Another London council planning to bring in blanket licensing

An outer London authority, Redbridge Council, has asked Eye to help it publicise its consultation on a proposed property licensing scheme for privately rented homes.

The proposal is for Newham-style blanket licensing across the borough.

HMOs not already subject to mandatory licensing would come under an additional licensing scheme, while all other private rented properties would be included in a selective licensing scheme.

Cllr Muhammed Javed, cabinet member for housing, said: “We want to hear from as many people as possible. Your views are important to us. So please let us know your thoughts before the consultation comes to an end.

“The proposed scheme aims to drive up standards and improve the management of the growing private rented accommodation. We want to make sure all private rented accommodation is of a good standard and anti-social behaviour is reduced.”

The consultation closes on February 25 and is here

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3 Comments

  1. smile please

    So the past few weeks more and more stories have been publicising letting agents fees.

    If landlords need to pay for a license who do they think will foot the bill in the end! The cost will be past to tenant’s in increased rent or fees!

     

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  2. Will

    This is not about raising standards, it is about Councils raising money.  The problem is from a tenant view point it all looks good “we will have more protection” – the councils, the governments and in particular the labour party are all reinforcing the falsehood that landlords are bad people who don’t maintain their property, charge excessive rents and focus only on the minority of rogue landlords.  Eventually they will screw LL’s to the ground and investment in residential property will move elsewhere. We will return to the  poor housing of the 60’s and 70’s when landlords could not afford to maintain their property, all due to these un-educated people who have not understood history of excessive controls and are now focused on raising their own income. Of course it will be the tenant that will pay the costs and suffer as a result but the link is not obvious to the average tenant, as they too will not understand the history.

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  3. MF

    Good to see Redbridge Council publicising the consultation.

    All of our tenancies are self-contained residential accommodation units. They are inhabited either by families, singles, couples, or a group of perhaps three or four people who are unrelated, but who are close friends and live as a family would. These are in no way similar to the bed-sit style HMOs that most of us agree need to be controlled and licensed,

    As a result of HMO licensing regimes, some of our landlord clients have had to apply for a licence. Time and money spent with no tangible benefit to landlord or tenant in most cases.

    So I ask: is a blanket approach really justifiable and necessary? Or is it a combination of laziness and easy revenue raising?

     

     

     

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