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TODAY'S OTHER NEWS

Shock as government rejects council’s landlord licensing bid

The government has taken the unusual step of denying a local council its request for an extended term for a landlord licensing scheme.

Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick is reported to have denied the request because Croydon council allegedly failed to provide any evidence of a housing strategy.

An exclusive story on Inside Croydon says the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government and its civil servants have been “devastating in their critique of Croydon’s renewal submission.”

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The council - which has been roundly criticised in recent months for alleged financial incompetence - is now reported to be facing a £22m ‘black hole’ because expected landlord licensing fees will not be recovered.

In addition, the London Property Licensing service says it has seen a letter from MHCLG to Croydon, suggesting the council had failed to:

- demonstrate how the licensing proposal was consistent with the council’s overall housing strategy;

- show how making the licensing designation would significantly assist them to achieve their objectives; and

- comply with the [now out of date] 2015 Selective Licensing Order with respect to poor housing conditions.

 

London Property Licensing says: “The Secretary of State said the council had failed to demonstrate how selective licensing, combined with other measures taken by then would contribute to an improvement in the general housing conditions in the area. The Secretary of State also said the council had not demonstrated ‘…strong outcomes or efficient delivery…’ of the previous 2015 to 2020 scheme.”

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    Selective Licensing is just a means for Councils to raise money for their Housing Department, paid for in the end by hard working tenants in the form of raised rents. Croydon have been caught out!

  • George Dawes

    A labour council , fiscal incompetence, now that is a surprise

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    Regretfully fiscal incompetance know no political boundaries.

     
  • John  Adams

    Majority of these schemes have not provided better housing conditions or driven out rogue landlords. Instead they are just propping up the Councillors tea and biscuit fund.
    If these schemes were low cost, involved actual inspections and dealt with both rogue landlords AND bad tenants, they might have legs, but I might as well live on Mars to believe a Local Authority could do that especially when the evidence is that many local authority and housing association property is neglected and tenants struggle to get issues resolved being trapped in the points system for moving out.

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    How they can have the nerve to try with the state of the countries council / social stock is mind boggling won’t get a penny off me again

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    Being a landlord and having worked in a local Council and seeing first hand the condition of their stock, I can honestly say the worst rogue landlords are the Councils. This selective licencing is merely a money making machine for Councils and will do very little to reduce the number of private sector rogue landlords. It will however force the compliant landlords to increase their rents, forcing low income tenants & tenants on benefits into the hands of the non complient rogue landlords with cheaper rents

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    The government need good landlords (I know I am one of those landlords)
    More help is needed for landlords,like grants and tax breaks.
    We need to invest in our properties and tax is killing us.Plus ,all the requirements put on us ,is making it harder and harder to manage costs,push us any harder and a lot will sell up! THEN WHAT?

  • PossessionFriendUK PossessionFriend

    More Councils are being found out and being put on the ' naughty step,' but plenty more need to be ' found out '

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    Over half of the landlords we have that paid for a licence didn't even have their property inspected and quite a few didn't even have the licence issued before it expired last year!!

    The whole scheme was a joke and as has been pointed out several times, just a way for the council to make money!

    John Cart

    Absolutely, we were still awaiting inspections FIVE YEARS after having been scammed for the licence fees, as far as I'm concerned the Council has failed to keep to its "contract" and should refund our licence fess in full, never was anything else but a money making scam.

     
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    I know we are getting hammered but don’t complain about inspections every time they come you’ll have more to do, they are not going to come and say nothing, a bit like MOT you think your car is fine until it goes on the ramps.

  • Andrew Murray

    Wasn't it Croydon where recently a lady was living in a council flat which had massive damp problems and they didn't do anything until the national press got involved. They should have fined themselves.

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    Yup, aired on ITV News on numerous occasions. Watching the Croydon Council leader squirm on national TV was painful yet gave me great pleasure. As many have commented, licensing just a money making scam. A low cost MOT style regime would be much more worthwhile, single set of standards, predictable, and not poisoned by local politics. Far too obvious so won't happen

     
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    Nottingham council has not carried out any inspections to my knowledge, they are carried out under the DASH program which we have to also pay to join. The whole licensing program is a joke.

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