Brighton and Hove, which has one of the highest concentrations of private tenants in rented housing in the country, is being let down by proposals from political parties designed to please their supporters, but which will do nothing to root out criminal landlords.
That’s according to the Residential Landlords Association (RLA), which says proposals to introduce more regulation of the sector ‘sound good and simple, but would do nothing to help tenants.
Alan Ward, Chairman of the RLA writing in the Brighton and HoveArgus newspaper, says
With more than 100 laws containing over 400 regulations governing the private rented sector, shortage of regulations is not the problem. Rather it is the inability of hard pressed local authorities to properly enforce them.
Current council tax forms do not ask households the tenure of their property and details, where rented, of the landlord. The RLA is calling for a law change to make this mandatory.
Where a tenant is unable to provide this information, it would sound alarm bells and provide councils with intelligence they need to investigate. Where necessary, the property owner could be found using the land registry database.
Alan Ward maintains that tenants in Brighton are being let down by a bidding war between some political parties about ‘who can clobber landlords the most’ He says ‘Such a tone is cheap politics that achieves nothing.
Councils are not able to enforce the ample laws they already have to tackle criminal landlords, so there is no point adding more.
Instead, we need to get smarter and the RLA’s proposal on council tax forms is a pragmatic, workable solution that will greatly help councils crack down on criminal landlords and so protect tenants with no extra costs involved.?
… LandlordZONE.
Article courtesy of LandlordZONE
