8^th Jan 2018

London's mayor Sadiq Khan has just announced the launch of the UK’s first database of rogue agents and landlords and lettings agents which is now available online.

The database/tool is now featured in the City Hall’s website and those landlords and lettings agents with criminal convictions will be named and shamed together with the details of their rental property addresses. Information of any civil enforcement actions that have been taken out because of housing offences will also be included.

Anyone will be able to access a specific area in the website to upload reports and comments on landlords who they feel have acted illegally in dereliction of their duties. The three Redress schemes - the Property Ombudsman - the Property Redress Scheme and Ombudsman Services will also submit records of mediation cases between tenants and landlords which will also be available to the public.

The local authorities and the London Fire Brigade will have a separate section of the site, this will 'house' a 'private' database allowing them to share more detailed information about landlord and letting agents housing offences which the general public will not be able to 'interrogate'.

Already 10 of the capital's 32 boroughs have supplied information to the site prior to its launch which are : Brent, Camden; Islington, Kingston upon Thames, Newham, Southwark, Sutton, Waltham Forest and Westminster; the fire brigade service has also contributed data to the City of London's website.

Eight more boroughs have committed to supplying records to the database in the next few weeks - Barking and Dagenham, Croydon, Enfield, Hackney, Haringey, Lewisham, Redbridge and Tower Hamlets.

The mayor is unable to force the other fourteen boroughs to comply with submitting data to the site, however a statement has been released that Sadiq Khan has "been working in close partnership with all boroughs to develop this new database on a London-wide basis".
The mayor said: "Boroughs on the database and I are using our existing powers to help London’s renters – but to go much further we need investment and resources from central government. For a start, they should stop dragging their feet on the creation of the compulsory national database they promised to set up. Before ministers have even laid the regulations for their database, we’ve planned, built and launched ours – and unlike the government’s plans, we have made our database accessible to the public."

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