What You Need To Know Before Renting Out Your Residential Home

Your blog is amazing! Swearing makes it even funnier and more entertaining in my eyes. Don’t stop the Fbombs. Please.

@landlord
I get what you suggest about tenants knowing stuff.
I just don't belueve it should be expected for them to know.
Effectively the information should be presented to them on a plate
A National LL Licensing scheme would really just collate all the requisite information for a tenant to view before considering whether to attempt to have a tenancy with a particular LL.
Therefore I velieve that any tenant prospect should be able to access all relevant information in one place.
This is the information they should be able to view and is the ibformation the LL should be required to supply to be able to let out a property

EPC
Title deeds indicating LL owner
Gas cert
Electric cert
Possibly legionnaire cert
CTL from any lender
Any licence required by council
Council tax bill payer
Current utilities providers.
Details of any lender conditions restricting tenant types.
LL insurance for rental property
PLI policy
Any LL accreditation required as in Wales unless a LA is managing and then that should be stated
Any other lical conditions that a council may have applied to the property.
A tenant should be able to access all this information at the same time.
It is for the LL to ebdure that all the relevant information is supplied as without it the LL should not be permitfed to let.
Now I know for a fact that very few LL could comply with all that I have stated despite most of the items being required for legal letting.
Govt knows that this is the case which is why Govt won't push for National LL Licensing.

Unfortunately the PRS does largely consist of Kevin's
Only a National LL Licensing scheme will force LL to be fully compliant.
Millions of tenants would be made homeless if these totally correct requirements were enforced.
It is a fact that there are milkions of illegal tenancies in the UK.
This is rarely the fault of the tenant.
Just a small example is the number of LL letting to HB tenants when lender conditions specifically restrict letting to such tenants.

Now I totally disagree that lenders are allowed to have such conditions.
But we are where we are.
Lenders could call in the loans if they discover the LL is breaching the mortgage conditions.
The alternative is the LL has to replace HB tenants with those acceptable to the lender.
This would an impossibility for most LL.
But even though all these issues would cause chsos in the PRS that is no reason nit to have a fully compliant and legal PRS with tenants knowing exactky that their potential LL has complied with all relevant requirements

Nice theory Paul.
Unfortunately it is bollocks in practice.
Everywhere it has been tried, good landlords register, bad landlords don't bother.
An exercise in pointless bureaucracy.

@Van Gogh
The reason I agree with you about these schemes being flawed is because the sanctions against rogue LL are inadequate.
Believe me if it was discovered a LL letting without a licence was subject to RRO thst would motivate even the wordt criminal LL to licence thenselves.
It is pointless being a criminal LL if just one tenant grasses you up and you lose everything.
Robust and effective penalties are required to ensure every LL is licensed.
But as I have suggested there are so many illegal lettings that exposing them would lead to millions of homeless tenants.
The PTB simpmy do not wish to detect all the milkions of ilkegal lettings.
For a start there are about 2 million illegal immigrants in the UK.
I doubt any of them are homeowners!
It is simply not econonicalky viable for Councils and Govt to expose illegal lettings by introducing a national LL Licensing scheme.
So just so much lip service will be paid to cracking down on rogue LL and illegal tenancies

"Believe me if it was discovered a LL letting without a licence was subject to RRO thst would motivate even the wordt criminal LL to licence themselves.
Robust and effective penalties are required to ensure every LL is licensed."

I'll choose not to believe you Paul.
I'm assuming you aren't in a landlord licensing area and don't operate HMO's?
RRO's (Rent Repayment Orders)are already a penalty of not licensing along with fines of up to £30,000;

https://www.londonpropertylicensing.co.uk/new-landlord-civil-penalties-%c2%a330000-come-force-today

It is not the lack of penalty, it is the lack of enforcement.

The powers and the penalties are already there.

But it is far easier to run licensing schemes for good landlords under the pretence of solving the problem.

Indeed it is the lack of enforcement that facilitates rogue LL.
Councils seem to be allowed to get away with the pretence of doing something to address problems when they already have suitable instruments to enforce regulations.
Nobody ever calls out Councils for failing to enforce existing regulations.
Certainly Shelter and Generation Rent never do!

We all know why councils fail to enforce.
But that is no excuse.
But councils are a law unto themselves and few of the general public knows what is going on.
Councils will just keep on coming up with ever more money making schemes to charge LL with.
I would be very surprised if a council doesn't know where all the legal and illegal HMO are.
But I suppose this may be the case.
But when a council does become aware of an illegal HMO I doubt they attempt to shut it down.
Thefe is simply no financial advantage in cracking down on rogue LL.
It is disgraceful that councils behave this wsy.
They should carry out their public duties irrespective of the cost.
But in reality councils behave with impunity and clearly fail to carry out their public obligations.
I just think that having a National LL licensing scheme might assist detection of all illegal LL.
It would mean that any LL without a licence number could face financial ruin along with a prison sentence.
I suggest it is worth trying.
Charge say £50 per licence for each property valid for 5 years
There are 9 million tenancies.
That is a lot of £50!!!

"I suggest it is worth trying."

I suggest it isn't.
Have a read of this and then let me know if you still think it is a good idea or just a load of old bollocks for political ideals, of no benefit whatsoever for tenants, landlords or taxpayers (who are all paying for this bureaucratic bullshit);

https://www.propertyhawk.co.uk/magazines/landlord-licence-fails/

Landlord Licence fails in Scotland
Anybody who thinks that landlord registration or a landlord licence is still a good idea should look at the recently introduced landlord licence in Scotland for clues. A recent damming report by DTZ on the landlord licence reveals after trawling through the pages of consultants ‘guff’ that the extent or lack of extent of its impact.
Their assessment reveals that:
Landlords have paid £11.2m in fees since the introduction of the Landlord Registration Scheme in Scotland. But the scheme has resulted in only 11 people being reported to the procurator fiscal in the last two years. Altogether over 200,000 landlords have registered for the scheme (for which the cost of registration is £55 every three years plus an additional £11 for every rental property).
According to responses to questions from Scottish Conservative housing spokesman Alex Johnstone, in total, nearly £18m has been spent on the scheme, including a start-up grant of over £5m from the Scottish Government.

And just to pre-empt a 'yeah but, no but, what they should do is..' reply.
The fact is they don't.

It doesn't work and hasn't worked anywhere it has been tried.

If anyone could be arsed to carry out a proper study of the consequences, it would show licensing causes more harm than good.

A smokescreen for tackling the real problem.

Isn't. the issue here all about licensing costs.
I can't see much that would be negative about paying say £50 per property every 5 years.

It is the money grabbing cost that is the issue.
£50 to avoid going to prison or losing all your tenant income to a RRO has to be worth engaging with.
A way must be found of fircing alm LL to reveal themselves.
Licensing does this.
Those that refuse to licence will get caught and face losing everything from the day licensing was introduced.
That could be 10 years of rent!
Surely the risk of losing everything would make most LL licence.
Those LL caught would probably have to sell property to pay the RRO.
Make the penalties sufficiently onerous but the cost to licence very cheap and I reckon the PRS would be transformed.
It would certainly be far smaller than it is currently as a lot of tenancies are illegal
Rents could then be jacked up to realistic levels based on the small supply of legal lettings.

Paul,

A large part of the rogue landlord sector is rent to rent done by gangs. They don't own the properties so they don't have to sell up. A patsy gets caught and they just disappear and move on somewhere else.
Licensing encourages criminal landlords.
(RRO's are limited to 12 months btw, but the fine is up to £30K)

Those that refuse to licence will get caught

That's just it Paul, they don't. See the link above about Scotland. 11 people caught. There are thousands and thousands of unlicensed properties in Scotland and there always will be. But they claim to be "doing something about it" because they are running a huge bullshit register of good landlords.

How many prosecutions could have been brought for that £18M? FFS, any half decent entrepreneur could make it self financing and run at a profit.

With this level if crime surely this comes into the purview of the NCA.
The POCA must surely pertain here.
I'm sure if the public were 'incentivised' there would be many of these illegal LL grassed up.
It would only take a few patsies to be jailed and bankrupted for them not to conspire with these gangs.
We are talking about criminality here which like any organised crime is difficult to resolve.
Such criminality should not be the total responsibility of the councils.State resources should be used.
Thefe is no way that LL licensing schemes should be self funding.
Lenders could do far more to ensure their LL are not breaching conditions and resi lenders should be checking more to see on credit files what is going on at an address.

If Kevin is claiming a disability benefit - and by disability benefit I assume you mean DLA, PIP or AA - then he is entitled to earn as he likes. It is not a means tested benefit and is entirely based on Kevin's disability. Kevin can be a billionaire and still claim one of the above benefits.

Whether or not he should is another matter but he most certainly can do so and be well within his rights.

"With this level if crime surely this comes into the purview of the NCA.
The POCA must surely pertain here."

It already does Paul.

I am considering letting out a property I just recently inherited. I did not realize that me doing so will require so much red tape. However, I am looking forward to getting it done. Thank you for this useful checklist and I think Kevin is a nice guy lol!

@Paul

Sorry I have to weigh in on this one.....

For every landlord in the country there are just as many tenants and I think there should be a Tenant licensing scheme where anyone wanting to rent ANYTHING has to first register with a scheme.

The first time they fck up some poor landlords property then that record is available for all landlords to see forever and we can choose not to rent to them.

When they find themselves blacklisted and landlords can then exponentially increase the deposit required it might dawn on them there are consequences to their actions.

While there are almost an endless list of penalties for rogue landlords There is limited downside for tenants.

Deposits cover virtually Jack shit.

We have had tenants move in pets which they then don’t walk them and leave the carpets ruined with piss. Deposit =£1000 new carpets £5000.
I heard of bags of postcrete concrete getting flushed down toilets,

It’s not just rogue landlords that are the problem.

No one gets into our properties without a guarantor with a very good income and their own house. Then if there is a problem they all find out the meaning of “....joint and separable liability....”

Just sayin.......

Totally agree with you in everything you have stated.I'm sure you will be very pleased to learn that there is a site where good and BAD tenants may be listed.
It has been going for nearly 10 years and is called

landlordreferencingservices.co.uk

If every LL registered their good and bad tenants with LRS then all the bad tenants would be homeless.
LRS allows LL to contact previous LL where the truth may be given!!!
Plus LRS offer some other excellent services
Especially the Tenant Referencing Passport which many LL will insist tenants have before a LL considers them.
Especially when the fee ban starts.
LL will not be allowed to require a tenant to pay for referencing.
But a LL will be able to say that unless a tenant has their TRP they won't be considered.
LRS would be even more effective if LL and LA just used the service but they choose not to as they have their own sweetheart deals with useless reference providers.
So the poor old LL gets clobbered by useless referencing.

Paul,

I agree. I used that service once. It does have limitations as they say themselves they are not allowed to certain info and the database does rely on a “social network” to build.
The tenants we looked up had no info on. At present I think their DB of tenants is too small. Good idea though.

Also it can be people who never rented before who would have no previous history (good or bad) that can treat a rented property poorly. Especially some students....

The onus now is Landlords taking all the flak. Socially us Landords are less popular than Isis.

Personally the best method is reference and credit check everyone, tenants and guarantors and take large deposits.
Don’t rely on agents... they want the first person to pass a very low bar in to get their £££££.

Personally meet every tenant to check out the “vibe”. Not fool proof but the bullshit meter helps weed out a lot.
Then pray to the gods you don’t end up with a dud and celebrate when you get a great tenant.

@Grumpy you miss the point about LRS the network referencing is just an extra to the normal referencing they do which is far more comprehensive that most referencing operations and if they pass acceptable for RGI qualification.
But as you suggest all the referencing in the world is probably not as good as gut instinct when you actually meet the aspirant tenants.
Call it a very personal service but I meet all my tenants.
You clearly are pretty hands on in an effort to prevent the wronguns getting into your properties.

Grumpy,

As a tenant, I welcome your suggestion.

I would love to be on a list where landlords can see that I have never caused any problems in a property and always paid my rent on time.

Sometimes fantastic tenants look a bit iffy on paper, and crap ones look perfect. A system such as yours would give you the information that really matters.

Oh and I must say, since my landlady has been kind enough to never try to blow me up I definitely prefer her to ISIS ;)

Just a bit of info on why banks are such scumbags.....

locker room talk?

…”In case anyone needs their memory refreshed, RBS was the subject of £45.5bn bailout by UK taxpayers. It is currently at the bottom of the customer service league and has already paid US regulators nearly $12bn in fines. It has been rebuked by the House of Commons Treasury Committee for systematic abuse of small businesses and is also implicated in alleged laundering of Russian dirty money.

In May 2018, US authorities levied a fine of $4.9bn (£3.6bn) on RBS to resolve a US investigation into its sale of toxic mortgage-backed securities. Now the US Department of Justice (DOJ) has released some of the related internal emails and correspondence, which provide a glimpse of its corrosive business culture devoted to putting profits and performance related pay before people, ethics and integrity.

The official statements are that financial products, including loans, acquired by RBS are subject to due diligence. But the DOJ said that RBS failed to disclose systemic problems with loan underwriting.

A Senior Trader said in a May 2006 self-evaluation that when compared to “the rest of [Wall S]treet…we do the least amount of diligence and kick out the fewest loans.” On occasion, RBS did not conduct any due diligence at all. RBS Executives openly (albeit internally) discussed how RBS’s due diligence process was, as a senior bank analyst described, “just a bunch of bullshit.”

The DOJ released transcripts which suggest that in the period leading to its rescue, RBS – through its executives at its US subsidiaries – underwrote mortgage backed securities with a high risk of default, and then made false and misleading representations to sell those to investors. RBS’s chief credit officer described them as “total f***ing garbage” loans with “fraud [that] was so rampant…[and] all random,” so “the loans are all disguised to, you know, look kind of…in a data file.”

Profits before people was the norm, and a senior vice president in RBS’s Asset-Backed Finance Department explained to one of his colleagues that the loans were the product of a broken mortgage industry: the mortgage lenders “raking in the money” had an “incentive…to bring in as many loans as possible,” while “the [mortgage lenders’ employees] that…have the incentive to hold the line don’t give a sh** because they’re not getting paid.”

As the loans became toxic and the US housing market crashed, RBS executives rationalised their practices. RBS’s Chief Credit Officer wrote that the loans were being pushed by “every possible…style of scumbag…it’s like quasi organized crime, ‘[f]acilitated by brokers…and just a lot of bad people who just said, “Hey, there is a major flaw in this loan origination model. And we can fill it up like nobody’s business.” The DoJ notes that RBS never disclosed that these material risks existed and increased the likelihood that loans would default.

The DoJ says that RBS’s executives showed little regard for their misconduct and, internally, made light of it. For example, RBS’s Head Trader received an e-mail from a friend stating “[I’m] sure your parents never imagine[d] they’d raise a son who [would] destroy the housing market in the richest nation on the planet.” The Head Trader answered, “I take exception to the word ‘destroy.’ I am more comfortable with ‘severely damage.’”

The DOJ transcripts are disturbing. Are other banks less rotten – or just counting their lucky stars that so far their internal dealings have not been exposed?”

https://leftfootforward.org/2018/08/why-didnt-uk-regulators-spot-the-rot-at-the-heart-of-british-banks/

Ignore the comments section of the above article. Full of lefty BS about letting the “next labour government” manage a state run bank/ organisation. It’s obviously a site doubling up as a standup comedy show but the RBS are still a bunch of bstards.

Nice
Everywhere it has been tried, good landlords register, bad landlords don't bother.
An exercise in pointless bureaucracy.

@Yogender
The problem is that registration has not ever been properly tried.
Believe me if every tenant was required to confirm a LL licence no before signing an AST then every LL would be licenced.
If any tenant chooses to use a LL who fails to give a licence number that would be their lookout.
Letting Agents would not be legally allowed to offer a property for rent without a LL licence number.
Any LA choosing to break the law would be subject to criminal sanction plus hefty fines.
Principally large fines would cause compliant behaviour for LL and LA.
Why would any LA or LL risk a large fine for the sake of not being licenced.
As long as tenants know they shouldn't rent from anyone on an AST unless they have a vaild LL licence no then that should prevent most unlicenced LL from letting properties.
The appropriate licensing regime that I have suggested hasn't ever been tried.
My way is very simple.
Without a LL licence no then no letting should be allowed.

@Paul Barrett,

Let me stop you right there.

"The problem is that registration has not ever been properly tried."

It has, in Scotland, its failed.

"Believe me.."

Why?

Sorry Paul,
This licensing tosh is just that. A load of bollox.
There are councils all over the country try that already insist on licensing landlords, and in wales for instance landlords have to attend and pay for sitting through s BS council course “how to be a landlord”.

The general census is it’s nothing but a cash extraction service for councils as they still do nothing for either T or L.

In fact more like the opposite. A friend had a place in wales which he had a rental suit as part of the house. It was small basic but clean and cheap.
He had a tenant there for years but when the council now wanted £1k a year for licencing and he would have to attend the BS “landlords course” course he told the tenant she had to leave as he could not be arsed anymore and stopped renting it out.

I do understand the cynicism regarding the existing LL licencing schemess and I would agree that as currently constructed they are administratively useless.
However my way beats that.
Without a LL licence no no letting is permitted.
Any LL or LA letting without a licence no for that particular property would be breaking the law.
It realky is that simple.
Of course if tenants CHOOSE to rent from an unlicensed LL that is their prerogative.
But if the LL is discovered then he could face massive fines.
Would any unlicensed LL really risk being grassed up by a disgruntled tenant!?
Making a letting conditional on a valid LL licence number being provided would resolve the issues.
This is NOT currently required.
Until my way is tried it cannot be stated tgat licensing won't work.

I have yet to see any LL licence numbers displayed on web portal listings like the EPC.
Without a checkable licence no there should be no listing allowed.

A licence number could be per property so as not to divulge other properties owned by a LL.
The current licence schemes are not fit for purpose as there is no way for a prospective tenant to check that the property they are interested in has a licensed LL.
I would suggest that cery few if any LA would list any property without a LL licence number.
Tbey would be admitting criminal behaviour by merely advertising without a valid LL licence number.
Of course there is no way that such a scheme as I have suggested will ever occur as millions of tenants rely on illegal LL to house them.
Somebody is housing all the 2 million illegal immigrants.
No way does Govt want to make known all illegal LL.

"I have yet to see any LL licence numbers displayed on web portal listings"

That is because you post without subject knowledge or bothering to research.

First hit on Rightmove rent listings advert for Edinburgh;

Double bedroom flat in modern development

Landlord Registration Number: 5138**/*30/280**
Council Tax Band: E
EPC Rating: C

@ Benji
So OK there is a LL licence no.
But what if there ISN'T!?
Does anything happen to the LL or LA who lists without a LL licence no.
Currently the answer to that is no.
Which is why all existing licencing schenes are pretty much useless.
Make the scheme National and illegal to let without a licence number and many 0f the criminal LL will be caught out.
Tenants cannot be expected to know in which areas a LL needs to be licensed.
A LL licence should cost no more than £50 per property for say 5 years.
The licence fee should be payable over 5 years by monthly DD though invariably Govt would want an upfront fee.
Those LL with many properties would have to find large sums and this would not be fair.
But until it is required for ALL to be licenced then the existing schemes are a waste if time and are just money making schemes for councils.
I don't particularly like the idea of national LL licensing but if it makes life hardsr for the criminal LL I'm all for it.
This includes all those LL who lst out in breach of their mortgage and insurance conditions.
There are millions of illegal tenancies where mortgaged LL are letting to HB tenants in breach of their BTL mortgage conditions.
There are also those letting in breach of their resi mortgage conditions as they do NOT have Consent To Let from their lendr.

Licensing would catch a these criminal LL out as Lenders would be all advised that there is a LL licence for the mortgaged property.
This will come as news to lenders
who will have to take action against LL breaching their relevant mortgage conditions.
Which is why National LL lic ensing will bever occur because Govt knows there are millions of illegal tenancies which will be disovered by lenders.
The Govt needs criminal LL to prevent mass homelessness.
Many LL would be bankrupted.
The housing market would go into freefall.
A run on the banks would occur as their mortgage book would be almost worthless.
All lending would stop and a UK CC would occur causing a massive recession.
So don't expect a National LL licensing scheme anytime soon!!!---

Wasting your time arguing with facts here, Mr The Landlord (if that’s even your real name)!

Paul...
Your banging on the wrong door here. This blog is basically for us landlords who like to bitch about getting treated like shit by our lefty leaning social warriors. I applaud your Brass ones for trying to to drum up support for Another stupid licensing scheme

As for your comment ....
“A LL licence should cost no more than £50 per property for say 5 years.”

You are seriously off your meds if you think the government or council could manage anything for 83p a month.

Some guy just took his council to court when they tried to charge him £1300 a year for his HMO license.
The EU court found in his favour.

There are plenty laws we already have to follow with serious penalties for NOn compliance. Another one is just BS.

@the landlord.
I appreciate that in areas where LL licensing is in force then LL sanctions exist.
So are we saying that all LA know which properties would be subject to licensing?
I suggest NOT.
Do councils check every letting that occurs in a licensing area to ensure the the LL is licensed?
Of course they don't.
So the scope exists for criminal LL to evade local licensing.

There must be many criminal LA that are not complying with licensing.
There is no way of councils routinely checking whether LL are licenced as they should be.
It is up to LA whether they wish to be compliant.
All the multi- farious licensing schemes are clearly difficult to police.
Therefore I believe that councils should licence ALL LL to have an effective National Licence scheme.
Councils can have special conditions for a licence if they wish but they must not be allowed to charge more than £50 per property for a 5 year licence.
We would then have the situation that any LL not having a licence would be committing a criminal offence with relevant sanctions imposed from fines; RRO to imprisonment.
Things need to be made easy for tenants.
You cannot get easier than no licence no then no letting.
A tenant should be able to check with the council that a rental property has a LL licence no.
But what we can't have is councils using LL licensing schemes as an effective revenue earner in lieu of increasing coubcil tax.
The cost of a LL licence should be similar to the Driving Licence.
But just as there was resistance to an ID card I believe there is similar resistance for LL to be licensed.
I don't know why as I would have no problems with providing my council with all my details and property whereabouts providing I only had to pay £50 for a licence per property.
A council could easily run an effective licensing scheme if all their LL were required to licence.
In principle I believe few LL have any issues with a licensing scheme.
It is the cost which is the issue.
There is also the issue of councils having different standards compared to national legislation.
HMO room sizes being a classic example.
Councils should not be allowed to deviate from national standards

It is very easy with database comparisons to locate unlicensed LL.
As in any system there will be those LL that manage to evade the system.
I would set up a council grassing up unlicenced LL situation.

Few LL would risk that!!!
LA also need to be threatebed with legal action if they take on any unlicebsed LL.
This would ensure that LA take reasonable steps to verify a LL licence.
There was due to be a national property redress scheme.
Why not roll up everything into one national scheme which includes everything that currently exixts plus the redress thing?

"Therefore I believe that councils should licence ALL LL to have an effective National Licence scheme."

Fuck me you're hard work. Are you being serious or just on a wind-up?

Scotland has a National licence scheme. All LL must be licensed. They are threatened with legal action. It is a criminal offence. There are huge fines for non compliance.

And still it doesn't fucking work.

@grumpy
I do appreciate your sentiments and agree with them.
However moaning to eachother will not change the attacks on us.
This is why I believe accepting a National LL licence scheme would be effective.
When you have over 2 million LL paying £50 for a 5 year licence I believe the income would be more than sufficient to operate a LL licensing and redress scheme.
I believe Govt would contribute something as part of the redress scheme.
But leaving things as they are will just result in eventually every council having licensing at very high costs.
LL need to head councils off at the pass
A National LL licensing scheme should do it.
Ever more penal LL licensing schemes aren't going away anytime soon.
Just railing against these licensing schemes will achieve nothing.
Good LL would have no problem with licensing.
With all LL required to licence the council might receive the same income across all LL.
Councils don't know how many LL owned properties exist.
Well they would if a cheap LL licensing scheme was applied.
Scale up and you get the economy of scale.
But I appreciate that all this is just so nuch talk as LL won't band together to fight the bonkers council schemes.
So apathetic LL will just have to factor in licensing costs to their overall rental offer.
If unviable then will go out of business.
Apathy will destroy much of the PRS.
LL can mostly exit without too much trouble.
For the poir okd tenant however that creates a whoke heap of problens.
But then Govt doesn't care about tenants.
It wants private LL gone.
They may get their wish!
I am selling up to invest hopefully in a large 4 bed property where I will take in lodgers avoiding all forms of licensing and evading all taxation.
I will make more net income than I do from 4 rental properties.
I will not be declaring any income in excess of the Rent A Room Allowance
I will not be licensing as an HMO if there are more than 4 unrelated occupiers in my home
There is no way a council could find out how many occupiers or 'guests' I choose to have at my home nor how much individuals might be charged.
So HMRC will lose out on tax on 4 properties worth of rent and I will be making about £24000 net plus my pension all out of one 4 bed house!!
Silly old Govt thinking it can beat me.
LL will do like me will just get out of AST rental property and use other strategies.
There will be fewer LL properties around as a consequence.
The number of LL will remain roughly the same.

The Council and Govt anti-LL policies will reduce the availability of normal AST rental properties.

Benji,

Give up man. I think Jeremy Corbyn is trolling the comments ......

Paul

Sorry I got this far and turned off.....

“When you have over 2 million LL paying £50 for a 5 year licence I believe the income would be more than sufficient to operate a LL licensing and redress scheme.”

Daft statement

We have 70 million people in this country.
More than half that number either pay no tax or work for the state so spend money the other 45% earn and pay tax on.
That’s why re country is about 8 trillion in debt. And you think they would ring fence your 83p per week for your scheme ...hahahahahaha breath hahahahaha

@Benji
It doesn't matter what Scotland has.
There are LA and LL that let out property when the LL is unlicensed.
Therefore de facto the LA and LL is taking a massive risk.
It really isn't that hard to detect if there is a functional licensing system.
The Scottish one isn't.
None of the schemes require confirmation from a lender that thsre is CTL to let to tenants and to HB tenants.
I could eadily devise a licensing system which would catch out ALL mortgaged properties.
Admittedly not so eady for unencumbered properties.
But with those first chech that all those in receipt if HB are in a property with a LL licence no.

Once those are dealt with then the totally unencumbered letting properties need to be found.
Easy done with Council tax info and LRegistry
Appropriate database comparisons will always detect most illegal LL.
The reason most schemes don't work is because they don't do as I would set them up.

@grumpy
Yes indeed I do believe a National LL licensing scheme would work at £50 per property every 5 years.
There are over 9 million tenancies
That is a lot of £50!!!!!
The council staff are mostly already there.
Just increase the workload but with now considerably more income per council.
Such an overacrching licencing scheme has never been tried vefore.
The Scottish scheme isn't one of those which is why it is ineffective.
Just give all councils free access to Land Registry and eachothers ER and CT records along with lender records and the criminal LL will soon be detected.
I'm no computer whizz but the first search I would do is all properties in a council area where the ER details are different from the registered owner of the property.
A fair assumption could be that those properties are being let out.
Next check with CT records and so on.
Using databases can be a very effective way to detect criminal LL.
They just aren't being used effectively at the moment.

@benji and grumpy

Believe me I totally agree with your justified sentiments.

However just railing against the obviously unjust system doesn't advance the LL position at all.
Something needs to be done to appease the LL haters.
A National LL licensing scheme at a cheap price might just do it.
At least the figures for the size of the PRS would be accurate on which faurer Govt and Council pokicies woukd be produced.
A licensing scheme where comparison with national and council databases along with credit files hasn't been tried yet.
Allowing councils to access these databases for free would greatly assist Govt and Councils.

Personally I would require all LL to accredited and to undergo 5 yearly CPD training that vocational HGV and PSV drivers afe required to undertake.
So if not accredited then a LA would have to be used who would be accredited.

"Benji,
Give up man."

Good advice Grumpy, I'm gone.

@The Landlord,

Thanks for the shit moderating knobhead!

@benji and grumpy
Unfortunately it is precisely apathetic attitudes that mean the PTB control us.
You have not addressed my suggestion of cross-referencing of databases which currently is not used.
All you do is state that the existing system doesn't work.
Well we all know why it doesn't.
There is NO cross-referencing of databases.
As long as this situation continues no licensing system will be effective.
So to campaign for data sharing to promote an effective LL licensing system is the way to go.
The Councils already have the piwers via RIPA legislation.
They just need to use it.
Believe ne if I was in charge I would be able to detect EVERY LL who does not have CTL or to let to HB tenants.
The data is out thefe and available.
It just nesds to be used effectively.
There is NO other way of detecting criminal LL so effectively.
At least let us start with the criminal LL that are stupid enough to be on databases where they can be detected by judicious use of existing databases both public and private.
The CRA would be of massive help to detect criminal LL.
But to start this process there needs to be a licensing system.
Using all the databases available.
For every LL property licence it would take about 10 minutes to detect the veracity of any LL licence application.

These are the databases that a council could use
CRA
Council Tax
Electoral Roll
Land Registry
HB records
DHP records.
Supported housing data.
AIB data.
That should just about suss out most mortgaged LL.
Unencumbered ones would then face massive fines
Only very stulud criminal LL would take the risk of letting without a licence.
Eventually they would be sussed out and subject to the POCA.
So a bit pointless when all the proceeds of criminal LL action could be removed from the LL.

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