Croydon council's housing chief has held her hands up to the fact that their proposed £200 selective licensing scheme could end up being "funded" by the landlord's tenants.

The council is holding meetings and consultations on their new plans to implement a selective licensing scheme for landlords in the private rented sector.

It is proposed that all private landlords must obtain a licence at a cost of £1,000 per property, for a five year licence and those who don't may be fined up to £20,000.

This is another council that uses the "tired" excuses of seeking kicking out rogue landlords, improve standards in the properties in the borough's 30,000 privately rented homes.

The proposed charges have been daubed with the title of "tenant tax" by its sternest critics. They say that at the end of the day it will penalise good landlords and those tenants who are vulnerable, will have trouble with paying higher rents.

At a recent public meeting Alison Butler, the council's housing chief, was taken to task by an audience member who said: "I'm worried [the licence fee] could end up penalising the good landlords as well as the criminals.

"It's a huge amount of money which is effectively going to be passed on to the tenant who will have to find an extra £200 rent every year.

"That's hurting the people we want to help."

Councillor Butler replied by saying landlords should not have to pass on the licence costs because of recent rent increases, she said:"You talk about [the costs] being passed on to the tenants; I would never stand here and say that isn't a risk,"

"What I would say is that rents have gone up in Croydon over the years far higher than that fee. So there's no need [for landlords to pass on the costs]."

The member of the audience replied: "Why increase it further?"

Butler countered by saying: "There's no need for any landlord to pass on [the cost] to the tenant, but there is a risk they would do."

She claims that the extra revenue accrued from the scheme would cover the cost of administering the scheme and employing extra enforcement officers.

The audience member also added: "It doesn't seem right that we are charging landlords, the majority of whom aren't going to be criminals, when actually all you need to do is go into buildings suspected to be of a low standard and use the existing legislation available to councils.

"Surely you don't have to ask landlords to come and give you money so you can find the bad houses?"

One of the earliest adoptees of the scheme, Newham council has 20,500 registered landlords raising £.6.5 million. They have banned eighteen landlords and by enforcing the policy it has led to 243 prosecutions and 135 cautions.

The public meeting was arranged by Sarah Jones, Labour's prospective candidate for Croydon and she invited a guest speaker Tom Copley, deputy chairman of London Assemblies housing committee, who backed the scheme.

Copley said: "Good landlords suffer because of bad landlords, who cut corners and, if you're not doing the right thing, you're being undercut,"

 

"It's like an insurance scheme. If you have a car, you pay insurance on it. You can't argue that you should be exempt because you're not a bad driver."

Sarah Jones stated that Croydon had real problems with rogue landlords and added "A third of our private rented houses are not at a 'decent homes' standard and over 10 per cent are particularly bad,"

 

"I don't think it's particularly left wing to think that people should have a decent home."

Richard Merrick PIMS said :" It is often misquoted about the levels of profit that private landlords make. One of the largest landlords with over 1000 properties has decided to sell up because of the many new forms of legislation and dwindling returns.

"Market rent prices are decided by supply and demand so in the short term it is unlikely that the licence costs can be passed onto the tenants. However in the future this may become the case.

 

"For a member of the council to say that because of recent rent increases then landlords have no need to pass on the cost is misguided. I am sure there are many landlords in Croydon who would be only too interested to hear about the recent increases."

The licensing scheme consultation process ends on October 17th.