A landlord has taken to print to set out her case against councils introducing local licenses which treat the private rented sector as an easy and rather lucrative target.
Pauline Simon, a landlord in Burnley, Lancashire, says her local council is charging the area's landlords a total of £850,000 under a licensing system.
She says the council's justification - to help improve the standard of properties in low-demand areas of the town - falls down because there are already legal powers vested in the authority to prosecute and force essential repairs on any poorly-maintained property.
She says many of the properties owned by landlords in parts of the town are valued at only £15,000 to £35,000 and are often denied mortgages by lenders. This [licensing] trend will almost inevitably drive prices down even further she warns.
Why would any prospective private owner or landlord want to consider buying in these licensing areas and incur these additional costs and risks when other areas in Burnley and particular many other towns don't feel the need to charge these fees or see fit to punish good landlords she asks in a letter to her local newspaper.
LAT has recently reported on protests in many areas - especially those where PRS homes have relatively low capital values - by landlords who fear the licensing systems are merely money-raising initiatives disguised as attempts to improve improve housing stock.
Comments
Shop around the local councils and you'll find different excuses for the licencing; Manchester's was to do with so called "anti-social behaviour", but a loss of 1.3 million proved a costly exercise to the council.
More people should protest against the licencing, after all they are only introduced it to replace current council jobs that are becoming redundant.