The costs of licensing could be passed to the tenants, a councillor in charge of housing has admitted.

Cllr Alison Butler, cabinet member for homes and regeneration at Labour-run Croydon, said at a public meeting: “There’s no need for any landlord to pass on [the cost] to the tenant, but there is a risk they would do.”

In another exchange with a member of the public, she said: “You talk about [the costs] being passed on to the tenants; I would never stand here and say that isn’t a risk.

“What I would say is that rents have gone up in Croydon over the years far higher than that fee. So there’s no need [for landlords to pass on the costs].”

Croydon Council is currently consulting on its proposals to bring in a selective licensing scheme. Landlords would pay £1,000 per property per five-year licence.

There are an estimated 30,000 private rented homes in the borough.

A meeting arranged by the prospective Labour candidate for Croydon Central, Sarah Jones, heard that the housing situation in Croydon is “desperate” with 500 families in bed and breakfast plus another 2,000 in other temporary accommodation.

At an entirely separate meeting, in Brighton, a similar message was given.

The meeting, organised by the Brighton and Hove Estate Agents Association at Sussex County Cricket Club, took the form of a panel on which representatives of local parties sat together with Andrew Hovey and Carole Charge of Leaders agents, and Clive Gross of Generation Rent.

Green councillor Alex Phillips, deputy chairman of the city’s housing committee, said that Brighton has a housing crisis.

She said a register of landlords was needed, together with rent controls.

The full story, run in the local paper, attracted some interesting comments.

One said: “The two problem areas that need licences are: holiday lets, groups of mostly drunken hen parties up to thirty moving into a unfamiliar house for the weekend, they are not licensed and no requirements for even a smoke alarm: it’s only a matter of time before there’s a Palmeria Avenue type fire, council as usual have been ‘talking’ about it for 2 years?”

“Council houses: lots of them in a deplorable condition and in fact unfit for habitation, Council need to lead by example.”

http://www.theargus.co.uk/news/11483465.Councillors_want_licence_for_landlords/