Local authorities exist to improve housing stock in their area. However, licensing is not the best way to improve standards across the private rented sector (PRS), according to Propertymark.
The trade body says that it has been actively voicing concerns with local authorities and local representatives from up and down the country.
Tim Thomas, policy and campaigns officer at Propertymark, believes that one of the biggest issues is the lack of resources available for the enforcement of such schemes to effectively ensure standards are being met.
“Previously a stumbling block has always been inadequate staffing levels which has meant all aims have failed, meaning compliant landlords are paying the [sometimes hefty] price, whilst rogue landlords continue to operate under the radar,” he said.
Propertymark is urging the UK government to provide more funding for local authority enforcement and ensure councils produce information about their enforcement activity.
Thomas gives the example of Brent, which offers one of the largest licensing scheme proposals. It will cover borough-wide and operate in 21 of the 22 wards, only excluding the Wembley Park ward.
He explained: “The PRS is huge in Brent making up 45.6% of total housing stock. In total there are around 50,000 PRS properties within the scope of the scheme so to base an estimate of on one staff member visiting three properties per day, it would take over 50 years to complete checks on every property which is a completely unrealistic number to ensure were compliant.
“Some local authorities are proposing hefty fees for licenses that last five years such as £652 per property and up to £1,215 per property for landlords with Houses in Multiple Occupation [HMO’s]. For landlords who own several properties, such as a block of flats the costs can be substantial. However, councils such as Merton have acknowledged the high cost for these landlords and offer discounts for multiple licenses within one unit in their proposed scheme.”
Another concern around the local authorities’ resources is the time taken for them to process licenses and their ability to deal with the admin which is leaving many landlords frustrated and uncertain around their entitlements whilst being processed.
Thomas continued: “When engaging with members, some mentioned during the Tower Hamlets consultation that it took months to receive them.
“Charging forward in their aim of improving standards, some local authorities are acknowledging the difference being part of an accredited organisation makes. Landlords are much more likely to be clued up on the requirements asked of them through their own personal membership of a body or group or by using an agent who is a member of an organisation such as Propertymark.
“Some local authorities are offering discounts for those that are members of a number of approved bodies including ARLA Propertymark which we believe should be taken up by more councils in order to limit the costs for good landlords.”
He added: “As more and more schemes pop up, we’ve engaged with our members and responded to consultations on selective and additional licensing schemes for areas such as Brent, Manchester, Merton, Redbridge, Middlesborough and Tower Hamlets.
“We’ve previously encouraged the London Rental Standard and co-regulation models as alternatives to licensing and we will continue to engage with all levels of politics and government to ensure local authorities are targeting their scarce resources appropriately and good agents and landlords are not burdened with overzealous licensing schemes.”
National licencing is the future. Private Landlords are simply unregulated and a law upon themselves. They must be forced to become more professional. They can either use a regulated agent, who is insured, audited and a member of an ombudsman or pay to join these organisations themselves. Council licencing is just another tax without any benefit to the industry.
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How about licensing tenants ?
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I agree that licensing landlords may not be the best option, I certainly do not agree with the money making licensing schemes operated by many councils and boroughs, but, if anything has been learnt from the Welsh model it is that having a central, accessible landlord’s register works. Again, I do not agree with the radical changes that the Welsh assembly has imposed on landlords but the idea of every landlord & agent having to be registered and self-managing landlords & agents having to have some form of licensing would be a good step – Just don’t let Property Mark anywhere near it!
At the moment, any changes by Government are poorly communicated to both landlords and agents, imagine how easy it would be if every landlord and agent was registered, that information could be issued by email at the press of a “send” button!
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Any law is only as good the enforcement that is applied to it. Rent Smart Wales after 5 years of operation had only audited 5% of the professional letting agents in Wales. This process was extremely long winded and they took 13-months to produce a 28-page report. We are an award winning agency and do everything by the book, so a lot of the auditors comments were petty and due to his lack of knowledge of the PRS. On this basis it will take 100 years to get around every agent, although this is partly due to them doing remote audits due to Covid-19.
I think it would be much better to send an auditor to every lettings agency in Wales for a one day. This would enable them to guide agents in correct practice and if agent was ignoring all the RSW and WAG policies they could return to do an in depth audit. Tenants need to know that all the letting agents are working to a professional standard, agents need confidence that they are working on a level playing field and this would weed out the bad agents.
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