A new website has launched specifically to help letting agents and landlords in London make sense of licensing regimes.

However, managing director Richard Tacagni says that while the information does focus on London, it will also be of benefit to agents and landlords across the country.

Over 100,000 private rented homes in London now require a licence before they can be let, he said.

But so far, only 40,000 have the required licences, exposing their owners and agents to prosecutions and penalties, plus the inability to evict tenants using Section 21.

Over one third of London boroughs already operate a selective and/or additional licensing scheme, with seven others set to introduce them.

Of the 15 current selective and additional licensing schemes dotted across London, each has different criteria, licence fees and terms and conditions.

This website, in Eye’s opinion, is an excellent site founded by someone who knows what he is talking about.

Tacagni gained considerable experience as previous head of private sector housing at the London Borough of Redbridge – a council which has just closed a consultation on a proposed licensing scheme.

The website is here

* A landlord who converted a house into ten rundown bedsits has become the first in the London borough of Brent to be fined under the council’s new licensing scheme.

Douglas Gerard-Reynolds failed to obtain an HMO licence and was fined £1,000 and ordered to pay costs of £1,457 plus a victim surcharge of £100.

In another case, in Lewisham, BBC Panorama highlighted a landlord who was paid up to £12,000 a month in housing benefit for a terrace house. The house was closed down last year in an emergency evacuation with the electrics so dangerous that the energy company cut the supply.

Up to 40 people had lived in the property with landlord Mustafa Kemal Mustafa using a “rent to rent” business model.