Council unveils its first housing check in EIGHT years – despite demanding private landlords do them every four months

Council unveils its first housing check in EIGHT years – despite demanding private landlords do them every four months

0:04 AM, 17th April 2024, About 2 weeks ago 10

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Despite hammering landlords with punitive fines for minor transgressions of selective licensing rules, one council has admitted that its own housing stock hasn’t been inspected for EIGHT years.

Private landlords must under the city’s selective licensing rules adhere to strict standards and inspect properties every four months – under 2018 rules.

The Nottingham Post says councillors were told this week that the council will launch a comprehensive inspection of all its council homes which will run for the next few months.

The inspections are necessary to comply with new mandatory social housing standards.

Nottingham City Council admits that ‘considerable work’ is needed to bring the city’s housing stock in line with these new regulations.

The move follows the council’s take-over of its arms-length management organisation, Nottingham City Homes (NCH), after revelations that substantial sums had been improperly used.

The issue was uncovered in 2021 with an estimate that it would cost the council £51m to rectify.

Shocked at the council’s revelation

Nottingham landlord Mick Roberts was shocked at the council’s revelation and said: “This is disgusting.

“The council brings in selective licensing and insists that private landlords inspect every four to six months.

“In 2018, we were told by the council: ‘We ideally want to see you inspect every four months. If you do every four months and everything else we like to see, you are less likely to get flagged up for other questions and council inspections’.

“That level of regular inspection puts private tenants rents up.”

He added: “Yet the council hasn’t inspected its own properties for eight years. It’s unbelievable.”

However, Mr Roberts highlights that landlords in Nottingham have yet to see the latest conditions for the licensing scheme imposed in December 2023.

Poor governance practices at Nottingham City Council

A subsequent report by a local government expert attributed the issue to poor governance practices at both Nottingham City Council and NCH.

Another investigation by the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy concluded that the existing arrangements between NCH and the council did not adequately protect the funds, necessitating changes.

Both reports recommended bringing NCH in-house.


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Comments

Robert Taylor

10:34 AM, 17th April 2024, About 2 weeks ago

The perfect example of the difference between public landlords and private landlords. All the recent publicity has been showing the appalling conditions tenants live in. Always at the end of the report they inform the public which Housing Authority is responsible. It is never a private landlord but the media and Shelter continues to blame private landlords.

TheBiggerPicture

10:39 AM, 17th April 2024, About 2 weeks ago

Council and state.

Standards are very important.
Standards need to be enforced.
Standards are for others.

Mick Roberts

12:22 PM, 17th April 2024, About 2 weeks ago

Reply to the comment left by Robert Taylor at 17/04/2024 - 10:34
And they don't know how bad their houses are cause they ain't checking em. At least I know my tenant wrecked her house 20 years ago. She's not homeless but would be if the Council insisted I PAY for her damage.

Mick Roberts

12:23 PM, 17th April 2024, About 2 weeks ago

Reply to the comment left by TheBiggerPicture at 17/04/2024 - 10:39
Yes we always saying Double standards. And this is publicised example that someone in Govt ought to be noticing & getting Selective Licensing thrown out.

Matthew Jude

17:29 PM, 17th April 2024, About 2 weeks ago

Why is anybody surprised at this revelation of incompetence and hypocrisy from Nottingham City Council. This is a Council that do their inspections of private rentals using Google earth, and by running up and down streets knocking on doors and asking to do on the spot inspections, never mind their veiled threats to me, saying I must always give 24hrs notice to my tenants of a visit. Unsurprisingly, none of my tenants would let them in unannounced, telling the inspectors that they were happy with me and that I looked after them. I bet they classed those encounters as successful inspections, in order to massage the figures to justify the new increased licence.
This horribly biased, anti-landlord Council needs investigating, not least regarding the allocation of scarce social housing. I wonder if it would be possible to do a freedom of information request, to determine how many Council staff and friends have been lucky enough to find a council property, whilst there are 12,000 families on the waiting list?

Mick Roberts

17:57 PM, 17th April 2024, About 2 weeks ago

Reply to the comment left by Matthew Jude at 17/04/2024 - 17:29
Yes they randomly knocking on people's doors.
Ha ha great not letting them in.

They do need looking at, gone bankrupt & telling us how to run houses & keep tenants safe in their homes.

I've found out today they closing their waiting list soon, no matter how badly you overcrowded, unsuitable etc.

GlanACC

12:51 PM, 18th April 2024, About 2 weeks ago

and will the council stamp down on the tenants whose gardens are a mess. I know of 3 council properties in Nottingham which are used as a scrap metal business - will the council turf the tenants out ?

Mick Roberts

13:09 PM, 18th April 2024, About 2 weeks ago

Reply to the comment left by GlanACC at 18/04/2024 - 12:51
No, & in Licensing, we're responsible for tenants garden.

GlanACC

13:19 PM, 18th April 2024, About 2 weeks ago

Reply to the comment left by Mick Roberts at 18/04/2024 - 13:09
Glad Derby has a bit more sense (at the moment anyway)

Lisa008

8:40 AM, 20th April 2024, About A week ago

£51 million... SHOCK HORROR ... and this is a council that is bankrupt!! So is that why my council tax bill has gone up??!!

And they want to threaten license holders because their tenant has left a sofa in the front garden ??!! (Not threaten the tenant, but ME as the license holder), and yet these muppets haven't checked in on their own properties in EIGHT YEARS ???!!!

8 years!

What are their tenants leaving in the garden? Do they even know? Are they charging themselves a license fee? No, but private LL's are crawled all over. Jumping through hoops. Monitored.

I am astonished, but I know its one rule for them, one rule for everyone else. Absolutely disgusting.

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