News from the Residential Property Investor, the bi-monthly magazine for RLA members other artilces from the April / May 1999 issue RPI news archive

Licensing Logic - April / May 1999

The Government has announced that it intends to introduce a scheme to licence HMO landlords. This is the thin end of the wedge.

Next it will find excuses for licensing all landlords. And all no doubt under the control of local Authorities who will be able to decide who can and who can't be a landlord.

The recent history of local authorities' dealings with the residential property investor is not good. This is primarily due to the cavalier attitude they have in implementing regulations. Housing benefit, HMO and planning are only three such areas. The same set of rules are interpreted in widely varying ways by different local authorities, leading to great inefficiencies and in some cases outright vindictiveness towards landlords.

Special control provisions for HMOs are but the latest example. Some councils are using the legislation to close HMOs, not because the property doesn't reach a required standard, or because the manager isn't competent, but simply because the landlord refuses to give permission to the council to access his or her police record.

The Government has promised to publish a housing green paper later this year. Hopefully it will listen primarily to the concerns of landlords and tenants, and not to those commentators who are neither housing providers nor consumers, or to those who are, as in the case of some local authorities, among the worst landlords in the country.

Martin J Moylan
 

other artilces from the April / May 1999 issue

• Licensing Logic
• HMG proposes to licence HMOs
• City's central role
• In brief
• Brown serves up mixed Budget
• Housing benefit set for major reform
• Title checks 'superficial'
• CO alarms recalled
• House prices take drop