Secretary of State for Communities James Brokenshire wants to name and shame bad landlords by allowing tenants to look at their convictions before they sign a rental agreement.
He feels tenants in England should know if they are heading for trouble by moving into a home rented out by a rogue landlord who has faced housing offences in a court.
To see their name listed on the roll of shame, a landlord must had a banning order against their name under 14 serious housing offences, which range from unfair harassment to ignoring licence conditions for shared houses or they must have received two or more civil penalties for a banning order offence.
“This database has the potential to ensure that poor quality homes are improved and the worst landlords are banned and it is right that we unlock this crucial information for new and prospective tenants,” said Brokenshire.
“Landlords should be in no doubt that they must provide decent homes or face the consequences.”
Brokenshire wants to know what tenants and property professionals about extending the number of offences needed to qualify for a database listing.
“A small number of rogue landlords and property agents who knowingly flout their legal obligations and rent out substandard accommodation,” says the consultation document.
“We are committed to rebalancing the relationship between tenants and landlords to deliver a fairer, more affordable and better quality private rented sector.
“The database is designed to help local authorities target their enforcement action against the very worst landlords who wilfully flout the law and neglect their responsibilities to provide safe and decent accommodation.
“The database enables local authorities to share information about criminal landlords and is especially useful where they are operating across local authority boundaries.”
The consultation closes on October 12, 2019.
I am fine with naming and shaming rogue landlords, that should be a must.
On that note we should equally have a list of not wanted tenants who abuse properties and constantly refuse to pay their rents
Brokenshire States:
‘We are committed to rebalancing the relationship between tenants and landlords to deliver a fairer, more affordable and better quality private rented sector.’
If that is the case, there should be a ‘roll of shame’ for troublesome tenants.
As previous commenters state, this is an absolute, it is the worst of landlords who provoke the ever increasing amount of legislation good landlords have to comply with which is totally ignored by those looking to achieve maximum income from the minimum of outlay. That being said I completely agree that there should be a similar register for tenants. However it would have to recognise the difficulties faced by landlords to achieve this. There would have to be significant reason for a tenant to be placed on such a register and arrears would probably be one of the primary issues. Currently in the dilemma of having recently evicted a very difficult tenant I am sure there are others out there with the same. Due to the inexorably slow court processes and delays I am currently owed over £9000 in arrears and it cost over £4000 in legal fees of which the court ordered £2300 in costs against the tenant. The dilemma is and I have researched it and found similar stories, do I accrue further losses by entering the court system again to achieve a CCJ against an ex-tenant who won’t pay it anyway but gets away with it for the future if I don’t ? There should be some mechanism by which if a landlord can show sufficient evidence of non payment it should be viewable somewhere whether by a tenant database, credit referencing etc without having to go through further expense and losses by using an expensive and inefficient court system. Many will argue that referencing should identify such potential problematic tenants but the reality is there are limitations to referencing and these people can get around it especially when they have been through the processes and know what to say and do to sidestep it. Should it always be down to the landlord who has already sustained losses to have to further pay to limit someone’s capacity to do it again to someone else ?
I absolutely agree with the above comments
Adrian can we/The Guild put this suggestion to Brokenshire and get his comments on re-balancing the relationship between tenants and landlords and have a name and shame bad tenants list ?
That will be a much larger list than the odd rouge landlord list