Coventry Selective Licensing being rushed through?

Coventry Selective Licensing being rushed through?

10:09 AM, 21st January 2019, About 5 years ago 10

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Please see below email I have received from Coventry City Council regarding a Selective Licensing scheme (not that selective) which is being rushed through with very little publicity to date.  Some of the facts and figures used to justify the scheme do not at first glance at least ring true!

If you could publicise this to Property118 readers perhaps I can receive examples of how landlords have stopped such a scheme in their areas.

Many Thanks

BR

Selective licensing scheme

Dear Sir or Madam

I am writing to you to inform you that Coventry City Council has developed proposals for a Selective Licensing scheme and a citywide HMO Additional Licensing Scheme as part of its commitment to improving conditions and management of houses in the private rented sector in Coventry.

The Housing Act 2004 includes powers whereby the Council may consult on introducing Selective Licensing and Additional Licensing schemes, either for a specific area or for the whole of the city. Included within the legislation is a requirement to undertake a formal consultation in relation to such proposals.

The Council opened a consultation on 9 January 2019 which will run for 10 weeks until 20 March 2019 to seek views on its proposals. You can take part in this consultation and share your views about the proposals by completing an online questionnaire at www.coventry.gov.uk/propertylicensing where you will also find more information about the detailed proposals and other supporting documentation.

The Council will also be organising a series of public events to which we would encourage you to attend. Council officers will be present to explain the proposals and answer any questions you may have. These meetings will take place over the ten week consultation period and further details can be found at www.coventry.gov.uk/propertylicensing

It is important that views of different stakeholders are taken into account during the consultation period so I encourage you to share these details with any other property agents, landlords and businesses that you think may be interested.

If you have any questions then please feel free to contact me directly at adrian.chowns@coventry.gov.uk

Yours faithfully

Adrian Chowns
Property Licensing Manager”


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Comments

Neil Patterson

10:26 AM, 21st January 2019, About 5 years ago

Sunderland Selective Licensing rebellion by landlords successful >> https://www.property118.com/sunderland-selective-licensing-rebellion-landlords-successful/

Neil Patterson

10:27 AM, 21st January 2019, About 5 years ago

Selective Licensing scheme overturned in Brighton >> https://www.property118.com/selective-licensing-scheme-overturned-brighton/

Neil Patterson

10:29 AM, 21st January 2019, About 5 years ago

Success Stories of Selective Licensing Being Aborted >> https://www.property118.com/success-stories-selective-licensing-aborted/

Dominic Ferard

10:18 AM, 22nd January 2019, About 5 years ago

In Stockton, following strong representations from a large group of local landlords during the consultation process for two proposed Selective Licensing schemes, there are now ongoing discussions between them and the council on structuring an alternative.

Troydave

19:52 PM, 22nd January 2019, About 5 years ago

I have been involved in two consultations.
In the first I was part of a small team that managed to assist an authority understand that there was a better way forward.
In the second ,the local authority remains determined to licence whatever the evidence shows and is presently requesting the Secretary of States approval .
In each consultation I would estimate to have spent over 40 hours a week for 8 months analysing the evidence and seeking answers to inconsistencies either through letters,e-mails, Parish Consultation or Full Council meetings .
In the first consultation I took part in I advised landlords to ensure they had as many tenants, friends,family object to the online consultation (you may find it easier to get objections in paper form) . It is pointless landlords objecting as the views are totally dismissed. It was partly because the vast majority (70% as I recall) of tenants who provided feedback and who had objected to the proposals that stopped that scheme.
Unfortunately in the second consultation there was less than 2% of tenants who responded and the authority produced data to show the majority wanted selective licensing who lived in these areas and thus avoided the wishes of the remaining tenants.
It takes a brave authority to ignore residents ,
Do you have a strong landlords association , that helps as they may raise funds for judicial review .
Petitions are quite normal also.

Saeed

22:00 PM, 22nd January 2019, About 5 years ago

https://www.noselectivelicensing.co.uk/
We are a group of well over 200 landlords currently fighting Leeds city council implementing Selective Licensing. We created a website, posters, fliers, went on the radio, BBC TV, tracked down the MP's & councillors. We also attacked them on the council facebook pages. We went to all the local agents to get their support & alert all their landlords.
We went to every event they held, stood there for several hours & hounded the council.
For the online consultation we got everyone we knew to complete the forms as landlords, tenants & even local residents. They will give more weight to non landlord votes. We think around 3000 forms were completed. We used the links in our website to track the redirects.
We also produced 2 extensive reports to trash all of their claims. These were sent to Housing & the councillors on the exec board. We even visited the Scrutiny board to raise our concerns on the biased consultation forms & the false claims by the council.
From our research we found the housing report that triggered all of this. Its based on complete garbage.
We submitted lots of freedom of information requests to show what they have been doing. The council currently has a vast number of properties that fail the basic standards they are demanding from us.
We are awaiting the outcome of the consultation. They are trying to rip us off with an £825 fee for every single flat or property a landlord owns in the 2 areas they have targeted.
In reality the whole scheme is a con to bolster their own coffers. They are not adding a single penny to anything in the area. Feel free to get in touch. We will help anyone & in return will appreciate any help back.
This whole scheme is a complete con.
If you want to have copies of our reports & other details feel free to contact me - ivegottime@ymail.com
It's hard work & takes a lot of fighting. Not all landlords will go with you partly from lethargy or simply believing they will get nowhere. However other areas have succeeded. This kept us going. You will need to do a lot of running around to get people on board. The consultation vote is crucial. Win that heavily & they have a very difficult case to then justify the charge. We labeled it a TENANT TAX & warned the council our rents will rise. We will charge the tenants 825 in 1 go just as they are charging us. We will then inform all the tenants that this is the fault of the council.
Our actions made the council take us seriously. Even the local councillors have been worried as we have loudly stated that we will vote against them at the next elections.
We used wotsapp to form our group in order to easily communicate. We even held a couple of landlord meetings to get people on board. We were fortunate that some agents chased all of their landlords & brought them to the meetings. They can be your key.
The other major downside of this scheme as seen in Nottingham is that the council then feels empowered to start making all sorts of demands on your properties to generate more revenue in fines.

John Parfett

17:09 PM, 25th January 2019, About 5 years ago

I have just looked at the scale of this proposal. It covers an absolutely massive area of Coventry. Look at this map! https://tinyurl.com/Coventry-Proposal

leo prendi plumbing

21:28 PM, 25th January 2019, About 5 years ago

How come landlords don't know about this ? I just find out from another landlord asked me about it I didn't know .

AK

11:05 AM, 29th January 2019, About 5 years ago

Attempts have been made to attend certain forums on behalf of a number of landlords to be told the event was already fully booked.
This can't be correct!
Anybody who will be impacted by this significant change should be able to make their opinion known and ask questions.
It appears that the whole exercise is being rushed through under the radar so it will become too late to take any action against the proposals

Reyneke Group Ltd

8:32 AM, 5th February 2019, About 5 years ago

All I can say for certain, any additional costs to us landlords, WILL be passed on to the tenants, there is zero doubt about that.

Should the council impose additional fees on landlords, they will indirectly impose those fees directly onto the tenants.

I 100% agree that landlords should provide a high standard of living, but at the end of the day, we're running a business and if we are forced to pay additional fees, we will recover those fees from the people that pay us (the tenants).

Anyone that thinks fees won’t be passed on, is seriously mistaken and out of touch with reality.

I have now repeated myself a number of times and hope the Council takes note that they are about to increase Coventry’s rent.

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