Landlords and agents are preparing to take a local council to court over a licensing scheme.
Hastings Borough Council wants to introduce a selective licensing scheme in ten of its 16 wards.
But at a meeting last Friday of landlords and agents, together with local MP Amber Rudd, it was unanimously agreed that the proposed scheme should be challenged – if necessary in the High Court.
Tony Richards of the National Landlords Association was also at the meeting, and said the council had not explored alternatives to selective licensing.
He also accused the council of producing poor-quality data, and said that barrister Andrew Lane had described its consultation as “particularly weak”.
The council wants to implement widespread licensing to combat anti-social behaviour. But Richards said the council had failed to produce evidence.
A single landlord in the London borough of Enfield recently won a court battle over plans to introduce selective licensing, forcing the authority to ditch its plans and other local councils to consult more widely on such schemes.
Comments (2)
There is adequate legislation to control landlords, we are all seeing it happening through the courts as we read today. Anti Social Behaviour order against the landlord for bad tenants has already been rejected in North Ireland as unworkable and stopped it happening around the UK. The Scottish Parliament have already shown that licencing doesn’t work and the bad landlords are a very small minority. It seems this is a political football hyped up by labour politicians which councils have jumped on as a get rich fix or under the delusion it will reduce their workload. Regulation often increases workload?
Landlords and agents have had enough of the abuse by some councils of HMO regulations. Tip for Hastings Council from a previous Eye story:
Two councils which have – so far – not gone along the licensing route, appear to have successfully stepped up their efforts in the private rented sector.
Using powers already available to them, both Greenwich and Boston councils have reported on their separate crackdowns on bad landlords and agents.