Letting agents who are banned should be named and shamed, says new government guidance issued this morning.
The guidance – which is non-statutory – appears to have been issued to counter criticisms that the new blacklist of rogue agents and landlords will not be available to members of the general public or to prospective employers in the industry.
ARLA boss David Cox says that the secrecy of the blacklist makes it pointless.
However, today’s 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.”
The guidance goes on to say specifically that any lettings agency which 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 covers 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 staff will have to Google newspaper reports and press releases.
Banning orders can be appealed and, in some circumstances, delayed in order to allow agents to wind down their businesses.
Comments (2)
I have always believed that there should be a modern (digital) version of the ‘Stocks’ to publicise the misbehaviour of all miscreants, so that friends, family, work colleagues and associations they may be members of, are shocked and embarrassed. I think this would do more to curb bad behaviour, than anonymous fines or short prison sentences.
I am all for naming and shaming rogue landlords and agents.
Can we please also have a list of rogue tenants. The ones who trash the property and don’t pay their rent for around 4 or 5 months and then leave the day before the bailiffs arrive, having given a false reference to move into their new property as their current agent certainly wouldn’t have given a good reference.
This would help up to not touch them with a barge pole.
Sorry I forgot, the agents get slaughtered and the tenants have their rights.