Jun

OFFICIAL report reveals ‘hit and miss’ results of under-funded PRS enforcement

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A lack of hard information about local private rental sectors means many councils find it hard to make decisions, while some under-staffed teams are mostly ‘fire-fighting’ rather than going after rogue landlords, it has been revealed.

Those without political or local backing also find it hard to robustly enforce PRS standards, leaving many councils to operate a reactive, rather than proactive service that only targets the worst properties, finds a new government report based on a survey of 140 local authorities across England.

It follows comments within the government’s renting reform White Paper last week that Ministers intend to strengthen local councils’ enforcement powers and ability to crack down on criminal landlords by seeking to increase investigative powers and strengthening the fine regime for serious offences.

Effectiveness

Gathering evidence was described as one of the biggest challenges that enforcement officers face, with few authorities able to demonstrate convincingly that their approach was driven by the effectiveness of their actions.

The DLUHC report says: “Some explained limited use of enforcement with reference to high levels of landlord compliance with informal requests but acknowledged that they were unlikely to encounter the worst properties.”

Just under two-thirds (63%) conducted a survey of the housing stock – this was often undertaken infrequently or on an ad hoc basis. Instead, much time was spent simply identifying landlords, agents and properties which eroded teams’ capacity to take enforcement action.

Local authorities were also not making much use of the Rogue Landlord Database, blaming its restrictive criteria or the fact it isn’t public, or user-friendly.

RROs

Councils report that rent repayment orders (RROs) act as an incentive to landlords to comply with HMO licensing and although most do not think it a worthwhile use of their resources to apply themselves, they are more enthusiastic about supporting tenants to apply.

Mandatory licensing of HMOs and selective licensing was widely praised for helping to improve standards and conditions, and seen as a good way of collecting data.

But officers called for a mandatory register of landlords and agents to help facilitate their work, along with better access to financial data such as bank records. Local authorities would also like to see a simpler legislative framework for enforcement.

Read: A complete guide to running an HMO.

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