to achieve that in any numbers and thus drive up standards in property condition and service delivery, is the absolute introduction of Licencing for all those involved in the industry.

The argument that why should so many pay for so few, doesn’t stand, because as I have said, even and I would argue, although no stats to support the argument (bet Mary has) that the vast majority of landlords have on the whole ignored accreditation, my early view was that it was a way of collecting data pre licencing as no one really knows exactly how many landlords this country actually has anyway? There are many guesses based on the approximate size of the PRS but those figures are often taken from the BOML, what about inheritance, cash purchase, and other means of ownership other than Buy to Let deals?

What will be the consequences of blanket licencing, yes it will cost a few extra quid to the honest LL , yes it will take time to bite, as all new legislation does, but it will enforce improvement as the “badies” will go elsewhere eventually, leaving more for the Honest hard working Licenced professional, but if guidance and persuasion has failed and let’s be honest it has crashed and burned what are we left with.

In my view it’s time we accepted the inevitability that if LA can’t afford to keep a department going to encourage good practice and can see a way of enforcing income via licencing what do you think will happen? It is time we accepted this and started to assist the debate on licencing rather than waste time fighting it.
Bring it on !

I agree with part of that Don.

In some ways the more pointless beaurocracy, red tape, hoops and hurdles, the better it is for me. I'll master it, find ways (legally) round it and use it to my best advantage. It deters amateur honest landlords and increases rents.

It will also create a lovely little niche market for a new breed of Rachmans.

"but it will enforce improvement as the “badies” will go elsewhere eventually"

Why will it and why hasn't it happened in Scotland where they have been running it for 7 years?

What would assist is if govt made available cheap money to enable LL to upgrade their properties.
This is impossible presently as the banks won't lend
If they are loaning cheap money to FTB why not to LL to upgrade their properties.
Govt would have a charge over the property for the loan which would have be be repaid if the property is sold.
Otherwise the LL just pays the interest.
Doing this would upgrade the standard of private rented accommodation in the UK.
PRS LL do not have vast buckets of cash to spend on their properties and can't obtain the loans even if they wanted to.
Example I would like to rewire a property and address some minor damp issues; but I can't afford to!!
Give me a low interest govt loan and I will do the works!!
Most LL would like to upgrade their properties as it generally uplifts capital values.
Remember there are 682000 PRS properties that in 2018 will be unlettable if they do not meet the EPC E standard!!!
Licensing is just a silly idea.
Far better to insist councils only pay HB to tenants who have LL that are members of a LL organisation; litte the NLA and who have been accredited by the NLA etc.
The ONLY way to get LL to take notice is the threat of loss of income.
Most of the bad LL take in HB tenants.
Good LL would register then and should NOT be charged big fees, those not doing so should be hit with the larger fees until they have sorted themselves out!!!