9:41 AM, 30th May 2025, About a month ago 7
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The Regulator of Social Housing has issued a damning judgement against the London Borough of Brent, highlighting huge deficiencies in the council’s ability to meet essential safety and quality standards for its tenants.
This comes a week after the council announced a crackdown on private landlords and the standards of homes in its area with door-to-door inspections.
The local authority has been assigned a C3 consumer grade, indicating ‘serious failings’ that require substantial improvement, following an investigation prompted by the council’s own admission of issues in April.
The regulator’s findings stem from concerns over the accuracy and reliability of Brent’s fire safety data, initially raised through a self-referral.
The council reported closing around 12,500 fire risk assessment actions within the past year.
However, a subsequent spot check revealed that many of these actions lacked evidence of completion, with some not carried out at all.
Most of these actions are classified as high or medium risk and are now considered overdue until proper documentation is provided.
Brent’s failure to maintain accurate records for fire safety, smoke and carbon monoxide safety, asbestos management and water safety has raised serious concerns about its data integrity.
The council’s inability to confirm which legally required checks and assessments have been completed has further compounded the issue.
In addition to safety concerns, the regulator found that nearly half of Brent’s housing stock lacks recorded surveys, despite the council claiming to have condition data for 95% of its properties.
This gap raises doubts about how Brent ensures its homes meet the Decent Homes Standard, which mandates good-quality, well-maintained and safe residences for tenants.
The regulator states: “The Safety and Quality Standard requires landlords to identify and meet all legal requirements that relate to the health and safety of tenants in their homes and communal areas, and to ensure that all required actions arising from legally required health and safety assessments are completed within appropriate timescales.
“The standard also requires landlords to have an accurate, up to date and evidenced understanding of the condition of their homes that reliably informs the provision of good quality, well maintained and safe homes for tenants, and to ensure that their tenants’ homes meet the requirements of the Decent Homes Standard.
“Through our responsive engagement with LB Brent, we have found serious failings in its ability to meet these requirements and that these failings have negatively affected service outcomes for tenants.”
Brent council’s cabinet member for housing and resident services, Councillor Fleur Donnelly-Jackson, said: “We take our responsibilities as a landlord very seriously and the council accepts that we have let tenants down in the areas outlined by the Regulator and for this we apologise unreservedly.
“In this instance, we have fallen short of our responsibilities as a landlord and failed to meet the expectations of our tenants.”
She added: “The council is determined to improve the quality of council homes.
“We have made real progress in recent months – from launching a new damp and mould squad to action days where teams blitz through repairs that are needed on council estates – but we know there is still much more to do.”
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Des Taylor & Phil Turtle, Landlord Licensing & Defence
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Sign Up11:30 AM, 30th May 2025, About a month ago
The duplicity of Local Authorities knows no bounds.
These same councils who fine private sector landlords to within an inch of bankruptcy at the slightest opportunity are themselves the worst landlords in the known universe.
Unlike landlords who would get fines of £15,000-60,000 for sick failings of fire safety, the councils face nothing worse than "We are not proposing to use our enforcement powers at this stage but will keep this under review as LB Brent seeks to resolve these issues."
"Not fair" I hear you cry. Dead right and sod all you can do about these incompetent power crazed out of control councils just about to have their powers against Private Landlords doubled.
JB
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Sign Up15:16 PM, 30th May 2025, About a month ago
Reply to the comment left by Des Taylor & Phil Turtle, Landlord Licensing & Defence at 30/05/2025 - 11:30
Two tier Britain
Desert Rat
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Sign Up19:38 PM, 30th May 2025, About a month ago
Classic case of "Do as we say, not as we do"
or
"All pigs are equal, but some are more equal than others"
Desert Rat
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Sign Up21:52 PM, 30th May 2025, About a month ago
I should probably add that is a quote from George Orwell's book 1984. If anyone has not read it, id advise reading it as it sums up our past and current government quite well.
Although they are not officially Communists, I don't see much difference between the Conservatives, Labor or a Communist government.
Our government do not want people to own any assets and are doing their best to strip anyone from owning anything and taxing us to death, and beyond.
Anthony Winter
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Sign Up19:55 PM, 2nd June 2025, About a month ago
It’s quite unbelievable how councils often label private landlords as "rough landlords", while failing to meet basic legal standards themselves. For example, our freeholder—Southwark Council—has not complied with the Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022, which require flat entrance doors to be checked at least once every 12 months. These regulations came into force on 23 January 2023, meaning one full round of checks should have been completed by January 2024, and a second by January 2025. Yet, to date, this has not been done. The double standards are hard to ignore
GlanACC
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Sign Up8:56 AM, 3rd June 2025, About a month ago
Interestingly, the Brent tenants would have a good reason to withhold rent payments as the council would have a problem evicting them if the gas/eicr certificates could not be produced
Reluctant Landlord
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Sign Up12:51 PM, 3rd June 2025, About a month ago
Reply to the comment left by Anthony Winter at 02/06/2025 - 19:55
report to the Social Housing Ombudsman. A council has to self report a breach. (yes I know the SHO has no teeth....)