Another council targets landlords for fly-tipping tenants

The issue is the council's resistance to provide adequate refuse collection capacity. Many blocks of flats and houses have overflowing bins well before collection day - it's a consequence of more people squeezed into an area, not residents choosing not to recycle. Criminalising landlords isn't the answer and a pop-up skip every 3 months must be council humour.

Perhaps the supermarkets who provided the packaging should be fined if that's the logic here ..

Birmingham council will be rubbing their hands that's for sure !

How can it be legal to hold landlord responsible for the actions of another.

That's like saying my tenant committed a crime and I should be prosecuted.

No court in the country would hold a landlord guilty if a tenant stole or assaulted someone .

Surely something could be challenged on this.

How many tenants would deliberately do this. To shaft a landlord

It's all just bluster. All it means in practice is that landlords have to widen the scope of the ASB policy they give to all new tenants to include instructions on the proper disposal of waste. Beyond that they have little liability and no Council would attempt to take legal action against a landlord who had provided adequate bins and proper instructions.

So for an errant Tenant who has stopped paying their rent as has been served a Sec 21 (for now) what a lovely opportunity to get back at a landlord this presents!!
Just dump some rubbish and the landlord pays the price with a criminal conviction! - you couldn't make this up!

I GUESS THERE'S NO MONEY IN IT FOR THE COUNCIL'S IF THEY FINE THE TENANTS!

I am active with our local councillors in protecting our area. A lot of you are making assumptions and jumping conclusions :-).
A few years ago we had problems with a block of flats. The landlord allowed the flats to be over populated. The result was that the bins could not cope and waste was left all over the place. The council community workers and the neighbourhood police team spent well over a year trying to encourage the residents to use their waste bins properly. They also engaged with the landlord and the landlord did nothing. The council laid on lots of extra bin collections and instructions waste workers to fully clean around the bins when collecting, but the residents would not put their waste in bins provided.
The council eventually served notice on the landlord for allowing antisocial tenants to stay in the area. Only at that point did the landlord do anything and the threat of being made homeless gained compliance from the tenents.
What other actions were available? How do you motivate a private landlord to help with anti-social tenants? It is only the landlord that has the real power to get the bad behaviours to stop or kick the tenants out.

Reply to the comment left by Geoff at 10/05/2025 - 10:12This is nonsense. Why weren't the anti-sicial tenants targeted directly through cctv and other evidence. What would you do if hhey wrre home owners? Tenants are no different and shouldnt be treated as such, including threats to make them homeless for dumping rubbish. That's not only disproportionate its immoral! Certainly threatening to fine the landlord for their actions is ridiculous. If the landlord has allowed overcrowding then that is what should be tackled and any press releases should state the real problem, not just jump on the bandwagon of landlord-bashing. That's just lazyness and popularism.

Reply to the comment left by Geoff at 10/05/2025 - 10:12
This is nonsense. Why doesn't the Council pursue the tenants for anti-social behaviour in the same way that it does with a homeowner? Why should there be a difference? Do you think its moral and proportionate for the Council to threaten a tenant with homelessness for dumping rubbish? That also sounds like discrimination based on housing status. If landlords are causing overcrowding or breaching licensing regulations why isn't that what's being tackled and why isn't that the headline in their press release, rather than this ridiculous statement about making them responsible for their tenants actions? That's just lazyness and hyperbole from yet another Council jumping on the anti-landlord bandwagon to curry favour with voters.

Hi DPT
The council made no attempt to use this event for propaganda and it was the very last (reluctant) thing they did after exhausting every other option. Certainly, the council did not want to go to cost of raising a court order. But sometimes circumstances necessitate it.
In a perfect world, you are right. But in the real world, there are bad actors that refuse to comply even after great effort has been made. It is not about discrimination (It is lazy to press that button). The council and police were suffering significant cost and there were endless complaints from neighbours about the mess and rats. if the landlord was more helpful then it would not have escalated to a court order.