Most landlords agree that any action to raise standard for tenants in private rented homes does a power of good.
But councils in London and Leeds are sending mixed messages.
Within days of Leeds announcing a new rental standard for the city, London’s Mayor Sadiq Khan had axed the London Rental Standard.
He explained that the measure had failed to benchmark standards for renters and that landlords did not flock to join for accreditation.
“Although many letting agents became accredited to the standard, these agents were predominantly already affiliated to professional bodies, suggesting the scheme had minimal impact in raising standards amongst the worst letting agents and landlords. As a result the current administration feels that there would be limited value in continuing to dedicate scarce Greater London Assembly resources to this project,” said Khan.
The London scheme was started by then mayor Boris Johnson in 2014.
ARLA says a lack of awareness of the standard led to the closure of the scheme.
Khan also announced that a London-wide database of bad landlords would launch later this year.
Meanwhile, the Leeds Rental Standard offers landlords several benefits, including a discount on joining the accreditation scheme, access to council housing officers, parking and free rubbish tipping.
“Leeds City Council wants to reward responsible landlords who own good quality and well managed accommodation,” says the scheme promotional material.
“Accreditation gives landlords awards for providing a quality service. It’s a way of recognising good landlords who demonstrate skills in property and tenancy management. Accreditation offers landlords a wealth of knowledge, advice and support in addition to financial discounts and benefits.”
The Leeds Rental Standard acts as an umbrella for other private sector accreditation schemes.
Unless the standard becomes law AND someone enforces it you may as well run this sort of thing through the shredder
I agree with Tom who commented above me, firstly the statement “Most landlords agree that any action to raise standard for tenants in private rented homes does a power of good” is absolute nonsense. All the Landlords who have swallowed that as a good thing are sadly mistaken. Any intervention by local authorities are simply information gathering about the Landlords in their area, You are then enticed to join their accreditation schemes so you can get a gold star (like being back at school) with some sweeteners attached in the belief this will some how get you more and better quality tenants. Then comes the bombshell the sweeteners are taken away or they then start to cost you money. The local authority then has all your information on you and you can then start to become a “soft target” The gold badge they have given you starts to cost you time and effort to keep as well as the abundance of red tape/paperwork and before you know it you have gained nothing except lots of additional obligations.
I am a very good Landlord with property in Wales & England but I don’t need a gold star to tell me that, my tenants tell me. I don’t need or require anything from Local Authorities or Government I know my job and stand on my own two feet. I do my job well without interference from others.
Bad Landlords like bad Tenants need to be weeded out but that is the job of the relevant authorities not Landlords and Agents to assist them while we pay for the privilege as well.
Finally I applaud Tariq Khan for his brave move in axing the scheme there are to many of these schemes which are not cost effective throughout the UK that benefit neither Tenant or Landlord