Croydon yet another area to introduce Selective Licensing

Links away:

https://www.property118.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/h-1.pdf

https://www.property118.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/h2.pdf

some new press coverage on the Judicial Review in Enfield

http://www.propertyindustryeye.com/landlord-said-legal-challenge-licensing-scheme-last-resort/

Hi Chris,

Having read the judgements I don't really think this changes licensing in any fundamental way. The LA were challenged on a wide range of conditions and required to change some. On balance I think some of the arguments from the landlords were reasonable, some were weak and did not succeed.

What I think this means is that LA's have to draft their conditions to first pass a reasonableness test, they'll always fail if the condition is daft.

The language is important, for example with the EPC condition I think it is reasonable for it to be a condition that the EPC is available at the commencement and supplied to the tenant, because that is the law. It is not reasonable to insist that the landlord provides it to the LA, because the EPC can be checked on line and therefore you have asked a landlord to do something for no purpose.

Good comment John - howabout, for example you paid £600 fee for a license with 18 conditions and they then remove 6 of them then its apt to point out a) the fee paid is wrong b) you may have carried out unecessary works to comply with these conditions c) you may have been fined / prosecuted and have a criminal record for failure to comply with a now removed condition.

Other councils seemingly have adopted the exact same conditions.

In the wider view does removal of the conditions and changes of wording amount to undermining the very basis the SL was inacted / voted / approved in the first place - i.e ASB would reduce because LL's have to follow xyz licensing conditions which have now been removed/reworded.

Hi Chris,

Its normally the case that if the law changes after you have fallen foul of it well that's hard luck. If there is a landlord who was prosecuted successfully on the basis of the conditions that have been struck out then I'm sure the LA would view an appeal favourably. It has to be said that I think it unlikely that anyone has lost their license for contravening these conditions.

The principle the Tribunal went against was that there were conditions that were not required in law and or amounted to an improvement required by licensing but not elsewhere.

So, at present, there is no requirement in law to have a CO detector, so that is not defensible for a sective licence condition, it might be appropriate for an HMO, depending on the layout, size and complexity of the building.

Is it reasonable to have this as a routine condition, well possibly, the Tribunal rulings are not binding but do offer guidance to other tribunals and courts.

The HMO story is a bit different because there is more of a human factor in interpreting the LA'sHMO standards. I would prefer to have a clear set of conditions that can be varied by the licensing officer by negotiation on the basis of the actual property than have no guidance at all and every case become a bunfight between landlord and LA officer.

So in your final point, I don't think that the tribunals variations add up to a fatal undermining of the licensing scheme, most of the variations are at best quite trivial.

If the objective of the scheme is to set standards, record landlords details and have an inspection regime that helps enforce the standards then its still a success from the LA perspective if standards of condition and management are actually improving out on the ground.

You already know what I think about the fees. I'm only against them if they are disproportinate given the local rental market, so rural Lancashire, for example, should not charge as much as a London Borough. If the amount is a pound or two a week it should not affect any sustainable letting business, you pay far more in tax.

John in this case the objective of SL in Hyndburn as in many other schemes is to reduce ASB - now they can only meet that via a much reduced set of conditions and with increased liabilites to local taxpayers. Its not as if they wern't warned of the risk but steamed ahead regardless. Many LL's contacting me say they too are very concerned the conditions are unworkable and the evidence used is suspect - as we know the LGA asked for changes so no evidence at all could be used in future SL applications.

Regards

The selective licensing campaign is looking to the DCLG Select Comm to assess if this policy approach (allowing LA's to run their own schemes/conditions) is anywhere near achieving it's stated objectives.

The LGA are perfectly within their terms to ask for PRS Licensing to be simplified. It would reduce the heat and light generated by those who are looking for an absolute link beteween ASB and actual PRS addresses. There is no direct link between the data sets as recorded and everyone knows it. This is simply because the ASB data does not have any property tenure fields so an absolute connection is impossible

However that is not the same as saying there is no link between areas of high PRS density and high ASB incidence, I think that conclusion can be drawn from comparing the data sets in some areas, well it can from the data I have been working with. I am less confident that this conclusion is OK for a LA wide proposal.

I don't see how you can infer that the liabilities of local taxpayers have increased, the Tribunal judgement only strikes out some trivial terms and the ASB term, though altered, remains substantially the same. The scheme in general remains unaltered and therefore I assume the financial case remains the same with Licensing being cost neutral from the LA viewpoint. The LA are pretty daft if their scheme is not self financing and I doubt this is a danger.

There is also a clear difference between conditions you don't like and those that are truly unworkable. I actually agree with you that licensing conditions should be carefully drafted by LA's firstly because they are the essence of achieving the objectives of the scheme and secondly because challenges are disruptive.

These two challenges to the scheme conditions were plainly made by thoughtful and competant parties but they actually achieved only trivial changes and the scheme clearly survives in almost it's original form. This is just not a game changer !

My final point is that SL in a large scale is so new that there is limited evidence either way for it's effectiveness so Goverment is likely to wait and see what happens before doing anything but that is not a reason to stop SL per se. There is an election looming and popular sentiment is moving towards increased regulation not away from it. Even the Conservatives are starting to move towards new policy and legislation.

John - to be clear an SL scheme can only start because there is sufficient evidence there already and the conditions are added to remedy/address the evidence, this is put to a full council meeting and voted on - now Hyndburn have had 6 conditions removed and others adjusted these conditions carried stiff penalties and criminal sanctions hardly trivial - clearly the game changed after they've voted on it. Bear in mind Hyndburn can still change or add any number of new conditions during the 5 year term, the game change is totally in their gift, as seen already they are unable to deliver from the get-go so can it really be wise to give them (or any other council) more time before taking a stand or hope that HMG are looking into it?

added to say - these conditions were taken by the court to be unfair terms, Hyndburn council, let us not forget, stood to make money from them at the expense of LL's they pushed them onto. Ask yourself the question just how does a group of unfair conditions make their way into statutory legislation past all the checks and balances the DCLG set up for the councils?

I think its high time this an other issues were put infront of the select com - are you coming?