Landlord Licensing Schemes – Raising Standards or Raising Funds?

In the London Borough of Newham, they introduced BOTH Selective Licensing and Additional Licensing. It is a misuse of the legislation, as 'Selective Licensing' was meant for boarded up homes up North, certainly not for properties in London. It was never meant BOTH Selective and Additional licensing would be applied in same area.

Newham has angered local Landlords, it spent its entire time smearing Landlords, they produced a horror show of bad properties and said "here this is how you run your properties". There was one house with no roof and was a 'walk-in-freezer', hardly representative. They had a roomful of good landlords / letting agents and telling them this is how you run your operation.

Newham claimed there were a lot of rogue landlords. Now eight months later, Newham are celebrating they have 30,000 License applications. Clearly, not all the landlords are rogues as Newham originally claimed.

Do Newham really think, someone who is running an outbuidling in the garden is going to apply for a license??.

Newham have caused 'good' landlords a great deal of grief and anxiety. It is the good landlords who are tied up in knots with their stupid licensing scheme.

For instance, if a landlords has a 3 bedroom rented to a family (fully licensed) and it becomes empty next year, the landlords cannot re-let the property to say 3 nurses (as they are Sharers not a family) and it would required an entirely different sort of License, which would cost £500. If that is not bad enough, Newham has introduced Article 4, so a landlord would need to go to different council department to apply for Planning Permission (so this family home can be rented to sharers). But Newham policy on HMO, is they will not let any home be rented to sharers.

Flat shares are popular with young people, who don't have family committtements and want to save money for a deposit and pay off student loans.

Imagine, a Taxi driver saying "sorry, but I can't pick up 3 nurses, as I am only licensed to carry families". This is how Newham's Landlord licensing works.

If Newham really cared about housing standards, they would have petition the the Government to make it easier to get rid of tenants who are sub-letting or causing property damage. Nor is there protection from tenants who cancel their last months rents, to get the deposit back. What incentive is there to look after the property?

Ben (on this forum) says he has seen sh***y properties, but any decent landlord can end up with a sh***y property, if the tenants has not looked after it or causing property damage.

System is easy to beat; you just have 1 tenant and 2 lodgers.
I do it all the time.
Lodgers don't even appear anywhere, so single persons discount applies for Council tax!
My AST is with 1 tenant.
I give them permission to take in lodgers; not tenants.
I have NEVER had any issues with the occupiers doing it this way to beat the silly system; they like doing that way!!
Most of the flats round my way have 3 Ryanair staff sharing; which is supposedly an HMO!!!
No LL pays fees or has a HMO licence for a purpose built 2 bed flat!!

Anon, You have stolen my words, I have lost my total respect for Newham Council, not just because of this, but they have now become very intimidating Council, they are themselves conducting as big thugs, using the powers given to them they are flexing every bit of muscle, from liftings up cars when they have just run out of parking charges or where Resident's parking permits have just run out, a PCN is issued and within about 30 minutes the car is also impounded.

Reply to the comment left by "Don Holmes" at "11/08/2013 - 16:37":

I'd like to think Don, if you read this entire thread you will see that there are many other viable ways to effectively Police the PRS using both carrot and stick.
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Reply to the comment left by "Mary Latham" at "09/08/2013 - 15:22":

Absolutely spot on! And it is the same with all licencing/registration & even fines for minor offences (1 day late for P11D return, 5 minutes late on a street pay & display car park space etc.). The generally law abiding pay up, the real criminals or serious offenders never do; & the state doesn't pursue them because it is just too difficult.

Reply to the comment left by "Mark Alexander" at "11/08/2013 - 21:13":

Yes and councils could start by looking at your Good Landlord strategy
Just because they haven't thought of it doesn't mean it isn't a damn good idea!!!

I had read the thread top to bottom and been involved with the subject practically for over 10 years, it is a shame that once again a controversial comment has been removed disallowing others to make up there own minds.

I will un doubted re visit this subject with you in due course?

Reply to the comment left by "Don Holmes" at "11/08/2013 - 22:21":

If you want to disagree with the compelling evidence in this thread that Licensing does not work and if you want to refute all of the viable alternatives suggested by other very credible posters that's your prerogative.

Don, your comment has not been removed, your previous comment is third from bottom on page 7 of this discussion thread.

This is the second occasion you have incorrectly and publicly accused me of underhanded moderation which is defamation of character. I fully expect a public apology. Do this again and you will be banned.
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Just a thought if we operate in the PRIVATE Rented System should enforcement not also be in the post 1987 system. A simple landlord rather than property licence would solve that..............

Reply to the comment left by "Lee Gough" at "11/08/2013 - 09:22":

Hello Lee,

This was a chicken/egg situation. We inherited both the landlord and the tenant when we took over management then ownership of the freehold. The tenant was an alcoholic nd the flat was already in a disgusting state but despite my attempts to get the landlord to take an interest in the property, and fulfil his reparing obligations of the lease, my calls fell on deaf ears. Over time the tenant's alcoholism got worse to the point that he was a danger to himself because the like minded individuals he brought back to the flat saw it as a doss house and were often rowdy and violent, assaulting him as well as myself and my partner when we attempted to deal with them, with the assistance of the police and often the paramedics.

The council can't rehouse him because he refuses all offers of assistance and the landlord has been declared bankrupt.

So I have a flat that that the council deem unfit for human habitation, a seriously alchololic tenant in situ, a Prohibition Order that the council continue to breach and we can't exercise forfeiture because a) it is unaffordable and we would not get the costs off a declared bankrupt and b) the property should be in the hands of the lender who can provide very little in terms of what will happen to the flat, the tenant and when.

Getting back to your comment I totatally understand that it must be heartbreaking for landlords when they do all the right things but get a lousy tenant causing them untold problems. However the call for licencing tenants, whilst certainly understandable (I've had more than my fair share of problematic tenants here) would likely be a breach of human rights because we all need a roof over our heads regardless of whether we are deserving of it or not.

Landlords on the other hand are a business and for the most part choose to become so.

Leasehold block management is an entirely different kettle of fish but it would also be fair to say that lousy management in this sector can just as easily impact negatively on decent landlords and owner-occupiers in a number of different ways.

As a former renting tenant in the PRS for a number of years before I got a really good landlord and agent in the last 7 of them, it is very sad to see the same old problems when many proposals for improving the PRS have been put forward (the same applies to the larger leasehold sector). There are answers out there (there have been some good suggestions on this forum) but they are rarely implemented.

Thanks for taking the time to reply to my comments.

Sharon