Liverpool’s landlord prosecution!

After More than 18 months , Thousands of applications, Flawed application process, Data breaches and illegal Licence conditions, Liverpool city Council have secured their first Conviction under their City Wide revenue raising Licensing sham. ONE CONVICTION.

In this instance no tenant has gained from the Prosecution. The Landlord in question was not convicted for any offence relating to the actual condition of the rented property, rather the conviction was for refusing to actually sign up for scheme. This point is most relevant.

Liverpool’s application process was flawed from the outset and fell foul of the DPA. Such was their arrogance that months after the ICO ruling, The form remained non compliant. Perhaps even more important was the fact that they insisted upon Landlords signing up to a scheme which forced landlords to break the law.

The law in question being the Deregulation act 2015. In light of the flawed process, It is reasonable to ask if this particular landlord felt able to sign up to such a dodgy scheme. We can only speculate. Will this individual appeal, and more importantly if he were to lodge an appeal would he prevail?

It’s is an absolutely valid point that such was the flawed nature of the process and the insistence on illegality, that the landlord simply could not proceed until he had assurances that the scheme was fully compliant.

One thing for sure This single pathetic prosecution proves what we have said all along. This farce should never have been imposed on the Great city that is Liverpool. We utterly refute the Local authority insistence, that Liverpool right across the board is a city of Low demand.

To listeners of BBC Radio 4 today, the Council rep attempting to defend the extortionate fees, compared to registration fees in Scotland, Wales and N Ireland tied himself up in knots portraying the scheme as fit for purpose. It was laughable listening to him justifying their scheme by referring to a Brothel and a drugs den. The Police deal with Drug crime not LCC.

Liverpool by introducing this nonsense, have spurred the Government to introduce legislation preventing any Local authority abusing the provisions of the Housing Act 2004, have created a situation where rents will inevitably rise, attempted to Criminalise Landlords, created an invasive inspection regime which will impinge on tenant’s privacy and finally Down graded the Entire city by claiming that it is an area of low demand.

They have however generated £15 Million revenue. I challenge Liverpool Councillors to debate with me again, on air on national Radio the merits of their scheme, unfortunately this debate will not take place as they know full well, that I will wipe the floor with their spurious arguments.

Share This Article