The Residential Landlords Association has stepped up its calls for effective action to root out those landlords who are criminals.
It says this can be done easily, pointing out that under current law, when new occupants move into a house they are legally obliged to complete a council tax registration form.
However, nowhere on this form does it ask the tenure of the property or, where it is rented, who the landlord is and what their contact details are.
The RLA is calling for the Government to include in the Housing Bill – announced in yesterday’s Queen’s Speech – measures to allow councils to include details of a property’s tenure and details of the landlord, if a rented property, on council tax registration forms.
The RLA says its proposal would make it much more difficult for criminal landlords to avoid being identified.
Where a tenant is unable to identify their landlord, a returned council tax registration form without this information would provide local authorities and HMRC s with intelligence to use their finite enforcement resources to target properties and landlords potentially creating most cause for concern.
Alan Ward, RLA chairman, said: “Faced with staff and resource shortages, too many local authorities resort to over-regulating the good landlords who are easy to find.
“It’s time that we got smarter and ought to have a system which supports the good landlords while bringing the book down on the criminals who should play no part in a modern housing market.
“The RLA’s pragmatic solution would provide the intelligence enforcing authorities currently lack and would send a clear message to those that prey on vulnerable tenants – there’s nowhere for you to hide.”
The RLA is also calling for the Bill to enable the legal information on the location of deposit money (once secured in an official scheme) to be provided electronically to tenants if they prefer.
Ward said: “In the 21st century it’s ludicrous that tenants can’t be told by email about where their deposit is being held.
“In shared homes especially, the mountain of paperwork that tenants are required to have can amount to a small forest’s worth of trees.
“This should be rectified with laws fit for the realities of today’s tenants.”
Comments (2)
Scotland has already put this idea in place…our authority’s Council Tax, Benefits and Landlord Registration Departments liaise with each other. However the rogue Landlords are already advertising, on the likes of Gumtree, rents inclusive of Council Tax and 2 months rent in advance with no deposit!!
Far more effective would be the requirement to include the landlords UTR or encrypted version of it on the AST, the details of which should be registered with HMRC.
If there is rental income there is tax due. My solution (submitted to CLG in 2012) would identify Tax evasion and money laundering through rental property and provide a no hiding place solution that can be cross referenced to council tax records.
The greatest barrier to a solution is the civil service departments who will not communicate with each other and will openly stifle any scheme that puts civil service jobs at risk or any scheme the has the remotest possibility of streamlining an archaic system of incompetence.. The technology to provide a solution was built and tested 12 years ago!!!