Nottingham Selective Licensing payment upfront!

Morning
Below is the address and number for the team off the grant email which I have used and discussed concerns/payment queries with them
As you mentioned they should allow at least 30days to allow people to get rent income or wages to get some of the money in
I’m finding due to having a few properties that they aren’t doing in order as I submitted all in one day and have corresponding numbers.
Therefore I’ve had a few final payment requests but pending a few that could be anytime in next year.
I have found they also only email you and not post letters so I’ve missed a few emails as have been in junk even with previously stating not spam
I think the process is worth doing but feel like it’s hitting all the people that do things properly already and rogue landlords are just ignoring it anyway and are hundreds of pounds better off just by ignoring it
Would love to know how NCC will work out which properties are rented but not licensed
Owner different to council tax maybe
Selective Licensing
Environmental Health and Safer Housing
Community Protection
Loxley House
Station Street
Nottingham
NG2 3NG
(Address for correspondence only)
Tel: 0115 9152020
http://www.protectnottingham.co.uk
http://www.nottinghamcity.gov.uk
selective.licensing@nottinghamcity.gov.uk

Cause none of 'em know what they are doing when challenged & they have to go & ask their Legal department who then get u a reply in 3 months.
And that Ladies & Gentleman is Nottingham http://www.selectivelicensingtruth.co.uk A LOT of money on admin & paperwork which the tenant is paying through the nose for.

Send this to your MP, we got to get this from all angles now as Nottingham Council are Labour, they think all Landlords are the demon.

Your story is great & typical of the not got a clue thinking this Council has that every tenant & every Landlord is different.

Complain PLEASE complain, go through your MP as well as these details below:

Councillor who responsible for Licensing fee increase
linda.woodings@nottinghamcity.gov.uk

Nottm Council Labour boss who supports Licensing
david.mellen@nottinghamcity.gov.uk

Licensing email
selective.licensing@nottinghamcity.gov.uk

Also email the post reporter, tell him Mick Roberts told u to email him. He wants to hear your stories on Licensing.

matt.jarram@nottinghampost.com

After waiting over 2 years of frequent chasing for Nottingham city council to get their act together, I also got an out-of-the-blue email demand for second payment;

"All fees should be paid within 14 days.
If you do not pay the 2nd part of your licence, the Council may review it’s decision to grant a licence and re-issue a draft refusal."

Councillor Linda Woodings, portfolio holder for planning, housing and heritage at Nottingham City Council, said: "Our message is simple - we want to work with good landlords"

It's a funny way to go about it!

Reply to the comment left by Andy at 25/01/2020 - 08:12
Andy, missed your comment earlier.

It is hitting the good landlords who have now had to postpone & cancel refurbs new kitchens new bathrooms etc. As Licensing has now had the money. Meanwhile Rogue Landlords have just stayed quiet.

They haven't been able to work out which ones rented & which ones aren't, they just been door knocking houses that haven't applied for a License to see if tenant answers.
They can't even go to Council Tax section cause of GDPR. It's pathetic.

Reply to the comment left by Monty Bodkin at 25/01/2020 - 10:05
Terrible in't in Monty.
They make no allowance if u away on holiday. And if u send them a query, takes 4 months to reply if u get a reply at all. They are the modern day Gestapo Tax collector.

Linda Woodings not got a clue. She acknowledged before she arrived, mistakes had been made. The same mistakes we told them a year earlier. And now she's doing the same, making same drastic mistakes that her replacement next year will say 'We made some mistakes'. She's not talking to good landlords at all, instead fixated on the Landlords that han't applied, fining 'em, even though good house, & tenant gets evicted cause Landlord had enough, even though tenant & Landlord were happy with each other.

As a responsible managing agent we applied for circa 80 licences on behalf of our various landlord clients well over a year ago, paying the initial application fee of £480.

Over 12 months of radio silence and then given notice that we had two weeks to pay the final instalment on behalf of each client! We quite simply did not hold that level of funds for each individual client but in explaining this were told that if we didn’t pay within two weeks we would be liable for additional admin fees. Because we have waited over a year but now it’s clearly critical that payment is made and the licence issued within a fortnight!

So we have refused to pay these threatened admin fees and they are apparently reviewing the matter. Part of me hopes they insist on payment because this farcical situation ending up in court and covered by every possible media outlet might just show to a wider audience quite how ludicrous NCC licensing scheme is. I never thought I would come across a worse licensing scheme than Liverpool’s but NCC take the prize!

Reply to the comment left by Mick Roberts at 25/01/2020 - 12:36
Hi Mick

I totally agree with your comments

I have some hard working tenants who struggle to pay the rents and I’ve had no choice to put rents up some £50 a month which is 10% increase

Always kept rents low to give people a chance but now with selective licensing and electric checks plus tax changes I’m stopping any non essential spends now and tenants only get 2nd hand kitchens etc and I have to do all maintenance jobs

They are making this really hard to keep landlords as I have like many others thought about selling up

The there will be less rentals and bigger issues

All these schemes do is push tenants affordability and put them into worse debt but make it seem like landlords are greedy

Reply to the comment left by Andy at 25/01/2020 - 13:19
Yes, I'm the same, mine are paying considerably lower.
I had a look at rents in the areas today as LHA rate may be going up April 2020 1.7% 1st time in 4 years. So need to give tenants some rent increases (to pay for Licensing & the costs it brings) without hurting the tenants pockets.
It's shocking in Nottingham now, Bulwell etc. 3 bed rents £650, 2 bed £595. I was charging £475ish 2 beds 2 years ago before Licensing. I've tried to get 'em up to £550 on new lets coming in, but cause all mine HB, they can't go anywhere & it's me that's stuck with these cheap rents that don't pay Licensing costs. And then now £595 wow, what is this Govt & Council doing to less well off tenants.

That is a lot of loyal Landlords problem. Licensing assumed we was all charging top whack & had no thought at all that some Landlords were deliberately trying to keep a lot of existing long term tenants rents as low as possible. We had no choice on already charging low rents for long term tenants to then inflict this horrendous charge on the tenant.

And yes the EICR is a good thing, but it costs. U want brand new super safe zero risk house, we all have to pay.

Reply to the comment left by Wildheart Residential at 25/01/2020 - 12:52
Yes, agents in Nottingham have had to take extra staff on just to deal with the Licensing. And some very good responsible agents have had a couple of fines.

We need to start alerting some Conservative MP's to the homeless that's occurring to which tenants are blaming on the Tory Govt as tenants just blame the Govt, whereas we know it's the Labour council.

As a neutral outside observer with (thankfully) no properties in Nottingham I have sympathy for the original poster, a single parent with one property whose licensing payment demands have come in August and unexpectedly again in January. Not only is the latest one just after Christmas as mentioned but both more or less coincide with the requirement to fork out lump sums in income tax to HMRC at a stage when mortgage interest 'relief' has been almost entirely removed. Timing could hardly hve been worse. It sounds from what Mick says that they are staggering the demands to avoid their admin. department being overwhelmed but have given no thought to the risk of overwhelming landlords.