Councils failing landlords and tenants by not prosecuting

Councils failing landlords and tenants by not prosecuting

9:02 AM, 30th November 2018, About 5 years ago 1

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Two thirds of councils in England and Wales brought no prosecutions against private landlords in 2017/18 according to research by the RLA.

Nearly a fifth of councils didn’t even issue any Improvement Notices which order a landlord to carry out certain repairs or improvements to a property.

Following the introduction in April 2017 of new powers for councils to issue civil penalties against landlords failing to provide acceptable housing, in 2017/18 89 per cent of local authorities did not use these new powers.

Half reported that they did not even have a policy in place to use them.

No clear link between licensing and enforcement

Analysis of the results from 290 local authorities replying to Freedom of Information requests from the RLA’s research lab, PEARL, showed that that there was no clear link between a council operating a licensing scheme for landlords and levels of enforcement.

As MPs today prepare to debate the private rented sector at an MHCLG select committee in Westminster Hall, the RLA is arguing that the results show tenants and good landlords are being failed by a system unable to root out criminal landlords.

The RLA is calling for a renewed focus on enforcing the powers already available to councils. This includes sustainable funding for enforcement departments, using council tax returns to help identify landlords and councils doing more to find and take action against criminal landlords.

David Smith, RLA policy director said:“These results show that for all the publicity around bad landlords, a large part of the fault lies with councils who are failing to use the wide range of powers they already have.

Too many local authorities fall back on licensing schemes which, as this report proves, actually achieve very little except to add to the costs of the responsible landlords who register.

“Instead of policing licensing schemes, councils need to focus on finding and taking action criminal landlords.”

To read the report in full click here.


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Comments

Michael Barnes

0:33 AM, 5th December 2018, About 5 years ago

Further information is needed to determine if lack of prosecutions/improvement notices means councils are failing.

What is needed is
- number of referrals of issues from tenants;
- number of issues identified by other means (e.g.licencing assessments)
- number of informal approaches to landlords regarding alleged breaches;
- number of those where the LL adequately addressed the issue;
- number of approaches where the authority did not follow up to determine the outcome.

Only then does number of improvement notices and prosecutions have meaning.

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