The housing department of an east London local authority has made its high street debut with its own lettings agency in a bid to work with private landlords hoping to let out their properties to handpicked tenants.
The idea of encouraging private landlords to let to council tenants or those households on various council lists is not new, but Havering Council has taken the initiative further by opening the agency - called Liberty Housing - in one of the borough's busiest shopping areas, Hornchurch town centre.
The council hopes that by encouraging more landlords to sign up to the scheme they can create more opportunities for local people struggling to access private rented accommodation.
Havering council has worked with private landlords for the past decade to find homes for local people. The authority says that landlords joining its scheme will have no hidden service charges, payment of tenant deposits undertaken by the council, free gas checks, some free repairs, and will benefit from a dedicated team of council housing officers who will manage the tenancies on a day-to-day basis.
Havering council deputy leader Damian White says: Liberty Housing is our way of giving potential landlords greater peace of mind when letting out their properties.
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Comments
This week seems to be a week of me repeating the phrase "Am I missing something here" :(
Am I though Certainly where we are demand for housing in the PRS outstrips supply so why would Landlords want to expand their Tenant catchment by signing up to this That is unless they have sub-standard units of course.
So assuming this Agency is staffed by people who are paid from the puclib purse, can I have some public funds to assist with the running of my agency please.
The only way to stop this sort of nonsense is to change the councilors/MP's.
Cons, Labs or Libs they all love the coziness of the system and their jobs.
Vote UKIP to get a few people to change this.
IS IT ME..
Whilst pensions and investment returns are as bad as ever the Tories (Who in Maggies days championed entrepreneurism) want to hit Landlords who simply want to build a portfolio of property to secure their futures, or in my case want to buy property in order to pass on to offspring. The Americans seem to encourage people to secure their futures and Stand on your own two feet. If the politicians spent more time looking how to save money with the backhanded deals that go on, jobs for the boys and mismanagement of running the Country they would not have to look so hard to hit those people who dont live off other peoples tax revenues and Benefits system.
Instead of Government trying to interfere with the with the Private Sector at the Tax Payers expense, why not reduce taxes instead so the Private Sector can get on with the job of creating wealth instead of poverty, which the Government seems to be doing so well.