5th
Aug 2015
A date has been set for the decision on the legal challenge of Croydon’s licensing scheme to be Thursday 13th August (2015).
Croydon Property Forum (CPF) had requested the Royal Courts of Justice for a judicial review of Croydon Council’s proposed landlord licensing scheme and its intended charges. The council appeared in court earlier this month in defence of the legal challenge by the non profit company, CPF, which was set up by landlords to contest the scheme.
The council wanted to charge all landlords to pay £750 per rented property, from October 1st, for a five year licence to become accredited within the scheme. The council purported that by doing so it would be rid of the so-called ‘rogue landlords’, those willing to pay into the scheme would also have to undertake responsibilities of erasing anti-social behaviour.
Jonathan Manning, who represented the Croydon Property Forum, requested the High Court judge Sir Stephen Silber to allow a judicial review, because Croydon had failed to take "reasonable steps to consult every person who can be affected" by the scheme.
Manning put across the argument that during the consultation period, the council had ignored developers and had not supplied enough information to landlords.
The council had originally in the first tranche of the consultation, sent out 9,000 leaflets to landlords together with a link to an online questionnaire. This just contained an outline of the principles of the scheme and did not supply any specifics.
The council followed this up by 1,000 doorstep face-to-face random interviews and another online consultation.
Mr Manning told the court that the council did not bother to inform any developers that could be affected by the scheme; they just seemed to be targeting small landlords who had only one or two buy-to-let properties.
Manning said:"In this case, the developers who are building large quantities of housing in the borough, much which will be made available as private rent, will be affected,
"The response of a developer saying 'I won't be able to build 1,000 homes in Croydon' is qualitatively different to saying 'I was going to build one home but now I'm not'."
The barrister explained to the court that all the council had to do, to involve the developers, was simply to contact the Develop Croydon Forum.
Dr Anwar Ansari, an important property developer in the borough, said in a witness statement read out in court, that developers may "struggle" because of the proposed licensing scheme and may consider whether it was worthwhile to invest in Croydon.
Clive Sheldon QC, who represented the London Borough of Croydon, said the council’s sole intent was to make Croydon more attractive to investors.
He retorted to Dr Ansari’s statement by saying that he should have received the leaflet from the council and that: "The local authority is not required to send leaflets by recorded delivery."
Sheldon said that council was not legally obliged to have taken all reasonable steps in contacting all of the potentially affected parties. It was solely down to the council to decide what is deemed as reasonable. However he admitted that all residents, landlords and businesses should have been contacted, as after all developers are businesses.
Mr Sheldon after this admittance did blame developers for not committing the due diligence by not researching the possibilities of such a scheme being introduced.
He said:"It's common sense, any person investing tens of millions of pounds is going to want to know is this a good place for them to be buying and developing property,".
Mr Sheldon claimed that larger developers should have been aware of the impending licensing scheme, as it was included in local newspaper ads, council emails and leaflets.
He requested that Judge Silber should refuse Croydon Property Forum's application for a judicial review.
Judge Silber will make his ruling on Thursday (August 13).
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