In the wake of the impending ban on letting agents’ fees, the RICS has called on the Government for the creation of an online database where all tenants’ references and payment histories could be viewed online.
The RICS is also demanding mandatory licensing of all landlords in England, following the existing regime in Scotland and the newly introduced scheme in Wales.
The database proposal – likely to prove highly controversial both for its privacy issues and its workability – is in an RICS policy paper ahead of the publication of the delayed Housing White Paper, now expected in late January.
Asked about data privacy issues, the RICS said the proposed database would be voluntary. It could only be accessed to search a specific tenant with that tenant’s permission, while tenants would only volunteer information in the first place.
The RICS highlights similar pilots such as Kettering Borough Council’s voluntary tenant passport scheme for those currently in social housing who wish to move into private rented accommodation. This allows potential landlords to see that they have been good tenants, even though they may have a poor credit history.
Jeremy Blackburn, head of policy for RICS, said the proposed system could benefit those with poor credit ratings by giving landlords additional information such as previous rent payment history and would also create an alternative to them having to pay for referencing once agents’ charges to tenants are banned.
Blackburn said: “The introduction of a rental database will provide a credible alternative to the tenant-funded credit checks that the Government is proposing to scrap, putting more vulnerable members of society on a more level pegging with more affluent peers by reducing the likelihood of discrimination.”
Asked for further clarification on how this would work, specifically regarding data protection, Blackburn told EYE: “Data protection would be expected to be configured under the Data Protection Act, as with any other publicly or privately held database.
“Tenants would voluntarily put forward their information, which would be held centrally and accessed by landlords with the tenant’s permission.
“This builds on the original concept of the tenant’s passport. It also de-risks the landlord and tenant relationship at a time when, through the letting agent fees ban, the cost of carrying out checks on new tenancies has become a political football that will come to rest somewhere between tenants paying higher rents and landlords paying higher fees to letting agents.”
Other RICS recommendations include establishing what it calls a ‘light-touch’ landlord registration system which would make all rental properties known to HMRC and to the Home Office. It is not clear how the register would deal with properties only briefly in the private rented sector because they are owned by accidental landlords.
The RICS’s Rented Sector Policy Paper is being launched to coincide with the body’s anti-homelessness campaign – A Home For Cathy.
Blackburn said: “An ever-increasing proportion of the population is looking to rent. By 2025, we know that there will be a 1.8m shortfall in rental properties, and that could mean a rise in homelessness.
“It will be hard enough for those young professionals who cannot afford to buy to find a rental home, but for those on the breadline who cannot provide the usual spread of credit references, it could prove impossible.
“In a year that marks the 50th anniversary of Ken Loach’s powerful television play ‘Cathy Come Home’, charting the descent of a young family into homelessness, it is vital that the Government takes urgent action through the Housing White Paper to deliver homes for the Cathies of today and tomorrow.”
Well done RICS! If the Chancellor wants rid of agent’s fees then this is a must have. Things are going to get tougher and tougher for renters and the good ones need to be protected. This database will help and not hinder them.
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Who will pay for this, Government? I don’t think so. Who will supply the data, landlords? How? Surely not tenants certifying themselves? Big questions on workability of this.
Light touch register of landlords good idea though, if just getting landlord to self certify what they own. Let’s not follow Scotland and Wales though. Then compare with council tax records, gas safe records, BTL mortgage records etc. Basic data-scraping. Then target enforcement where, say, a tenancy is identified (BTL loan) but no gas certificate exists and landlord not declaring. Much more likely to be a rogue. HMRC would likely be interested in hidden landlord too.
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Keep you nose out RICS… You constantly lean/use the services/experience and data of us hard Working Estate Agents (Free of charge I might add for a job you are being paid for..) then to call/support/lobby for a ban on Letting Fees, now interfering with referencing! I refused to give comparable evidence to one Surveyor last week based on their support of the banning of letting fees and she was mortified… she called back 4 times to bully not only myself but 2 other colleges! Rumble Sedgwick you should be ashamed! Although in part a Database should be freely available BUT the data entered by THE AGENT not with the permission of the tenant otherwise what’s the point? If it were like an Experien/Noddle Report then I’m up for that… Rant over.
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‘Tenants would voluntarily put forward their information, which would be held centrally and accessed by landlords with the tenant’s permission.’
That will work then! haha..
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we can all see the self-evident negatives but……if this existed all our landlords would be within their rights to say we only want a tenant who is on the register and decent tenants will surely have no issues putting themselves onto this once they understand its benefits
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Yet more people wanting to regulate the private rented sector! Light touch – oh yes heard that one before from James Brokenshire MP who stated that immigration checks would not criminalise landlords if they got it wrong. There is no one out there any more who tells the truth.
What a shame NO ONE ASKS LANDLORDS for their opinions MOST OF WHOM ARE GOOD DECENT PEOPLE.
GOVERNMENT, RICS, ARLA, SHELTER, GENERATION RENT ETC get off your backsides and start PROVIDING THE HOUSING that is needed rather than constantly attacking those WHO ACTUALLY PROVIDE THE HOUSING. Government stop asset stripping and start providing social housing.
The world seems to be full of “know all organisations” who shout loud and achieve NOTHING to resolve the problems Government has caused through gross mis-management and sell offs.
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Oh yes RICS will the scum tenants who rip off landlords, do not pay their rent, damage and abuse property volunteer they are scum-bags? For goodness sake get real and grow up!
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http://www.landlordreferencing.co.uk/lifestyle-tenant-referencing/ already has a database that record:
Tenants Name
Tenants NI Number
Tenants Date of Birth
Tenancy Start and End Date
Agents contact details
This stops a tenant “forgetting” about a tenancy that when bad and/or putting their friend down as a reference, so by taking up references with all past agents you can find out the truth.
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When I wish to check out a possible tenant very well, I get all their past address from the credit report, and then look these addresses up on the land registry to get the address of their past landlords. I then write to these landlords saying “I am considering letting the property to Mr ***, is there anything I should know?”.
Showing the possible tenant these letters having also lead to “confessions”….
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Why the down votes, don’t you want to do the work to give your landlords the best possible tenant checking……
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I think that you’re breaking data protection law by doing this as you describe
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I am not sure this is breaking data protection. Data protection I thought covered electronic records not paper records. All too often the data protection act is used as an excuse for not co-operating. It is often quoted by those with no understanding whatsoever of the act.
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There are a few out there, RentalExchange/Credit Ladder probably being the biggest.
RICS would do well to define a standard for what must be included in these references, and a standard for how the information is validated/verified. This would allow the database providers to certify their references as RICS compliant (or improve their data if it’s not currently good enough to get the stamp) and landlords to know what they are getting when they see it.
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