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A Conservative MP in a marginal seat has launched a campaign taking on the letting agents and landlords of what he calls anti-social households.'

This week Nick de Bois, MP for Enfield North, presented his Housing Ombudsman (Power to Settle Disputes Between Neighbours and Tenants) 10-minute bill to Parliament.

He is seeking new powers for the Housing Ombudsman to intervene in disputes between landlords or agents of Houses with Multiple Occupancy and their neighbours.

De Bois claims that in 2014 alone there were 195,231 HMOs in London alone, which was a growth of over 10,000 on the previous 12 months. His bill seeks to hold absentee landlords responsible for anti-social behaviour without having to introduce a special licence or blocking the HMOs.

"Presently it can be very hard to even try to locate and identify landlords when residents are seeking to enlist landlord help in resolving what can be a very disturbing cycle of anti-social behaviour, that all too often take too long for authorities to sort out, if at all.

I want to put a stop to this, by giving the neighbours who are the victims of anti-social behaviour the right to deal with the landlord of properties - which I believe will help resolve the problem in a more timely fashion.

Good landlords will want to stop bad behaviour if they are aware of it, and where there are landlords that don't care then this bill will force them to take action" he says.

The measure, which stands little realistic chance of success before the May 7 general election, is particularly controversial in Enfield, where the local (and Labour controlled) council recently suffered a humiliating legal defeat in its bid to introduce landlord licensing.

Labour has criticised the MP's bill. Aparty spokesman using the local Enfield Advertiser newspaper to say that I am delighted to see that Nick de Bois recognises the link between anti-social behaviour and HMOs .... but ....this proposal would not deal with the issue of minimum standards around homes. Only additional licensing of HMOs will achieve a better standard of management.

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