Council Licensing scheme – Money maker?

Reply to the comment left by Barry Fitzpatrick at 06/11/2017 - 13:54
Barry,
I commend you on a brilliant proposal.
Let us all give tenants a rent breakdown and illustrate clearly the percentage reduction they could have, and the rise imposed as a result of the greedy councils.
We should also point out the extortionate Council tax imposed , Lowest band min of 1k. Tenants might even decide to abandon paying their CT. This would of course be tragic because of the superb service offered by these amazing authorities who actually collect bins every now and then for your Contribution. Remember an average of 200 Council tax payers on band A goes ie £200 K goes to pay their Head Honcho.
Let us put that in rent statements as well as The increase to fund licensing.

Bournemouth Council had proposed a selective licensing scheme covering a number of "problem wards". After a 16 week consultation and much opposition from landlords the licensing proposal has been dropped. Interestingly, on the Council website announcement, it states that "the consultation also raised some issues with the licensing proposal itself." (I will try to find out what these issues were to see if they can be used in other campaigns.)
Now - here's the crazy bit, and I quote:-
" The Council, together with partners such as the police and fire service will take a targeted and evidence based approach, prioritising areas where anti-social behaviour, crime and housing standards are a significant issue and have a negative impact on the local community."
"We remain committed to dealing with poor housing standards and inadequate management of housing in the private rented sector and the impact this has on our communities. We will target rogue landlords who take advantage of vulnerable tenants and will liaise closely with landlords who want to provide good quality accommodation and who work with us when things go wrong. This proposal will deliver what is needed for our priority areas and make a tangible difference to the lives of many of our residents.”
So having wasted an absolute bloody fortune of taxpayers' money on a licensing consultation, they've agreed to deal with the problems using existing powers that they already have !!

Reply to the comment left by Grumpy Doug at 14/11/2017 - 10:09
I wonder if they're looking at using Civil Penalty Notices...

Reply to the comment left by Ed Tuff at 06/11/2017 - 13:23
Hi Ed,
I've only just found this posting - I too am a Croydon landlord and very frustrated with the licensing scheme. So far we only have one property but we're hoping to buy a second this year. I recently sent the email below to them asking for justification for their charging & duration policy - we'll see if I get a reasonable reply but I'm not hopeful. Needless to say, in the 54 weeks it's taken them to issue the license, they haven't visited the property or contacted us or our tenants, so what on earth were they doing all that time (and with the money)? And what's the point? They suggest there are 30,000 lisensable properties in Croydon so even at £350 each that could raise the council £10.5m over the 5 years. I'm curious to know if you have noticed an improvement in ASB levels or PRS properties since the introduction in 2015?

"Thank you for granting a CPRP License to us for X property.

We paid for the license on 8 November 2016 and it was granted on 22 November 2017. My understanding was that this licence would be for 5 years, except in certain circumstances where it could be shortened, usually where the property is problematic or takes up more of the authority's time. I would like to know why, having paid for what I understood to be a 5 year licence (260 weeks), that it is only valid until 30 September 2020, a mere 2 years and 43 weeks (147 weeks). If it is due to Croydon's authority to only issue licences valid up to 30 September 2020, then why is the licence fee not pro rata?

Also, the Licence states "From 8 November 2016 Until 30 September 2020", however, the license cannot have a retrospective start date as, until the property was granted a license (on 22 November 2017) the property was not licensed. Surely the start date of the license must be from the date it was granted, not the date it was applied for?

If we buy another property to let in Croydon in May this year, will we be charged £750 for a license that lasts only 2 years and about 16 weeks?

I would be grateful if you could provide me with a rationale for the points mentioned above."

Reply to the comment left by Heather G. at 06/01/2018 - 18:24
Hi Heather,

After reading your message I thought I'd check my licenses; I've discovered that one of them is also not for the full five years! I had never noticed before, so grateful for your post above.

CC also took over a year to grant each of my licenses, with the last one only being valid from 23 Sept 2016 - 30 September 2020, despite being sold as a five year license. What are they playing at?

Do let me know if you ever get a reply from them please.

Thank goodness someone else has noticed! I've posted about this before (on other forums) and no-one has really commented. For those late to license they will still pay the full 5 years, even if they only apply 4 years into the scheme. My understanding is that the local authorities have their schemes approved for 5 years and if you join at any time during those 5 years your license will expire at the end of that term, regardless of when you join. Their response is that you should have been licensed since the beginning of the scheme (assuming you owned the property then) so they have a right to charge it this way. If you have only just bought your property though, this cannot be right!

Reply to the comment left by Y L Newbury at 07/01/2018 - 09:40
Oh I see.

Well like you I didn't even own my the property at the start of this "5 year license period", so certainly didn't need a retrospective license.

I wasn't "late to license"; I didn't even own the property during the first year of their apparent 5 year period.

This will be fun chasing them about this!

Yes, can you let us know what their response is please? It will be interesting to hear their reason.

I still haven't had a reply but did challenge them at the Croydon Landlord Forum last week (as did a lot of other LLs). I will chase again once I get some answers to some more specific queries out of them. I'm going to post up a note about some of the stats we were given at the meeting under a new post following the announcement of Karen Buck MPs proposed bill for yet more housing legislation. Some of the figures may be of interest.

I've put the Croydon info under:
https://www.property118.com/government-backs-bill-giving-tenants-powers-sue-landlords-unfit-properties/#
I didn't mention that they've only issued 1 Intention to Serve a Financial Penalty notice to date. (So where are all these slum landlords then???) And they couldn't provide any evidence of a reduction in ASB since licensing began.
By the way, did you know that the Tenancy Deposit Scheme shares its data with the Council so they can cross check if the property is licensed, and they're waiting for HMRC to start sharing their data?