A local authority which already has very tight requirements, is to launch a review of its licensing regime, with a ten-week consultation starting next week.
Oxford City Council may want to go further in its clampdown on Houses in Multiple Occupation.
It says many tenants are living in HMOs that are sub-standard, with council officers having found instances of cockroach infestations, damp, electrical hazards and poor fire safety.
A year ago, two thirds of licensed HMOs were deemed to be sub-standard.
There are 3,440 licensed HMOs in Oxford, with about the same number again of unlicensed properties.
In 2011, Oxford introduced its current HMO licensing scheme, which targets all properties with three or more unrelated sharers.
Since then, the local council has carried out nearly 20,000 inspections, dealt with 2,700 complaints and placed 49,000 conditions on properties that did not meet minimum standards.
However, Adrian Chowns, who heads the council’s HMO enforcement team, told the local Oxford Mail: “HMOs remain a major problem in the city.
“We have not yet had the impact we would like with this scheme.”
Is Mr Chowns admitting that the licensing scheme has failed? It is coming to the end of the initial term….. the housing act demands further consultation before extending any scheme. From where I sit, it is only the better agents and landlords that have engaged with the scheme, and if there are still thousands of properties unlicensed after nearly 4 years, why would anyone think an extension would change that? As long as license fee monies cannot be used for enforcement activity, the authority will always be under resourced to impact on the landlords who are actively avoiding compliance. The scheme will run on with the same landlords paying the same tax year on year and passing the “cost” on to already over taxed tenants.
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