RLA : RPI : Licenced to charge

News from the Residential Property Investor, the bi-monthly magazine for RLA members

other artilces from the August / September 04 issue

Licenced to charge - August / September 2004

Hard pressed local authorities will be expected 'to offer practical support and advice to landlords to manage their property properly'. This is one of the ways in which the cost of new selective licensing requirements for landlords will be minimised for 'less professional' landlords, suggests the consultative paper Licensing in the private rented sector.

How local authorities, many of which do not have the best record of managing their own, let alone other people's properties, will find the resources for this is not mentioned.

The suggestion is just one of the anomalies in the paper.

The licensing fee (of at least £110 and probably more) will be an additional cost to both good and bad landlords, concedes the Government. But on the other hand landlords 'should benefit from improved rental incomes and property values as areas improve'. Good private landlords will also benefit from not having to compete with poor landlords who fail to incur the costs of appropriate management of their properties, suggests the Government.

But the paper then gives the game away by arguing that tenants need not fear introduction of licensing since the scope for rent increases 'should be greatly reduced by targeting licensing schemes on areas where excess supply exists'.

In truth licensing amounts to a bureaucratic nightmare that will surely drive landlords away from providing the much needed accommodation of the type that will be licensed. It will do nothing that landlord accreditation schemes cannot provide in a more flexible way and at far less cost.

other artilces from the August / September 2004 issue

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