Written By Em

Councils are being encouraged to name and shame any landlords or letting agents who are included in the new blacklist of rogue operators, following new Government guidance.

The guidance, which is non-statutory, appears to have been issued to counter criticisms that the new blacklist of rogue landlords and agents will not be available to members of the public or to prospective employers within the industry.

The Chief Executive of ARLA Propertymark (the Association of Residential Letting Agents), David Cox, says that the secrecy of the blacklist makes it pointless.

However, the new guidance says: “We would encourage local housing authorities to make successful banning orders for individual landlords [and agents] public.

“They will wish to consider how to publish details of successful banning orders, including the names of individual landlords, at a local level.

“Many local housing authorities already publicise successful prosecutions of rogue landlords through the local press.

“A local housing authority should take their own legal advice and consider their own local circumstances in determining whether banning orders should be publicised, but we would encourage them to do so.”

Councils Encouraged to make Blacklist of Landlords and Agents Public

The guidance goes on to say specifically that any letting agency that has been subject to a banning order “can be named publicly. We would encourage local housing authorities to publicise the names of all business that are subject to a banning order”.

It also says that housing authorities should make information on banned landlords available on request by a tenant. It is not clear whether this also applies to agents.

While the Government has issued this new guidance, it still means that there is no public access to the blacklist. Instead, members of the public and agency employers wanting to check out prospective new landlords/agents will have to search newspaper reports and press releases.

Banning orders can be appealed and, in some cases, delayed, in order to allow agents to wind down their businesses.

Read the full guidance from the Government here.

The Founder and CEO of online estate agent Emoov, Russell Quirk, seems supportive of the new system: “A welcome introduction from the Government and one that will hopefully go some way in improving the rental sector, not only for tenants, but also for those landlords that abide by the rules.

“Despite changes to buy-to-let Stamp Duty, the UK rental market remains a very lucrative business and, while many landlords are operating legitimately within the sector, there are those that continue to provide inadequate living conditions while charging extortionate rents.”

He continues: “With more and more aspirational homeowners remaining resigned to the rental sector due to the ever-increasing cost of homeownership, it is important we do all we can to ensure this sector is operating appropriately and legally, and not taking advantage of those with no other choice but to rent.

“Those that do break the rules must be penalised and, hopefully, this latest legislation will not only do that, but make others think twice before committing the same offence.”

Dan Wilson Craw, the Director of tenant lobby group Generation Rent, believes that leaving responsibility of exposing rogue operators to the council is a bad step: “A new central database of criminal landlords, and powers to ban them from providing homes, is a massive step forward for the rental market. But, if tenants are to benefit, we need to be able to check if a prospective landlord has a criminal record. Rather than making this the responsibility of councils, as today’s announcement does, the Government could just open up the national database to the public. Proper naming and shaming will help tenants to avoid the criminals and also deter other landlords from cutting corners.”

Do you think that the blacklist will be successful, or should it be available to the public?

The Government’s current fire safety review is missing the opportunity to assess fire safety regulations across all types of housing, warns the Residential Landlords Association (RLA).

The organisation has formally responded to the interim report of the fire safety review led by Dame Judith Hackitt, following last year’s Grenfell Tower disaster.

In its response, the RLA warns: “We are concerned about the interim report’s focus on new build and high-rise residential buildings, largely to the exclusion of the existing stock of smaller residential accommodation.”

The RLA is calling for contradictory and outdated fire safety guidance across all housing to be updated to make it clearer for landlords to ensure that their properties are safe, and improve enforcement and risk assessments by the authorities. Doing so would also help to ensure that rogue landlords cannot seek to exploit potential loopholes caused by overlapping regulations, the body points out.

Of particular concern are the confused and split responsibilities of the fire services and local authorities in relation to bedsit accommodation and blocks of flats. At present, the Fire Safety Order is limited in its scope of shared spaces, such as living rooms, kitchens and hallways. The regulatory standard for private rental housing – the Housing Health and Safety Rating System – applies to the whole of a building. A different body enforces each of these. Whilst the interim report refers to this, this is no implication that it accepts it as a key flaw in the current regime that needs to be addressed.

The RLA is also calling for a clear agreement about the responsibilities of councils and fire services for fire safety standards in communal areas in blocks of flats to address the current inconsistency of approach from local authorities across the country.

Richard Jones, the Policy Consultant to the RLA, says: “Grenfell Tower was a tragedy that must never be repeated. It is vital that the Government’s review looks at fire and building safety issues in the round, and not just tower blocks.

“Ever growing volumes of complex and sometimes difficult to understand guidance causes confusion among tenants, landlords, local authorities and the fire services.”

He insists: “We need much clearer guidance, in line with current standards, to develop a strengthened risk assessment regime, with much more transparent lines of accountability about who is responsible for enforcing what. Standards for high-rise blocks clearly need to be revisited and changed.

“We owe it to the memory of all those who lost their lives, and their loved ones, to get this right once and for all.”

We have a comprehensive and complete guide to fire safety to help you, as a landlord, understand and comply with current fire safety regulations: https://landlordnews.co.uk/guides/a-landlords-guide-to-fire-safety/