Only 39 rogue landlords and agents have been handed banning orders since local councils gained powers to report the worst offenders – 14 of these in the last year.
Offenders are added to the government’s rogue database and prevented from renting out properties, engaging in property management or letting agency work. However, despite declaring that there were 10,500 rogue landlords operating in the property market and that it expected more than 600 to make it to the database when the scheme launched back in April 2018, its target has fallen far short.
Many rogue landlords avoid banning orders despite having terrible track records. Earlier this year, Stanley Rodgers, 78, of Market Road Place in Great Yarmouth – who served a prison sentence during the early noughties over the deaths of two tenants – was in court again for a string of housing offences that put tenants at risk. Despite this, he was fined just £20,000.
Unlike London’s Landlord and Agent checker, which allows Londoners renting in the private sector to avoid firms and individuals, the national database is only a local council enforcement tool. To date, 25 local authorities have issued the orders and tenants’ groups say the low number of entries proves how ineffective it is. Advice service Tenants Voice adds that local authorities are too under-resourced to prosecute landlords who have issued unlawful evictions and that the police are usually reluctant to take action.
Shelter has called on the government to create an accessible national register of all landlords to help hold the sector to account and wants it to use the upcoming Renters Reform Bill to tackle problems. The government has promised to widen access to the database when the worst of the pandemic has passed.
Shelter has lost the plot and need to stick to basic principles of helping the homeless instead of persecuting millions of responsible landlords on the back of a handful of criminals who happen to be renting out property.
Shelters actions will inevitably make many more people homeless that the amount of landlords it will prosecute.
I have said it before but worth repeating… Until or unless the Govt want to start building council houses and becoming a landlord again then it should simply shut up and let the PRS get on with housing the 5 million+ population rise in the last decade.
“Stanley Rodgers, 78, of Market Road Place in Great Yarmouth – who served a prison sentence during the early noughties over the deaths of two tenants – was in court again for a string of housing offences that put tenants at risk”
At risk of what exactly, tripping over the doormat perhaps?
This article is so full of holes it resembles a colander.
What utter crap. A “few” dodgy landlords and agents? I’m guessing that you’re one of them and don’t like the fact, that people are fighting back against flagitious and praetorian filth that “rent” out properties.
I’m all in favour of a register of bad / rogue landlords & agents so tenants can avoid them, PROVIDED we can also have a register of bad tenants that landlords can avoid
Agreed, if a tenant can break their tenancy agreement without consequences then the temptation will always be there.
I presume that Croydon Council are now on the list of rogue landlords
I’ve not had one good experience with either a landlord or agent in this cesspool England.
I’m currently experiencing absolute hell and have a solicitor dealing with my cases.
So how exactly do you define a bad landlord? There are so many different types, I’d even say my landlord is bad. Mine doesn’t even follow the rules set out for him in law.
Turns up when he likes, rent increase notification written in rent book, 2 gas safety checks in 9 years, no electrical safety check, fire alarm system shut off due to fault & never fixed, no carbon monoxide alarms, gaps in double glazed windows and seals gone so in winter I heat outside better than I do my home,some windows that you should be able to open don’t, 2 leaky radiators and leak from boiler, mold in bathroom, extractor fan in bathroom I had to disconnect because it ran 24 hours a day (was only supposed to work when putting on light). When repairs do get done it’s a bodge job by unqualified people. Enough of a death trap for everyone? Sad part it takes a tenants death before action is taken against people like this.
Biggest joke of all is this person is a Councillor for our local council.