4th
Mar 2019
Latest figures released show that West Midlands councils have failed to carry out any actions on the vast majority of landlord complaints that they have been inundated with.
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The councils had received over 1,500 complaints against agents and landlords in 2018 and carried out just two prosecutions.
The figures were obtained from Freedom of Information requests which showed there had been 1,506 complaints made against landlords to the West Midlands councils and the two prosecutions were carried out by Sandwell.
Although there were only two prosecutions last year the Black Country councils held 1,032HHSR (Housing Health and Safety Ratings) inspections during 2017 and 2018.
After receiving complaints the councils issued 105 severe hazard awareness notices, 97 of which were from Sandwell; whereas Wolverhampton had only served seven and Dudley just the one, with Walsall issuing none at all.
The councils issued only 54 improvement notices for category 1 and category 2 hazards. A category 1 hazard is issued when tenants are living in a property that poses a serious threat to their health and safety.
During 2017 to 2018 across England and Wales there more than 101,614 public complaints sent to councils about landlords resulting in only 996 prosecutions.
In 2017 the government gave councils much stronger powers to address the increasing number of complaints against private landlords; 67% of councils failed to carry out any prosecutions in 2017/18.
When announcing the new powers for councils, Housing and Planning minister Gavin Barwell said: "These measures will give councils the additional powers they need to tackle poor-quality rental homes in their area.
"By driving out of business those rogue landlords that continue to flout the rules, we can raise standards, improve affordability and give tenants the protections they need."
The figures also uncovered that 89% of councils failed to impose any civil penalties on rogue landlords in spite of receiving complaints and being given the new powers to do so.
59% of councils stated they had not been able to put a structure in place to use those powers.
PIMS comment: "There is always so much bad press on 'rogue' landlords; however there is nothing in mainstream media coverage about council's lack of prosecutions in relation to complaints against the 'rogues'.
"It is in all of our best interests that this minority is 'weeded out', but will this really change even with the extra funding that the government has given to authorities to do just that?
"Of course the media circus will still concentrate on the 'rogues' as being the norm for the private rented sector."
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