A partnership between Leeds City Council and the national Residential Landlords Association has led to more than 700 local landlords being trained in the last 12 months.

The courses are open to all landlords although 90% of delegates attended to satisfy local HMO licence conditions.

The council ruled that course attendance was to be a condition for landlords who now have to satisfy strict legal requirements in order to rent out ‘houses in multiple occupation’.

As a result, some 2,500 licences have now been issued to over 700 landlords and “the high satisfaction feedback has more than justified the requirement for them to attend,” says Peter Warneford, Leeds City Council’s Private Rented Sector Policy Manager.

The Residential Landlords Association - the sole provider of landlord training to Leeds City Council – is currently on course to become the national leader in this area.

Their model for working partnerships between landlords and Town Halls began to introduce local accreditation schemes in the mid 1990s. And four years ago the two came closer together in a consultative working group that addressed concerns over complex legislative changes in the new housing act.

The result was an idea to create a series of one-day RLA training courses covering private sector landlords’ legal liabilities and responsibilities for health, safety and tenancy management. It became the latest expansion of nationwide partnerships with other local authorities.

“We want to raise the game for landlords because improved standards of knowledge, qualification and professionalism benefit our whole industry - landlords as well as tenants,” says Lee Dribben, chairman of the Residential Landlords Association - whose members own over 100,000 private rented properties throughout the UK.

“We are committed to professional training and personal development because we believe in self-regulation. For that to work efficiently we need a generation of qualified, informed, up-to-date professional landlords with high levels of knowledge about legislative standards, their obligations and social responsibilities.

“And tenants will surely welcome that too.”

 
Lobbying for the formal acceptance of a Code of Practice laying down expected standards for professional landlords is among several issues on which the Residential Landlords Association campaigns. Others include a common sense approach to the implementation of the 2004 Housing Act, fire safety regulations, the Tenancy Deposit Scheme and local housing allowance payments.