It was yesterday confirmed that the new database of bad letting agents and landlords and the introduction of banning orders for the worst offenders will come into force next month.
The register will not be available for the public to see, and nor will agents recruiting new staff have any access to it. It will only be accessible by local and central government.
David Cox, managing director of ARLA Propertymark, said: “This is a truly ridiculous piece of legislation.
“What is the point of banning people when no one will know who’s been banned?
“We were very supporting of the concept – we want to see the eradication of bad letting agents and landlords. But how will this help?
“A public list would protect consumers. This won’t.”
New measures were also yesterday laid in Parliament in a further crackdown, and will be implemented this autumn.
From October, councils will be able to set minimum bedroom sizes and introduce limits on how many people can live in each bedroom of a licensed multiple occupancy home.
Councils will be able to use national minimum size standards – or apply their own, which could be tougher.
The current minimum space requirements are that bedrooms used by one person over the age of ten will have to be at least 6.51sqm, and those slept in by two people must at least 10.22sqm.
Rooms slept in by children aged under ten must be at least 4.64sqm.
Cox also criticised this measure, saying: “Older properties often have box rooms, which are used as bedrooms and are often cheaper to rent.
“If box rooms cannot be used as bedrooms, there will be fewer tenants in shared accommodation and so they will have to pay more.”
He said he was unconvinced that small bedrooms were an issue for many tenants, and called on the Government to stop making “ridiculous laws”.
The new space standards will apply to all landlords seeking new licences. Landlords of existing properties will have up to 18 months to make changes when re-applying for a new licence.
Also being implemented in October is a requirement to provide adequate waste storage facilities outside shared rented homes in line with their local council’s rules.
At first I thought that the headline meant that they didn’t support the idea at all, but from reading the article, I agree with them. The government are always banging on about ‘transparency’ and ‘trust’ and all that, so how will having a hidden list of rogue landlords and agents that no-one else can see be helpful??
It’s like TripAdvisor. If a pub or attraction has really bad reviews, I don’t go. If the reviews are all hidden, I might decide to chance it and waste my money on an awful meal that gives me food poisoning!
Knowledge is power after all.
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The Government also has a duty of care to help protect business’s. How about a list of rogue tenants?
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From October, councils will be able to set minimum bedroom sizes and introduce limits on how many people can live in each bedroom of a licensed multiple occupancy home.
H’mmm this has been going on for at least the last 5 years! When the council say they will be flexible on measurements being close to limit don’t believe them. We had to evict a very good and happy tenant over a room being 0.5 sq meters short under additional licencing rules. The property was subsequently taken over by a local housing association as we were effectively barred from being allowed to rent the property out. Why a housing association …. we recommended it as the landlord was then able to rent it out via them and the room sizes didn’t apply!!!!! Apparently then the rot set in with the type of tenants they were getting and he sold up.
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Spot on. We are frequently having to turn away perfectly good tenancy applications because of ridiculous and harsh additional licensing regulations. Sometimes this is because our landlord client wishes to remain free of HMO licensing and so is only able to rent to a family, single person or two single sharers. A couple with a friend, or any similar arrangement, wanting to rent a 3 bedroom house have to be turned away.
(No doubt some councils reading this will decide to press ahead for borough wide selective licensing… After all, it’s a great revenue generator!)
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Yet again more ridiculous legislation brought in that does not work and has no meaning whatsoever to the market it is meant to represent! Well said David Cox.
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