The Local Government Council is calling for a national database covering all housing-related convictions to be created to help councils crackdown on “postcode” rogue landlords who are endangering tenants’ lives.
The LGA, which represents over 370 councils in England and Wales, believes serial criminal landlords, who are blocked from operating by some boroughs running licensing schemes, may be moving to other postcodes.
The government is introducing a database listing landlords who are subject to banning orders and the LGA would like to see this expanded to include private landlords who have other housing-related convictions.
It believes a national database needs to be created which all councils can access to identify and target serial rogue operators. The LGA also wants a much tougher “fit and proper person” test and letting agents to be brought under the same legislation as estate agents so the bad operators can be booted out.
The LGA said it can take up to 16 months to prosecute criminal landlords and in many cases the average fine is less than £5,000.
LGA environment spokesman Peter Box said: “A national information pool of rogue landlords is urgently needed so councils can identify the serial rogue operators and target them more effectively. We are calling for a system which protects the good landlords, whose reputation is being dragged down by the bad ones.
“Rogue landlords are calculating they can keep these sub-standard properties going while the cash comes in and walk away with effectively a slap on the wrist.
“Fines must match the offence and the impact on tenants, not just the landlords’ ability to pay. Every tenant should have the right to live in safe, clean and warm homes, particularly at Christmas.”
What we really need is a national database of rogue tenants, and an end to councils advising tenants who are in arrears and in the process of being evicted to stay put until the bailiffs arrive, as well as the many months of legal wrangling required to evict.
Shaun,
Totally agree. It is ironic that the the most active landlords in terms of evictions throughout the country are local authorities and who wish to bring in a Rouge landlord register into play. Presumably they will be top of the list with slow or late repairs poor workmanship and inability to communicate with the tenant!
In order to have a rouge list you need to have A list of all, which then disguises the real reason, which is to find out who to tax under a registration scheme!
What we need is both a list of rouge landlords and rouge tenants that all estate agents, councils, and both tenants and landlords can access, to review prospective renters and rentee’s.
If an estate agent has had a complaint about either, they should be able to put that information out there for all to see.
We all need protecting.
I agree…..Both required……..and ref. above comment on councils advising tenants to stay put until evicted: This happened to me recently and I was about to seek legal advice on this but the tenant, did the honourable thing and kept his word and moved out despite the council’s advice! His notice had expired 2 mths previously but I had told him he could stay until either he found alternative accommodation or I found a new tenant for his flat. I found a new tenant and, all credit to him, he went. But the council told him he had the LEGAL RIGHT to stay which I think is legally incorrect. After the notice to quit has expired, the tenant does not have the LEGAL right to stay, if he did then the landlord would not be able to get him evicted through the courts. The landlord does not have the LEGAL right to evict him without going through the courts, but that, in my view, does not give the tenant the LEGAL Right to remain in the property, which my council was telling the tenant. There is a distinction between the two.
A list of rogue, landlords and tenants is required additionally some letting agents too appear to do little or nothing yet rake in their percentage.. In general if you provide a well maintained property you will get good tenants having looked at properties to buy recently a lot of landlords should be ashamed of the properties they are letting, in poor repair and decorative order, have they heard of insulation or helping to reduce utility bills for their tenants?
Nothing wrong with this but in return Landlords should have a list of rogue tenants, either non payers, asbo’s, cannabis farms, etc.
There are far more rogue tenants than there are problem landlords.
It would be fairly easy to build a postcode centric portal which could be interrogated/searched by the identity/address attributes or the party names.
The power of the internet in NAME and SHAME situations is significant, but would need to have in-built protection from blatant abuse by either side of the transaction – the landlord and/or the renter.
I would envisage that it would need implicit agreements declared by posting parties that any comments that were potentially libel case candidates and which could result in action for that being commenced and that the portal content WOULD be considered evidence in such an action. This way any content posted by either party would need careful thought and not just be a ranting in frustration by the party concerned. It would need to contain a specific RIGHT OF REPLY facility for the other party to respond to issues raised. Multiple iterations of RESPONSE would need to be possible.-
To prevent out and out abuse of the facility, a modest “posting fee” could be charged – nominally at say £10 – to dissuade casual abuse. If a renting party or a landlord party have a genuine cause to feel they are being taken advantage of, I agree it is in everyone’s interest to make their grievance known to anyone who deals with either party. The power of such a portal could be significant and could improve overall performance by both sides to rental transactions.
I would envisage a content management approach that had an EXPIRY period on posted content, say 6-12 months, at which time the posting party would be invited to RETAIN the posted content for another period, or to allow the posting to DELETE. Failure to respond to the expiry reminder within a period of say 1 month would result in the content being deleted – assuming that the issue had been resolved mutually.
Suffice to say the portal could have sufficient facilities to prevent abuse, and thus any content posted could be assumed to be based in a genuine grievance.
Creation and on-going admin COSTS of such a portal could be funded by advertising revenues and by modest posting Costs as discussed above. Design of the portal processes and safeguards would include consultation with industry parties (including local councils) and could be on the air in less than 3 months.
It seems to me that there are rogue players on BOTH sides of rental transactions, and the power of internet exposure – properly managed – could be extremely valuable to moderate the behaviours of such players. AND to give aggrieved parties a forum to state their views OPENLY.
My EMAIL ID is posted here and I am happy to take comments either via this forum or direct via email.
What’s a ‘rouge’ landlord?
What about rogue councils? I’m being sued by my Council in a criminal court tomorrow for not paying £53 council tax for a property that took nearly a month to repair after the old tenant moved out, much of which concerned work to comply with health and safety regulations…..We had a prospective tenant waiting to get in but we couldn’t allow this until it complied with safety regs….does a landlord have to break these regulations by letting it to a tenant in order to avoid having to pay empty property council tax??
Len White Home provider. (I’m not a lord and I don’t own much land!)
About rogue landlord, to my surprise, I came to know that there are still people in Britain who want to rip off poor people. In 2011, I rented a bedsit in Woolwich the landlord was so desperate for money that, no one told me the truth about renting the bedsit to single persons. after a month some months, I was told that a child is not allowed in the house so I had to move. That was not the only hassle when I finally got a place after 6months, my deposit was not given back to me which I was told was registered with a scheme and I signed for that. I contacted the scheme and I was told I was not registered. At this time I decided to take the Landlord to court, I could either afford a lawyer nor to pay the court fee to county court. That was how I lost about 900 pounds to the landlord when I tried to contact I was threatened and provoked till I gave up. please do something about this, because when tenants want to rent a house or flat agencies ask for referees but it never occurs to people that most landlords are financial abusers. As till today, my daughter and I are so devastated, I don’t think I will ever forgive or forget that.