Row breaks out over landlord licensing scheme

A row has broken out over a proposal by yet another local authority to introduce a selective licensing scheme which would require private landlords owning properties in certain areas of the town to obtain a £600 licence to operate.

Hartlepool council is considering specific streets in nine areas of the town to be subject to the new regime.

The authority says data on the number of empty homes, property price information, complaints about housing standards and census information, together with anti-social behaviour and crime figures have demonstrated that these are areas of low demand with a significant proportion of privately rented homes.

The mandatory consultation that the council has to undertake before confirming selective licensing finished last week, after being extended from late September to late October.

But now the Residential Landlords Association - which opposes the selective proposal - says evidence from areas that already have licensing shows that it has failed to assist in reducing the turnover of tenancies, improving the behaviour of tenants or reducing persistent nuisance and anti-social behaviour.

Hartlepool Council needs to listen to their own residents who say that current licensing schemes have failed to tackle local concerns. The council needs to take effective enforcement action against criminal landlords and take more steps to tackle anti-social behaviour by bad tenants, instead of penalising the majority of good landlords that stick to the rules says RLA policy manager John Stewart.

Not only do licensing schemes often fail to meet their objectives such as reducing anti-social behaviour, they can result in rent increases as landlords are forced to pass on the cost of these fees to tenants says Stewart.