BBC report Newcastle Plans for selective licensing

BBC report Newcastle Plans for selective licensing

8:57 AM, 28th February 2019, About 5 years ago 3

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Please see this BBC iplayer link for the Inside Out North East episode 25th Febuary.

It shows an environmental health officer inspecting problem properties. At 9.14 mins you get the council view acknowledging licensing plans could put rents up!

At 11.10 mins Chris Jackson asks landlords to get in touch if they don’t agree with licensing, or would be willing to pay “extra” to certify that their property is “up to scratch” to contact him at chrisjackson@bbc.co.uk

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0002xhl/inside-out-north-east-and-cumbria-25022019

Many thanks

Darlingtonlandlord


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Comments

Mick Roberts

8:23 AM, 1st March 2019, About 5 years ago

Brilliant for putting this on:
I'm in Nottingham, & have been asked to prepare some notes, but any of u wishing to use 'em for your local area, Media, Facebook etc., please do so.
We've turned it round in Nottingham now that most tenants know they've had a rent increase PURELY due to Selective Licensing costs. Nottingham Council now can't use the words it's only gonna' cost your Landlord £1.85 or £3pw.
The houses in this vid are shocking, but the problem with Selective Licensing is, it asks the good Landlords houses & good tenants to stump up £780, so the council can use OUR honest good MONEY to go after these bad houses. Our houses get worse as we now have less income to do the repairs & refurbishment we was already doing, & this money the council use for admin, paperwork, staff, cars, phones, buildings, to go after the minority bad landlords.
The biggest thing Licensing has caused is the rent increases for tenants. Rents are shocking in the Licensing areas. Innocent tenants have had their rent hiked up to cover the License fee and all the associated costs. This is far too unfair on the innocent, is this cost worth it to get at the minority Rogue Landlords-And they haven't even licensed. As we know, 17,000 haven't come forward. Meanwhile us that have, have got the biggest unnecessary bills ever, when we could be putting new baths and kitchens in etc.
Totally unfair on the tenants that already had good houses with reasonable rents who now have to pay increased rents.
The losers have been the good tenants in the good houses all to get at a minority 21% (The councils statistics) bad houses, so 79% suffer. It's not on.
There hopefully will be some winners, the tenants in the poor houses, but many of us, my tenants included, are saying it's not worth A LOT OF US suffering where there wasn't a problem before in order for the council to use OUR MONEY to go after the minority bad Landlords. They should be made to pay for their own punishment. Not take funds from our rents and our house improvements.
They not coming to talk to the good landlords at all.
They rejecting Landlords applications who's spent 2 I repeat TWO hours filling the form in on the worst website on the planet, for us Landlords not telling the council the correctly named mortgage lender exactly as the Council have it. And here' s the biggy. The Council know who the mortgage lender is anyway as the council are checking the Land Registry. So why do they need us to tell them? They may say The Landlord has to tell us he has notified the mortgage lender, well surely give us a tickbox to tick them exact words. All this admin & bureaucracy is doing nothing to make the tenants houses better.
Licensing is putting us landlords off that house the homeless from buying houses for people in the Licensing area, as to pay another £780 to the council just cause they can demand this fee is preposterous.
I feel really sorry for the tenants that can't afford big deposits and rent up front etc., As landlords can no longer take a chance with these tenants, as Licensing conditions could trip the landlord up if the tenant doesn't behave impeccably. We ain't all perfect, but we do need somewhere to live. Now I can no longer take the tenant off the street or referrals from existing tenants, all my new ones have to come from Letting Agents who check the tenants thoroughly. Where does this leave Housing Benefit tenants in the future?
I've had to evict two families in October and January JUST CAUSE OF LICENSING. These families were constantly wrecking and damaging the house. I wasn't being pursued off the Council to fix their internal damage, but now Licensing is here, as soon as the council inspectors get in the house, they'd be saying Mick u got to fix this. And I am not paying £5,000 every 6 months for a tenant to do the damage again. They've unfortunately had to go. They wasn't homeless before, yes they did the damage, but does that mean I have to kick them out? Some Landlords would, I didn't. But Licensing has now forced our hand. The Council does not understand everyone is different.

Darlington Landlord

19:05 PM, 2nd March 2019, About 5 years ago

Reply to the comment left by Mick Roberts at 01/03/2019 - 08:23
Thanks Mick
How can I get in touch about this?

Mick Roberts

16:22 PM, 3rd March 2019, About 5 years ago

Get my details off Mark or Neil the site owners.
Or off my site http://www.advanceproperties.co.uk or http://www.selectivelicensingtruth.co.uk

I had to add I din't get involved at beginning of Licensing as thought so what, other landlords may get it stopped or maybe £300 a house so what.
None of us in Nottingham envisaged the bureaucracy and paperwork that has come with Nottingham's scheme and having to submit the SAME PASSPORT 36 times.

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