The majority of local authorities in England do not accurately record the number of private rented sector tenure complaints which they receive.
The National Residential Landlords Association says that - based on Freedom of Information Act requests - 56 per cent of councils do not accurately record the number of complaints they receive concerning private rented sector housing.
This figure rises to 61 per cent for those local authorities which have selective licensing schemes.
Amongst those local authorities which did accurately record PRS complaints which they received, each of these councils dealt with an average of 274 complaints per year.
In all, councils conducted a total of 98,858 inspections under the Housing, Health and Safety Rating System across England between 2018 to 2021. This roughly equates to just one in 45 private rented sector properties, according to our findings.
The research also shows how the recording of these inspections is not consistent across local authorities, with many councils failing to register any of their inspections.
According to the NRLA, a mere one per cent of HHSRS inspections resulted in a follow-up prosecution, with four per cent of improvement notices resulting in the imposition of a civil penalty.
Chris Norris, Director, Policy & Campaigns, at the National Residential Landlords Association, says: “What is needed in order to build a private rented sector which is fair and inclusive for all, is for councils to use all of the powers at their disposal.
“These figures show that there is a long way to go before councils deal effectively with the rogue landlords who bring the sector into disrepute.
“Until councils adopt a more effective approach towards recordkeeping, it will be impossible for them to take the steps necessary to enforce regulations.”
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Probably busy rearranging paper clips etc
Reading this it makes me wonder what side NRLA are on more attack and clamp down on LL’s. I think we were better off with NLA before we were hi-jacked when we had good fair minded people to stand up for us, come back Mr Richard Lambert former Chief Executive Officer of NLA we have been sold down the river .
Maybe they mean that complaints from LLs to the authority that the tennant is spending the HB on coke, scratchcards,phones,sky,gaming,pizzas, maybe this is not being recorded or acted upon!
Not to mention bingo, beers, cigarettes, 65" televisions, 5 iPads in one house, a BMW in the driveway, and 22 children!!!!!!!!!!
It does make you wonder where councils get all their figures from proving their licensing schemes are all working perfectly to improve housing for the vast number of tenants living in "Sub Standard" accomodation!!!!!!!
Even more so when you read that on average nationally they have only inspected 1 in 45 Privately rented houses between 2018 and 2021. Three years to inspect less than 2% of all the PRS. That means it will take another 150 years to do the rest at that rate.
Have you seen what some of these prosecutions or civil penalties are for- they include ankle length grass, hole in the fence and mould on the outside wall. The most ridiculous is for a fire extinguisher that had been left by the dustbin the the landlord was fined because it was faulty. The council argued that someone could bring the fire extinguisher inside and try and use it.
Where is the list of prosecutions against council's and social landlords.
Jim Haliburton
The HMO Daddy
So Councils that kept accurate records received just over 5 complaints each a week.
How many of those complaints were found to have any real foundation and how many were deemed to be caused by the tenants lifestyle?
How many were mold related due to tenants failing to heat or ventilate the property?
How many were due to minor maintenance issues not being reported to the landlords in a timely fashion and then escalating?
How many were damages caused by the tenant and not reported to the landlord?
How many were caused by the tenant inviting extra people to move in and overcrowd the property?
I'm sure there are some horrendous properties out there but do those tenants tend to report them to the Councils?
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