Ministers consider national registration scheme in England to target rogue landlords.
This new scheme seeks to protect tenants from rogue landlords and dangerous rents.
Pressure is growing on the government to introduce a registration scheme to help councils target rogue landlords renting out thousands of dangerous homes to families.
A white paper spelling out the government’s plans for raising standards in the private rented sector, including a potential national landlord register that would bring England into line with the rest of the UK, is expected by the winter.
A new analysis of official figures by campaigning group Generation Rent shows English councils that require rental properties to be registered under local licensing schemes are more than twice as effective at removing the most serious hazards (like rogue landlords) as authorities without any form of registration.
The analysis reveals that 32 English councils with selective licensing schemes identified an average of 158 unsafe households each in 2019-20, compared to 63 on average in 200 councils without such schemes.
City councils with licensing schemes also took more steps to eliminate hazards they discovered, with an average of 85% of dangerous homes safe. Local authorities without schemes solved only 65% of the hazards, such as dangerous electricity, extreme cold, and severe overcrowding.
Brent, North London, and Leeds, which register all homeowners in certain areas, succeeded in eliminating the most serious health risks from hundreds of homes, while figures provided to the government by the Copeland and Barrow municipalities, both in Cumbria, don’t register all owners, suggest they did not eliminate any of the hazards they found. Both councils argue that risks were addressed in other ways.
Almost 70% of councils with licensing schemes are controlled by Labor, and the Labor stronghold of Newham, east London, in 2013 became the first authority to license owners in an entire district. However, the government granted powers that allowed ministers to block major schemes in 2015. A city-wide scheme was scrapped last year after the government withdrew support.
The number of families renting to private owners has doubled since 1997, but the sector deservedly gets a bad rap. Private tenants are nearly twice as likely as social tenants to live in substandard homes, with about 1.1 million privately rented homes not meeting minimum standards.
Generation Rent said the registry would provide law enforcement authorities with valuable information about the sector, provide information to tenants of their rights and prevent criminals from renting houses.
“Existing licensing schemes have a clear track record of helping city councils identify unsafe housing and bring it up to standard, but the vast majority of private tenants are not protected by them,” said Alicia Kennedy, director of Generation Rent.
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