Ben Reeve Lewis reports on the proposed new measures to deal with ‘rogue landlords’
Hot on the heels of the Deregulation Act 2015 and its sections tightening up Section 21 notices and outlawing retaliatory eviction, the government have announced new, tough proposals to deal with rogue landlords.
On Tuesday I went to the Home Office to participate in a think tank to discuss ministers plans laid out in the document “Tackling rogue landlords and improving the private rental sector” attended by representatives of the NLA, RLA, DCLG, Shelter etc to give their thoughts and ask questions.
A new bill for housing
The Housing Bill itself is to be published in mid-October, so as is usual with this government things are being rushed through.
Some of you will have been aware this week of announced plans to imprison landlords who let to illegal immigrants and summarily end tenancies where occupants don’t have legal status in the UK.
This is to form part of an Immigration bill, not the looming housing one so was not discussed at the meeting.
It’s a curate’s egg of a plan. As an ex enforcement officer I welcome the content of the bill, although I wonder how it will work in practice, which is why we were all invited to the meeting.
The devil is in the detail – and the detail for a large part is still quite sketchy with consultation closing at the end of this month.
These are the main arms:
- To create a blacklist of landlords and agents who have been prosecuted for housing related offences, leading to a ‘Disbarring’ from running rental properties for repeat offenders and increase fines/penalties.
- To give council’s more powers to serve penalty charge notices for a range offences and let the local authority keep all proceeds to run the enforcement teams.
- Widening the scope for local authorities to recover Rent Repayment Orders for unlicensed HMOs and streamlining the process.
- The tenancy deposit companies sharing data with local authorities.
- Increasing the number of ways that a rogue landlord can be deemed a ‘Not fit and proper person’.
- Changing the law on abandonment so that landlords can get possession without a court order.
For me this last element is the most contentious, but I’ll come back to that.
What its all about
The over-arching thrust of the proposed bill is to toughen up powers of local authorities to tackle rogue landlords in ways which do not penalise good landlords in the way that blanket licensing does.
Regular readers will know that this is something I’ve been banging on about for years and it forms the basic tenet of London borough of Lewisham’s rogue landlord taskforce which I worked in until last week.
The proposals are undermined by a significant and all-encompassing point however.
The problem with Local Authorities and enforcement
Increasing local authority powers is great and to be welcomed but you need the people and resources to be able to actually do the work and where swingeing cuts have taken place in most councils in the UK you often find enforcement work being done by one man and his dog.
Allowing councils to keep the proceeds of penalties is great but the money will only start to come in later on. Councils need a cash injection if they are to employ enough people to start levying those penalties in the first place.
What do you do if you are an inner London borough with just three planning enforcement officers? One with a case load of 900 complaints?
The blacklist idea
The blacklist is an idea that has been banging around for years now and several people have had a stab at creating a database, so far to little effect. The practicalities as were discussed in the meeting were on who would actually host the list and who would have access to it
Some were in favour of government hosting with local authority enforcement access only but a fair case was also made for public access, so that tenants could check out a prospective landlord they may be considering signing up with.
No decisions but all points up for grabs.
The flaw in the plan based on my experience is that all a landlord would have to do is use a different name. Aliases are very common in the rogue landlord community.
Using data from the deposit companies
The proposal that tenancy deposit companies would give lists of landlords registered with them to local authorities seems a sensible and fairly easy improvement.
The problem with this is that the real rogue landlords don’t protect deposits anyway, so to my mind the database they could supply would be of use only for who isn’t on it and I’m not sure where that would take us.
Now to the plan to change the law on abandonment.
Abandonment issues
It is actually more accurate to say that the issues surrounding abandonment are to be clarified in statute because it’s a really grey area for a landlord to be able to tell if a property has actually been abandoned.
The discussion document states “Where it is clear that a property has been abandoned” but that is the whole point – it isn’t often clear. Rent payments stopping is a common sign but it isn’t enough on it’s own to signify abandonment.
Its about two things,
- evidence of an intention to return to the property and
- a stated intention to return.
I’m all for tightening up this frustrating situation that really is a problem if you are a landlord but the proposal is to allow landlords to change the locks if “It is clear that the property has been abandoned” is heading worryingly in the direction of the other proposal in the Immigration Bill of summary eviction of immigrants and this is chipping away at some fundamental precepts of the law of property.
There is also the not inconsiderable issue of human rights legislation sitting behind this as well.
The thorny issue of what to do with abandoned goods goes hand in hand with this proposal but we were assured there is no plan to re-write the Torts (Interference with Goods) Act 1977 which requires a landlord to contact the tenant to tell them where and when the goods can be collected before disposal or sale.
But – as with the situation now, how do you make contact with someone who has abandoned?
Perhaps the whole abandonment issue could be knocked into shape by creating a truly fast track eviction process, so at least the courts would still be granting possession, albeit on proof that the landlord had followed a clear check-list first, as was suggested by one member of the panel.
Summing up:
The discussion was a cautious one for all parties.
The landlord organisations expressing doubts about local authority competence and the tarring of all landlords while Shelter, the CAB rep and myself were a tad more enthusiastic but also worried about funding for it all. All sides were concerned with the practicalities.
However we have another three weeks to get our ideas in before last orders gets called.
To misquote a well known adage I wonder if the rogue landlord proposals are “sheep dressed in wolves clothing”. Are the instant eviction proposals workable: I doubt it.
There are also problems with the creation of a formal rogue landlord list, particularly in relation to illegal eviction and harassment cases that do not also involve breaches of physical standard issues. Ben is known for his dislike of pursuing prosecutions under PEA that I disagree with, and that would make it difficult to put a landlord on a list in the absence of prosecution, unless a ban extended to civil claims that have been partly or wholly successful.
I had very few PEA prosecutions, not due to the lack of issues but often caused by tenants not wishing to pursue a matter in criminal law or indeed a civil claim if there was not a significant loss. Sometimes tenants just left the area and did not want any further dealings with a landlord, even though we had taken formal statements, interviewed under caution. One landlord in particular committed alleged breaches of PEA several times (in one case three times against the same tenant) but I was never in a position to prosecute.
Criminal actions under HHSRS are easier because the main witness is the EHO supported by tenancy documents and officer statements.
If we go back to the previous “rogue landlord” programme of 2013 it was as much about publicity as it was about concerted action. Councils had to compete for money and the results did not necessarily relate to need. A town the size of Hastings got £200K where as Brighton and Thanet a few miles either way along the coast got nothing. Hounslow got £260K (and as Ben will know Lewisham got £125k)
This was just a few almost off the top of my head comments, but you never know the detailed proposal may prove me wrong!
Forcing deposit schemes to share data with local councils?
The image that comes to mind is Big Brother meeting plenty of red tape.
Regarding ‘abandonment’, arguably landlords can already lawfully get possession back without a court order though it is fraught with risks.
Making the situation clear and safe would be positive. Is this the sugar to sweeten the pill?
@Colin, My disenchantment with PFEA prosecutions came about in 1998 after pursuing a landlord through the criminal courts for threatening a woman and her three kids with a gun, getting a £400 fine and the council’s costs of £8,500 being refused by the Magistrate.
Further compounded by the twin cases of Johnson-Bowler (PFEA prosecution that amounted to 60 hours community service adn £100 compensation while the twin case of Aiyedogbon v Best Move Estates, heard in the civil court, netted the tenant £10,624.80 http://www.theguardian.com/housing-network/2012/jul/06/rogue-private-landlords-civil-criminal
Why would anyone bother with PFEA? However, if this new legislation actually proves its mettle, which I very much doubt, then I may swing in favour of PFEA prosecutions if only to get the worst offenders on the list but I remain to be convinced in a very big way
However the proposed Housing Bill my make it a game changer, certainly if the list is to be considered, but all a recalcitrant landlord has to do to avoid being listed is run different properties under different names. You know thats whats what committed rogues do,
And yeah I’m with you on the Shelter simplicity. Every year I have had to respond to one their bloody simplistic FOI requests. “How many complaints have you received? How many cases have you prosecuted?” which completely brushes aside the practicalities of doing a prosecution in favour of bashing councils for not being proc=active enough.
@Romain….if the deposit schemes sharing information to help track rogues is Big Brother then what do you suggest to take the rogues out of the game? Its all about shared information and databases. The only credible alternative is Newham style blanket licensing. As daft and ill informed as these new proposals are the over-archng reason for them is to not make decent landlords pay for enforcing against the bad ones. Something I have been advocating against for years but you cant have your cake and eat it. You have to allow enforcement officers the tools they need to do ths job
Do we need a landlord ID card that is linked to biometric data, so it is impossible for a landlord to operate under more than one name?
Then a website that tenants can use to check there landlord and the bank account number the landlord is asking for the rent to be paid into. (Make accepting rent in cash a criminal offence, so there is always records of who the rent was paid to.)
Even better if the same system could check that the landlord owned the property, or was acting for the owner.
If payment in cash was barred I would not collect any rent. All my tenants pay cash and generally have no other means of payment.
However if it is a criminal offence for a black listed landlord to have any connection to a property that is being rented out – then at least you will find it easier to prove your case against black listed landlords.
Ian I think your suggestions go even further into big brother-land than Romain is concerned with haha.
At the bottom of the pool and the kinds of landlords who operate there tracing ID is always a headache for enforcement officers even with the special searching powers they have.
I remember we prosecuted one landlord for running an unlicensed HMO and when he was refused a licence for another property he just shrugged and nominated his mate, saying “But you know it will be me thats really running it” and he was right.
Then there was the group of dodgy investors who formed a limited company everytime they bought a house for cash. No single company ever owned more than one property and they kept selling them every 2 – 3 months to another limited company among their network, so they were impossible to keep track of.
You have to bear in mind that so much of the rogue landlord business is driven by criminal gangs, people trafficking, prostitution, money laundering etc, not just a single nutjob with Napoleon complex
Take the properties off them.
Meanwhile re costs and enforcement, if sensible fines were levied and those funds went to the LA they could have all the staff they needed.
Of course if the fine isn’t paid the Landlord forfeits the property.
Only way to deal with rogue landlords, who have no moral compass, is to be as hard as they are.
I am sure that rogue landlords, and I mean the real bad guys, dutifully protect deposits and would do so even more dutifully if they knew the information would go straight to their local council…
Do all councils have free, anonymous tip-off phone lines/webpages that they aggressively publicise?
@Romain Are you insane???????????? If you have a tip off line/service people will use it…..then you’ll have to employ people to respond to it. haha
Most councils dont have enough people left in the job anymore.
A prime example for you. About every 4 – 6 weeks my lot would put together a collective, multi agency raid on about 10 properties in a particular area. They take an inordinate amount of time and effort to arrange. Gathering intel from utility companies, planning records, housing benefit Police so that we could get a convincing enough case together for the magistrate to give us the warrants we need to get inside.
Then you have to coordinate all the participating teams, police, locksmiths, immigration police etc etc.
Once inside, because these are bad enough to get warrants, you find so many breaches of every law imaginable all the participating officers have created another month’s worth of work just to get all the notices drafted and served, let alone followed up with prosecutions.
And thats just the bigger raids. All week team members are visiting other properties, either single ones or twos and threes.
The more properties you identify the more backlog you stack up.
@IO yes keeping the penalties will really help but you still need seed funding to employ enough to start generating that income.
Before starting their notorious licensing scheme Newham spent millions, nearly two years compiling data and employed 180 enforcement officer.
Most councils dont have that kind of money anymore, nor the ethos of ‘Spend to save’, its all firefighting financial crises.
The proposal that tenancy deposit companies would give lists of landlords registered with them to local authorities seems a sensible and fairly easy improvement.
I can’t get my head round this.
To be clear, I have no problem whatsoever with deposit companies, Tom Bobley or anyone else passing my info on to local authorities.
But how the hell is that information targeting rogue landlords? Eliminating good people from their enquiries?
May as well include people claiming back tax from their charity donations.
I’m not in Ben’s league but I know some really nasty bastard landlords and deposit protection is definitely not on their agenda.
Drive out easy target good landlords and criminal landlords will take their place.
HB I agree to an extent. Useful Intel would be minimal but minimal helps
There isn’t a single software database available out there. EHOs use theirs, Planning another, DWP fraud team something else and others can’t access because of data protection issues So building a picture of not only rogue activity but also identities and addresses is a long, slow jigsaw puzzle.
Often it’s a tiny bit of info that glues the whole together. You can’t predict in advance what that crucial but might be, or where it might come from. That crucial but might just be another address that rings a bell with someone and opens up a lead somewhere else
If councils wanted ‘intel’ and go for rogue landlords they would have publicised tip-off lines, as mentioned
This could be done now, without any change in law, and much simpler and cheaper than receiving all of these data from deposit schemes, which would be a mountain of red tape to implement.
Perhaps too simple and cheap for the public sector…
Why not just put a tick box on the council tax form asking if the occupant is renting or an owner occupier?
Perhaps also ask for the name & address of the landlord.
Seems obvious to me. I’m probably missing something.
@HBWtick box might work but @Romain the fly in the ointment is still staff levels. I cant overstate this enough but people really cant believe how bad it is
@Ben, I can believe it.
However, if councils have no staff available to process targeted info then obviously they would be even less able to process what would essentially be a listing of 90%+ landlords and let properties.
Of course, this makes plain what is the real aim behind proposing that councils get access to such info:
It is not to go after rogue landlords, it is to help identifying all landlords as a preparatory step before blanket licensing, i.e. before imposing another tax on all landlords.
Romain I really dont know how else to answer your comment. Its a view I encounter regularly that leaves me speechless.
For as long as blanket licensing has been around I have been against it.
Most enforcement officers I know are against it. A couple of years back I attended an enforcement officers conference where we asked to vote on issues and the only officer that voted for licensing was a guy from Newham’s licensing team.
I started Lewisham’s rogue landlord team to pool intel and a shared approach to target the rogues that every local enforcement officer already knows and leave the decent landlords alone.
The main thrust of the impending Bill clearly states in Section 2
“Following the ‘polluter pays’ principle the cost
of enforcement should fall primarily on rogue landlords rather than good landlords, or the general tax payer. Therefore we are considering the scope for enabling local authorities to recover more of the costs associated with proactively inspecting properties and ensuring that landlords comply with their responsibilities.”
While Scotland and Wales plough their licensing furrow, England abstains. Do you need any more instructions on where this current bill is going?
You seem to criticise the sharing of information and yet at the same time criticise licensing. You cant have your cake and eat it.
Moderate voices like mine have a tentative foothold of influence at the moment but if we dont have the support of landlords then Wales and Scotland will tip the balance and you will only have yourself to blame.
Westminster are at least trying to give us tools, however flawed but if you even nay say on that then licensing is the only way and I will join the clarion call.
Ben, your reply is going all over the place but fails to answer my point:
How would having access to deposit schemes data provide better information than having an effective way to receive public tip-offs?
How would councils exploit these data at all if they haven’t the means to handle public tip-offs?
There is no point for Westminster to give you expensive tools when there are cheaper and more effective tools in the first place!
Unless those making the proposal have an ulterior motive, that is.
I know that I should not ascribe to malice what can be explained by incompetence but I am respectful enough to think that those making this proposal are indeed competent 😉