Feb

FINALLY revealed: Rogue landlord database contains just 18 individuals

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Sacked housing minister Esther McVey’s last act in post is to reveal that just six names have been added to the database since August last year.

Esther McVey’s final
act as Housing Minister before being ‘relieved of her duties’ this morning has
been to reveal the awkward truth about the government’s national rogue landlord
database, which she has revealed contains just 18 people and five companies listed
on it following its launch 16 months ago.

The admission came
in a statement released by McVey just before losing her ministerial job in a
written parliamentary answer to a question posed by MP Sir Christopher Chope
earlier this week.

Last year it was
revealed that just 12 landlords had been added to the rogue database, so a
further six have now been included.

“There are 18 individual landlords and property agents and five
companies currently registered on the database for offences committed since 6
April 2018,” said Mcvey.

“For mandatory inclusion on the database a landlord must be convicted of a banning order offence and receive a banning order.

“If the landlord receives a conviction for a banning order offence or receives two of more civil penalties for [such an] offence within a 12 month period then the local authority has the discretion to include the landlord on the database.

“The database is intended for the worst and most persistent offenders, who neglect their responsibilities to provide tenants safe homes.”

But the Residential Landlord Association says this admission, together with rising rents revealed by RICS this week, highlights a failure of government policy for the private rented sector. Asked why the association thinks the rogue landlord figures are so low, an RLA spokesperson told LandlordZone that it is likely to be a mixture of councils who don’t have the resources to add landlords to the database, and that there may not be as many ‘serious’ rogue landlords as defined by the database within the market as previously thought.

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