In the first year of Oxford City council’s highly contentious selective licensing scheme private landlords applied for over 12,000 private rented homes.

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The city wide scheme was introduced in September 2022 which required all PRS homes across Oxford to have a licence and is ‘the one and only’ council in England that has made it mandatory for all private rented homes to be licensed.

In the first twelve months of the license being introduced the council was inundated with 10,896 applications from agents and landlords for more than 12,300 properties and exceeded its own expectations;  its ’early bird’ discount on licence fees drew in an initial 9,057 applications.

The council’s department issued 2,138 final licences in the first twelve months of selective licensing scheme and claims it will be issuing licences for the remaining discounted applications in the next six months, so far 5,925 licences have been issued.

In the licence scheme’s first year 61 property inspections were carried out by the council’s team when investigating complaints from tenants with 36 properties being found to have dangerous housing issues. The council states it is now fast tracking more investigations and hopes to inspect 60 per cent of licensed properties in the next five years.

Before the introduction of the scheme only HMOs in Oxford had to be licensed which accounted for less than 15 per cent of privately rented homes in Oxford.

The authority’s statement warns unlicensed landlords and agents will be facing toughened up enforcement actions and says it is able to issue fines of as much as £30,000. Courts will also have powers to issue unlimited fines for unlicensed private rented homes.

Linda Smith, in charge of housing, says: “Our selective licensing scheme is a crucial step in raising the bar for quality standards in private rented homes. We are committed to ensuring safe, decent homes for private tenants. The majority of landlords and agents do a good job and have nothing to fear from selective licensing. I’m encouraged that so many made licence applications during the first year of the scheme and I’d like to thank them all.