4^th Aug 2019

A trade association refutes the government's intention to introduce a ‘rogue landlords’ database, when blasting the proposal as a pointless exercise unless councils carry out much better enforcement actions, because at present the database is a complete waste of time.

The database of rogue landlords will shortly be made available in the public domain where anyone, including tenants, will be able to find out “the crucial information they need before signing on the dotted line”.

The government was heavily criticised when it was found out that the database would only be made available to councils; prospective tenants would not be granted access to the information.

The government's intention for the database, was for local authorities to take action against rogue landlords and to “name and shame” them to all councils.

However the communities secretary, James Brokenshire, recently pledged that access to the database would be opened up to the public and said it is “right that we unlock this crucial information for new and prospective tenants”.

He stated that a twelve week consultaion would be set up, part of the study could see other offences committed by landlords, will mean that any perpetrators would be listed in database, and one of the new offences could be for breaching the Tenant Fees Act.

At present landlords will be blacklisted on the rogue database for committing any of the14 “banning order” offences which includes harassment, licensing breaches, unlawful eviction and for landlords who have been fined for two housing offences in a twelve month period.

To the government's embarrassment a freedom of information response revealed three months ago, that not one banning order had been issued by a local authority, and the 'rogues' database only had four names.

A spokesperson for the association, said: “It’s all well and good to open the database up to tenants, but if local authorities aren’t using the powers they have to identify and enforce against these landlords, it’s not really going to be of much use to anyone.

“The inability of local authorities to enforce against bad practice is the main issue facing the private rented sector (PRS). Instead of spending time and money on a consultation, the government would be better off giving that money to local authorities for the sole purpose of tackling criminal landlords.”

Richard Merrick of PIMS, said: "With Friday's (26th July) announcement that Brokenshire has been replaced by Robert Enrick as the new Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, it will be interesting to see if his predecessor's promise is carried out.

"It is hoped that Boris Johnson will fully understand the extremely important role that the private rented sector has to play in the fight against the 'housing crisis'; and perhaps the government will view landlords as 'friends' rather than 'enemies' to be 'cash cowed'."


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