Liverpool licensing returns to illegality

Regular readers of Property 118, will be no doubt familiar with the many failures by Liverpool Council with respect to their Landlord licensing revenue raising sham. 

Firstly the lies peddled alleging that the entire city was an area of low demand. The scheme introduced on the back of this blatant falsehood, then fell foul of Data protection laws and had to be redrafted to comply with an ICO directive. I then brought it to the attention of stakeholders, that the Council ASB condition was illegal and in breach of the de-regulation act.

The scheme had to be redrafted once again.

Now a new issue. Liverpool are issuing draft licences as the Housing act 2004 directs. The act is clear the draft should be a copy of the actual licence, reflect the main terms of the licence. There then is an interval, before the actual licence is issued, and this period allows landlords to make representations rejecting the licence or seeking to amend it. A landlord might want to object to the issue date, perhaps it might not reflect his period of ownership for example.

The undated drafts are in effect useless and do not comply with the provisions of the act, are not copies of licences to be issued, and in contravention of the act deny a landlord the opportunity to make representations about the inception date of his licence.

These cowboys are beyond belief. They now are threatening to cancel applications of landlords who have assisted them by pointing out this fatal flaw. I say fatal because if the drafts do not comply, any subsequent licence issued is void.

How may of these flawed drafts have been churned out to date?

What about the Co regulators who defended the flawed section 21 ASB condition, until it became abundantly clear their position standing solidly along side their Council partners, was untenable. It is a sorry state of affairs when bodies which purport to represent Landlords stand aside, and allow Authorities like Liverpool to push forward issuing documentation which would not stand scrutiny in an serious legal forum.

Thousand of landlords in Liverpool now have licences issued on the back of invalid drafts, rendering their licences void.

Will Liverpool quickly acknowledge this mess and re issue compliant drafts ?.

This will not happen as they will only become compliant if we as landlords force the issue, otherwise they will carry on issuing illegal drafts and licences as this is not important.

What is important however is all of that lovely cash that this bankrupt Authority is hovering up from law abiding tax payers.

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