The Residential Landlords Association is making requests under the Freedom of Information Act to discover exactly how much Liverpool council intends to spend to implement its hugely-controversial landlord licensing scheme.
The Liverpool saga is being seen by some in the industry as a possible test-case in opposing future local authority licensing proposals.
The association has written a detailed 16-page response to Liverpool council's proposals. The letter, seen by LAT, lists a number of objections to the authority's plan for a £500 five yearly landlord licensing scheme, applied across the city.
The response makes the general points that landlord licensing as used by councils in general has rapidly earned a reputation of being expensive and bureaucratic, is a method of revenue-raising to pay for otherwise cash-strapped services, and is being used by the back door to regulate the PRS for the sake of exercising control.
More specifically, the RLA says Liverpool's proposals are contrary to the EU's European Services Directive, are likely to be ineffective at controlling anti-social behaviour - one of the council's justifications for the initiative - and unfairly applies to private landlords who have been denied funding opportunities such as Decent Homes funding open to some social landlords.
Critically, the association says it believes the proposal is not transparent in making its case for introducing city-wide licensing.
The letter, from RLA policy adviser Natalie Williamson, concludes with two Freedom of Information requests:
1. In view of the lack of information on proposed budget for the proposed licensing schemes, and the concerns outlined in paragraph 1, I would be very grateful if you could provide me with a full breakdown of the proposed budget for the scheme under the auspices of Freedom of Information protocol.
2. I would be very grateful for the number of landlords prosecuted by Liverpool City Council, and the reasons for their prosecutions, for the last five municipal years; namely:
- 2012/13 ; ii. 2011/12; iii. 2010/11; iv. 2009/10; v. 2008/09.
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Comments
Using an FOI request is hardly rocket science and many people are likely to be doing the same to get more information from a fairly opaque business case presented by the council - and a woefully inadequate on-line consultation questionnaire (which has just closed this week).
Under EUs European Services Directive and the subsequent Westminster Council's court case the Council should be well aware that the funds raised by the SL fee can only be used for specific purposes and do not include such things as:
Set up Costs
Enforcement action and prosecution of non-license fee holders
General Council Funds etc. (It most definitely cannot be used for filling budget black holes)
License fees are ring fenced purely for the the administration and management of license fee holders, which makes it even more surprising that 500 is justified. It is in effect a very expensive way of finding out who is willing to comply with this tax with the hopeful effect of those who don't will be easier to spot. The bureaucracy and time taken to get miscreants to court is excessive and places like Thanet council still only have 78% take up of licensing (If they know this so precisely why can they not nail the last 12%) after 3 years of the license being in place, with little material improvement to the housing situation and only now are non-payers being taken through the courts. The council will have to find the funds from other council budgets to prosecute the rogue landlords and there is not much sign of where these funds are coming from. The Liverpool Council needs to wake up and smell the coffee - a lot of voters (landlords and tenants) will not be happy with unnecessary rises in rents to pay for this all and a shed load of paper pushing to prove what good landlords/agents already do.
".....is a method of revenue-raising to pay for otherwise cash-strapped services, ..."
Here is your solution then Natalie take any such Council that has earned this reputation to Court as under Statute licensing schemes must be self funding and no more. They are specifically prohibited from doing this in order to keep licence costs down.