With a proposed blacklist of rogue agents and landlords a key part of the Housing and Planning Bill, Landlord Action founder Paul Shamplina is calling for a public blacklist of rogue tenants.
The Bill is currently making its way through Parliament, and proposes giving local authorities powers to ban persistently bad agents and landlords, and impose civil penalties, as well as publish their names in a blacklist available to central and local government.
Now evictions specialist Shamplina is arguing that the list should include rogue tenants, and that all the information should be made widely public.
Shamplina said: “We are constantly hearing about ‘rogue landlords and agents’. But to address issues in the private rental sector, we should also consider ‘rogue tenants’.
“Last year there were 161,000 possession claims issued in England and Wales.
“At present, there is no central database where possession orders with money claims are registered, as the courts do not recognise possession claims with arrears as a County Court Judgement.
“If they did, this information would show up on tenant referencing. At present, a rogue tenant can move from property to property running up rent arrears and it does not show up on referencing unless the landlord goes to additional expense of trying to enforce the money order.
“If we are to protect landlords at pre-let stage, in the same way we wish to protect tenants, this should also be made available.”
He also argued that all the information, including that relating to blacklisted agents and landlords, should be out in the wider public domain.
He said: “The Government is clearly committed to improving standards in the private rented sector. One of the greatest challenges is finding a balance between supporting good landlords and agents, whilst cracking down on criminal activity without burdening the sector with unnecessary, expensive regulation.
“I believe that one of the best ways to do this is by giving the consumer – including landlords and tenants – access to information, allowing them to have freedom of choice about who they rent from.”
Shamplina says making the information available to the wider public would support reputable landlords and agents and act as an effective deterrent.
This ‘Rogue Tenant’ record Bureau’ is well overdue and from the quoted 161000 repossession claims last year it is about time Osborne & Cameron played fair with the majority of thoroughly decent Landlords and letting agents – Take your sights of the small minority of Rogue Landlords for just a minute or two and bring in fair treatment for all. Then go after the rogues of the industry. Stop wasting money on Police & Crime Commissioners who have been seen since their augmentation as being a terrible waste of money and resources and use the freed up finance to make Local Authorities employ staff who will get off their backsides and enforce the volumes of legislation we have already.
Being a small Landlord, like so many providing good housing and treating Tenants well, I for one am thoroughly fed up with this title of ‘Rogue Landlord’ being so freely used by our ‘Devious, Expense Fiddling’ Politicians who appear to escape justifiable prosecution because of friends in high places – equality and fair treatment under law is a fundamental right for everyone. Politicians need to stop now before the Housing market is wrecked forever – Osborne, reign in your law making Civil Servants and just remember the fairness rules of life which need applying to everyone, including ‘ALL’ politicians – Come to think of it, why do Politicians need two houses??? when so many business people, for equally important reasons are prevented from this Anti Tax Payer privilege. Just remember who put you all in power, the years are counting down for the next election and you haven’t down too well so far !!
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jad, I could not agree more.
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Not on the scale that we need, however http://www.landlordreferencing.co.uk has a database that lists past landlords for lots of tenants; this makes it harder for a tenant to “forget” to list a past landlord on their application form.
Taking up references from the ALL the landlords the person had over the last 5 years will find most issues. A standard credit check lists address someone “is linked to” (had bank statement sent to etc), the Land Registry for a small charge will tell you the owner of a property.
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Arrears cannot be registered as a CCJ. But if the tenant does not pay the Fees and costs awarded by the Court, they can be
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