Do we need a database of rogue tenants?

YES!!!!!!

Reply to the comment left by DSR at 05/08/2022 – 13:52
Fully agree, but nothing will happen to the rouge landlord despite government promises.
this should just be for landlords that have been identified as a bad/rouge landlord but who decides this?

I agree that only rouge landlords should be listed. There should be an independent review (or ‘appeal’) service where the landlord wants to challenge a listing they believe that it is unfair or unjustified.
Rouge tenants should be listed. Having just had a property left in a disgusting state and rent arrears I have no hope of recovering I would like other landlords to be aware of what these tenants have been up to! Even the most rigorous vetting procedures do not reveal past bad behaviour by tenants. If there is a suitable right to appeal for unfair or inaccurate listings of tenants I don’t see any objections.

It’s one of those things that sounds great on theory but wouldn’t work in practice for a number of reasons.

Mostly for GDPR reasons, but aside from that the register owner, whoever they may be, could be liable for any incorrect information on the database, even more so if publicly viewable.

You’ve got the issues of people with similar names and differentiating between those on the list.

It also could only work if it used definite information and nothing that is subjective. “Place was left in a mess” is no good as opposed to “£250 was retained from deposit for after tenancy cleaning”. What constitutes “a mess” is different to every person. Even using terms like “walls were covered in crayon”, how much is “covered”?

It’s a tough one, a nice idea but not feasible to put into practice.

Yes, I believe that a rogue landlord and rogue tenant register would be advantageous. It’s structure would have to be well thought through and all information verifiable with controls in place.

Yes, I believe that a rogue landlord and rogue tenant register would be advantageous as well.

I listed as such in that white wash of a questionnaire

Reply to the comment left by The Forever Tenant at 05/08/2022 – 19:36
I sincerely hope that “difficulties in adhering to GDPR regulations” is NOT put forward as a reason for not having a register of rogue tenants as well as landlords.

The seven principles of EU GDPR data collection are

Lawfulness, fairness and transparency
Purpose limitation
Data minimisation
Accuracy
Storage limitation
Integrity and confidentiality (security)
Accountability

A well-designed and well-implemented tenant register would have no problem adhering to these principles. It certainly has no more hurdles to overcome than a register of rogue landlords.

Also, the UK is no longer technically subject to EU GDPR regulations since the end of the Brexit transition period (31st December 2020). In early 2021 the government stated that the UK was exploring divergence from the EU GDPR in order to “focus more on the outcomes that we want to have and less on the burdens of the rules imposed on individual businesses”.

Given recent efforts to overturn (and possibly even divest from) ECHR regulations, you can bet anything you like that, under this Tory government, this “exploration” will result in removing a lot of the data privacy protections currently afforded to UK citizens.

This “tenants good, landlords bad” rhetoric is being pushed by certain interest groups to further their agenda. In reality, any rational person can see that there is good and bad on both sides, and any proposed changes in legislation should aim to protect society from the bad ones, whether they be landlord or tenant.

An accessible and reliable Register of Bad Landlords and Bad Tenants would be excellent.
Sadly, Data Protection legislation is too often used by large corporations ro simply obstruct as they are too lazy to provide information that really ought to be in the public domain for protection at both ends of the transaction.
Liability Insurers have used a mutual database of claims for years, mainly to flush out those rogues who try to insure with Insurer B after claiming from Insurer A and seeking to say to B they have never made a claim before, naughty but it happens all the time.

Reply to the comment left by The Forever Tenant at 05/08/2022 – 19:36
I don’t believe that’s the case.

Landlord Referencing used to run such a list as an adjunct to their tenant referencing offering and also their rent guarantee insurance – they got over the GDPR issue. Their references were very comprehensive.

It was run by a chap called Paul ?? who had been badly beaten up by a rogue tenant and that inspired him to set it up.

However, I believe they are no longer trading – I don’t know all the details but I think the Tenant Fees Act impacted their business model.

A list needs to be run by someone and as a business it needs to be monetised – in isolation it is unlikely to be a great money spinner, so if someone like NRLA or other landlord focused business could pick it up, it seems do-able.

Much of the site is still on the web but the home page seems to have been taken over by a casino outfit with a very similar domain name. Look behind that and there’s a lot of content still there up to 2019.

http://www.landlord-referencing.co.uk/

Reply to the comment left by juliette grant at 05/08/2022 – 18:13
actually inevitable that LL’s dont take bad tenants to court to go through the part where a CCJ could be listed simply due to not wanting to throw more time and wasted money chasing a debt you will never probably get back.

Ergo the bad tenant never has a CCJ record…so never shows up on checks….

If there was a rouge tenant register therefore this would be the perfect place to have such names listed.