Local Authorities are supposed to be the solution to the housing crisis. But alas, it seems that all too often they are part of the problem. With a few honourable exceptions.
There are, as I see it, two somewhat contradictory problems that we have with them.
1 Negative attitudes towards landlords
Time and time again I hear about Councils:
- Encouraging landlords to trust them and then letting them down.
- Encouraging tenants to break the terms of their tenancy agreement
- Telling tenants that they must stay in the property – often without paying rent – and so forcing landlords to bring expensive eviction proceedings (although this should change after the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017 comes into force)
- Council Officers being rude and aggressive towards landlords and letting agents.
I have often been told by landlords that the reason they are no longer taking benefit tenants is nothing to do with the tenants themselves – many landlords agree that they are often wonderful tenants – but the attitude of the Local Council.
For someone outside of Councils looking in, this seems extraordinary. Local Councils need private landlords in order to comply with their statutory re-housing obligations, as they do not have enough housing stock of their own. Surely they should want to encourage landlords rather than drive them away?
It is very strange. Maybe it is because many Council Officers are themselves tenants and resent landlords for that reason. Or maybe it is just part of the culture in the organisations – a sort of institutional hostility towards landlords. Or maybe its a belief that because some landlords behave badly, then they must ALL be bad landlords.
Let’s take a look at the other problem:
2 Failure to enforce regulations.
There are many complaints about bad landlords and the appalling conditions in some rented properties. Bringing calls for new laws against bad landlords.
However, the law is not the problem. In most areas, Local Authorities are simply just not enforcing it Repeated reports and surveys have shown that only a small proportion of complaints are actually investigated let alone actioned.
Save for a few honourable exceptions such as Newham – where the Mayor has made tackling bad landlords a priority – few prosecutions are brought.
Hopefully, with the introduction of Penalty Charges (where Councils can keep the money and use it to fund enforcement action) this will start to change. However, this article in the Independent last month shows that we still have a way to go:
the data shows there were only 283 people taken to court by councils last year for breaking the law in relation to the maintenance of their properties.
Almost three-quarters of councils (71 per cent) did not prosecute a single rogue landlord, while a third of all landlord prosecutions that did take place were in just two London boroughs.
Less severe options are also rarely being pursued. A fifth of local authorities said they did not issue a single improvement notice to landlords last year, while the average council issued just 13.
Others authorities have taken a much more active approach, suggesting there is a postcode lottery for renters wanting to take action over their unsafe homes.
All pretty depressing news.
So why is this?
There are many well-documented reasons for Local Councils’ lack of action on bad landlords.
The main reason is lack of money. As a result, Council staff numbers have been ruthlessly cut and they simply do not have the manpower to deal with all the complaints. Such staff as they have are often untrained and so unable to deal properly with the complex legislation.
The Independent article again
More than one in seven authorities admitted they were not using qualified environmental health officers to carry out inspections, suggesting people who are not fully trained in identifying and dealing with hazards are being tasked with investigating safety risks.
Also, much enforcement action is tasked to trading standards offices. Most of whom, anecdotally, are happier dealing with dodgy traders on market stalls and unwilling to grapple with the more complex rules regarding dodgy letting agents and landlords.
So what about the apparent contradiction between the first and the second parts of this article?
One answer could be that different Council departments deal with different aspects of their work in the private rented sector (eg benefits and enforcement) and that they don’t talk to each other.
They may be in different buildings or even in different Councils. We tend to think of ‘The Council’ as being one organisation but in reality, they don’t usually behave in that way.
Conclusion
Local Authorities are or should be an important force in the private rented sector. They are tasked with monitoring housing in their area and enforcing standards and also tasked with ensuring that housing is made available to those in priority need.
For various reasons, many Councils appear unable to deal adequately with either of these functions. Perhaps before we start passing more new laws we should consider why this is and try to do something about it.
There is not much point in having new laws unless they are going to be properly enforced. But if the current laws are not being enforced, will it be any better with new ones?
We already have an over complex legal system governing the private rented sector. More new laws ‘patching’ perceived problems is only going to make this worse. Surely we should try first to properly enforce the laws we already have? And Councils (properly funded Councils) are key to this.
Ben Reeve-Lewis says
February 28, 2018 at 11:11 AMOh you just knew I would be the first to comment here haha
I agree with everything you say. In fact just last Thursday I did a presentation at a conference run by Crisis on landlords and dealing homelessness units. Many of the 150 delegates worked in local authorities and the twin thrust of my argument about how rogue landlords get away with what they do is lack of tenant education and the fact that councils are generally crap at dealing with the problem and that they couldn’t always hide behind the lack of resources argument.
I have been calling them out at events like this for the past couple of years.
What I do disagree with is your comments about the apparent anti-landlord feeling at either institutional or personal levels, which you put down the possibility that many council workers may be tenants.
Many council workers are tenants and just as many are home-owners or social tenants and, believe it or not, many council workers I work with and train, are in fact landlords as well, including several enforcement officers of my acquaintance who you see popping up on TV in various documentaries.
For my part I am vehemently anti-rogue landlord and hold a zero tolerance attitude that is not shared by most that I work with, much to my frustration. I generally find a lot of my colleagues too willing to cut even criminals some slack.
If there is an anti landlord bias on a personal level then that is entirely down to that officer and the way they operate. If it is there on an institutional basis at any point I would say that is simply down to the fact the there are many in the public sector who cant understand the private sector mindset. I have been called in to run workshop teaching them to understand how the private operator thinks and is motivated.
That truly is an entrenched mindset. 3 years ago I was commissioned as a consult to run a three month forensic audit of a council’s social lettings agency and made many fine points about how their focus on service really put them ahead of the high street competition. Before I submitted the final report I was asked to edit the draft to take out any reference I had made to the word ‘Competition’, lest councillors signing off the report were uncomfortable with the phrase. LOL.
Tessa Shepperson says
February 28, 2018 at 11:19 AMMy comments about institutional and personal anti-landlord bias are pure speculation – as there must be SOME reason for it.
Ben Reeve-Lewis says
February 28, 2018 at 11:30 AMFor sure but I think it’s mainly down to the inability to think outside of the local authority mindset. All councils are desperately trying to procure properties in the pRS for discharging their homelessness duty, which will increase from next month and also many councils, knowing they lack the skills, have actually been employing people from PRS letting agents to deal with the landlords, who they simply dont understand. The culture clash can be quite interesting at times 🙂
Michael Barnes says
February 28, 2018 at 12:54 PMThe number of landlords taken to court, whilst headline-grabbing, is not an accurate measure of enforcement action; tenancies ‘helped’ might be a better measure.
It may be that one landlord is prosecuted for offences in several properties, which would be of benefit to more than one tenancy.
Also I believe that there is enforcement action that can be effective short of prosecution:
First making landlord aware and giving him/her the opportunity to address it;
Second Improvement notices, which may be effective and avoid the need for court action.
Peter Jackson says
February 28, 2018 at 2:01 PMHaving a few headlines, even local ones, might help deter some rogues by giving the impression that they can’t just do whatever they like.
One landlord was prosecuted in the area that I live last year but that was for fraud and money laundering.
The biggest social lamdlord in the area was prosecuted recently but that was for a H&S issue that caused an injury to a workman, not a problem with a property.
Two landlords were prosecuted in 2015 for property safety issues, but they were discovered as part of an operation against child secual exploitation
Even in the nearby areas that have more prosecutions of landlords it appears that the vast majority are for failing to get a licence, not for any impoper behaviour to a tenant or amything wrong with a propety.
Maybe there just are very few rogue landlords around here 🙂
Ben Reeve-Lewis says
February 28, 2018 at 2:24 PM@Michael, yes you are right. For five years I had to fill in Shelter’s annual FOI on prosecutions for my council and the thrust of the questions were very simplistic. How many complaints have you had, how many prosecutions have you done. Its not an accurate way of measuring outcomes.
@Peter I have from day one had a problem with the term Rogue Landlord and what the defining characteristics are. For me it is a person who sets out, deliberately to maximise their income by exploiting tenants and ignoring legislation and property conditions. When you hold that idea when doing your job you find that true rogue landlords use everything they can. If they are running an unlicensed property, they are usually stealing utilities, engaging in benefit fraud, harassing and illegally evicting people.
My team are about to begin a research project with a University gathering data on the links between people trafficking and the PRS. Its not that these people are landlords in the conventional sense, they are organised criminals who use the PRS as the central hub of wider activities. Even trafficked people have to live somewhere.
I’ve been talking to a council in East Anglia who have big problems with overcrowded, unlicensed HMOs which are driven and support by agricultural gang master units.
Your local landlords with the child exploitation link doesnt surprise me in the least. My view is often called the ‘Al Capone Factor’. A person may be doing a range of things but if you only actually get them for one thing, thats enough. Whereas I would be happy to be behind a successful prosecution for harassment or illegal eviction, if the police take them off the board for other illegal activities, that is still job done in my book, although it isnt a housing prosecution.
Kate Pearson says
March 1, 2018 at 1:57 PMThis article certainly represents my experience (in relation to council attitudes) and my impression regarding councils lack of adequately enforcing existing legislation, which I generally put down to lack of funds, but I’m sure as Ben suggests there are bound to be a myriad of reasons!
Our properties are across two councils and we had one ringing us to house their tenants and the other who spoke to you like you were something they had inadvertently stepped in…
I’ve recently read comments from a landlord in a London borough who works with a very progressive council and they treat him as a valuable stakeholder and as a result he’s increased his numbers of benefits tenants significantly. It would be a wonderful thing if all councils took this approach.
I think it would benefit the housing crisis far more if the government focused on councils, both getting them to work more closely and effectively with private landlords and in enforcing existing legislation rather than introducing rafts of new bureaucracy which achieves nothing more than drive out overwhelmed landlords from the sector and give the ‘appearance’ to the voting public that they are doing something, without actually achieving anything useful in most cases.
I am all for the Rogue landlords, matching Ben’s description being penalised to the fullest extent possible. They aren’t true landlords, but criminals (as Ben points out), but they are the ones who get the most publicity and so give us all a bad name. Imprison them for one of their many crimes and confiscate their properties for the public purse… It sickens me that they get away with it in too many cases.
Peter Jackson says
March 2, 2018 at 3:32 PMThe fraudster/moeny launderer I mentioned had 88 properties bringining in supposedly £500k per year. His girlfriend who only got a suspended sentence was going to be managing them. Though he had used fraud to obtain mortgages he had always made the payments. Still it seems that at least some of his assests should be confiscated so that ut at least appears that he hasn’t profitted from his crimes.
Ben Reeve-Lewis says
March 2, 2018 at 8:14 AMKate, Once in my own time at a weekend I wrote a plan for a procurement team to offer services to landlords. The usual unimaginative idea is to offer a finder’s fee of say £1,500 to induce a landlord to sign up, which simply causes a bidding war as the neighbouring boroughs jack theirs up by £200 etc.
My idea, from talking to landlords as an enforcement officer, was for that council to provide a dedicated team of contacts, with hotlines and first names and a service sorting out problems as they arise and finding out what was happening with things like delays in HB. Being honest, upfront and helpful, instead of just chucking £1,500 at the landlord and stomewalling from there on in.
My argument was that this level of service is very rare even among letting agents and would address all of the issues raised by Tessa.
The result? A lot of uncomfortable shifting in seats, broken eye contact and fiddling with pens.
I also, in response to complaints that landlords forums always ended up in landlords attacking staff (verbally) that we should invite it. Hold an event, listen to the landlords, find out what they want and respond. It would be uncomfortable at first but hey I’ve got a thick skin.
All at the meeting agreed but by the evening of the event, bottles went. The event got hijacked by the usual managers who simply turned it into a one way information portal.
I often despair myself as well
hbWelcome says
March 2, 2018 at 9:02 AMI’m a member of a local authority accredited landlord scheme that used to hold forums to build relations with local landlords.
The bloke running the scheme sent an internal memo to the catering department;
“Hello Kate,
Can I book Tea and biscuits for 50 people for the rogue landlord forum next Wednesday please.”
Unfortunately he cc’d the email to all the accredited landlords. Still makes me chuckle imagining his face when he realised.
Steve Hards says
March 6, 2018 at 10:20 AMThat’s priceless! Presumably he meant ‘local landlord forum’ but Freudian slips will out!
A Bright says
March 5, 2018 at 11:26 AMWith Councils I have found it is a two way street. If you treat them the way you would like to be treated it goes a long way. I got to know the housing officers, then when I had a problem, we negotiated a solution.
For example I gave someone a Section 21, and knew they would need council accommodation, the councils answer was the usual wait until you get evicted. As I knew the housing officer I spoke to her and instead of the family going into emergency accommodation and me having the costs of court , the family ended up staying an extra 6 weeks then went into a family home. Both sides happy.
Simon Davey says
March 6, 2018 at 12:07 PMI run my own letting agency and I’d like to think we provide a good service to our tenants and landlord clients. We certainly do not condone the rogue landlord element and certainly would not consider acting for one. However the article was about local councils and whether they are helping or hindering the lettings process. I would make the following comments based on my experience.
1) Council staff do not seem to grasp the magnitude of the legal issues if a tenants rent is late. A tenant receiving housing benefit is very unlikely to have that benefit set up on the councils system within one month. We recently had a situation where a loan was provided by the council for the first months rent and a bond put in place for the deposit, all of which we were happy to accept. All they had to do was get their systems in place so the payment due the next month was made. They didn’t and when the tenant called about it she was told “oh it’s not set up on our system yet” like, Oh ok then as long as that is all it is the rest of us can just sit back and relax while we wait for you to sort it out. The fact that the tenant at that point was in rent arrears in month 2 of their tenancy did not concern them in the slightest.
2) They pay every four weeks and not per calendar month. Many landlords will not accept that as it goes out of sync with mortgage payments and at some point the tenant will be in arrears as they will have rent due but no benefit payment for another three weeks.
3) The issue that Councils actively encourage tenants to stay in the property if a section 21 notice has been served which forces the landlord to embark on a long and costly eviction process with the danger that during that time the tenant will stop paying rent completely and maybe damage the property as they may have stopped caring.
In conclusion I wholeheartedly agree that council workers SOMETIMES see private landlords and an us and them situation. Some are probably tenants themselves and in some cases will also be in social housing paying rent below market value. I think they see landlords as greedy money grabbing so and so’s with no thought about the many thousands of pounds landlords shell out on buying, renovating and repairing their properties. Landlords also pay large tax bills if they make large profits so all of that is good for the country as a whole in addition to providing good quality homes to local people.
The tenant’s primary responsibility under the terms of the tenancy agreement must be to pay the rent on time! Therefore if this rental payment is going to be substantially paid by the council by way of benefits then the council should be able to be brought to account if they fail in that task and put the tenant under threat of eviction for non payment of rent.