Croydon is the latest local authority to claim that a blanket licensing scheme for landlords would help improve the quality of PRS housing and curb anti-social behaviour.
The authority's proposal is part of a Don't Mess With Croydon campaign to improve PRS standards. It means every private landlord will be required to obtain a licence - to do so, they must demonstrate they have met a series of health and safety standards and are fit and proper to manage properties to let.
Those renting out a property without a licence face fines of up to £20,000, while those who fail to comply with licence conditions can be prosecuted and fined up to £5,000.
The council says private renting has increased significantly in its patch with consequential problems being poor quality homes, increased noise, more litter and fly-tipping and an alleged rise in anti-social behaviour.
In the last four years the number of complaints received by the council regarding PRS housing standards has more than doubled from 630 in 2010/11 to 1,371 in 2013/14.
So far landlords have not responded in an organised fashion to the proposal - if the pattern of activities in other areas is repeated, landlords are likely to band together to campaign against the blanket licensing scheme and instead suggest a form of accreditation.
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Comments
All this is going to do is increase rents (which are ridiculously high already) in Croydon and make it even harder for tenants to find affordable housing.
As Kev says, Anti Social behaviour does seem to predominantly come from Social Tenants!!
We do need more policing, and fines for the people being anti sociable and fly tipping, but that would affect their benefits, which is against their human rights!!!
In my area almost all of the anti-social behaviour originates from social tenants so this is a bit like the pot calling the kettle black!
I'd understand what they were doing if the goal was to weed out rogue landlords but to furiously check landlord's properties against new and potentially unreasonable standards and force them to earn the right to let out their property in order to attract a different type of person into Croydon housing is preposterous. For starters, the desired result comes from referencing tenants, not the state of the property. Maybe the council should be working on the areas' anti-social behaviour through increased policing and education instead of shoving the blame onto landlords and reaping the benefits of the fines to be instated.