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Tony Hoggard

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The extension of the selective licensing HMO arrangement by Southwark Council is fundamentally flawed as the scheme that has been in place since 2005 should have resulted in all landlords complying with the standard required you HMO licences. So either this scheme has been a total failure or there is a belief that existing landlords will stop complying to the HMO regulations (most of regulations require improved infrastructure to properties and it would simply be stupid for any landlord to remove these changes) or vast numbers of new landlords are entering the market, thus justifying continuation of this scheme (The fact is that various tax changes and other regulation have given rise to a substantial reduction in the number of landlords and rented properties in the market). Not only can there be no justification for the extension of the selective licencing arrangement, but the biggest irritation with this scheme is that none of the standard being applied to the private sector “HMO” are applied to the Public sector housing. The fact is that it is the public sector housing that has caused the greatest number of deaths and is the sector is the biggest contributor to poor housing standards One of the key lessons we need to learn from the recent corona virus pandemic is that we can no longer continue with schemes that service little purpose and yield no tangible benefit. The HMO regulation and merely represents a tax on landlords to fund local authorities gross wastage and inefficiency Local authorities can no longer have the luxury of deploring these pointless schemes and must start to realise that they need to undertake a fundamental “rethink” as to how they operate and what their real priorities are. I would suggest that they should focus on ensuring that we do not have another Grenfell Tower disaster, after all, if that building had been in compliance with the HMO regulations (specifically the need for electrical certificates, which would have required RCD to be installed thorough out the Tower) then this fire would never have started in the first instance!

From: Tony Hoggard 26 May 2020 23:50 PM

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