A north of England council has released figures on the number of complaints it has received about private landlords.
Pendle council in Lancashire says that since April 2022, 153 complaints have been made about landlords who - in its words - “refuse to maintain their property.”
Of these complaints, 18 were classed as urgent including seven properties which didn’t have hot water.
Councillor Mike Goulthorp, deputy leader of the authority, says: “Pendle has some excellent landlords and letting agents but we have a vital role to play in tackling those who are irresponsible. We want to make Pendle a fantastic place to live for everyone so we’re using our statutory powers and clamping down on rogue landlords.”
Councillors have now commissioned a housing stock condition survey which will provide an up-to-date picture of the quality of housing in the borough.
Of the complaints made to the council which were assessed under the Housing Health and Safety Rating System, more than half were excessively cold and 60 per cent had damp and mould present.
Informal action was taken which led to improvements being made to the living conditions in 21 homes. But 10 landlords failed to comply with the informal action which led to further steps being taken by the council to ensure the work was done.
Since April 2022, 12 prohibition orders were served, including two emergency prohibition orders, where properties were immediately dangerous.
A housing division spokesperson adds: “In Pendle we have a lot of older properties which need to be maintained. If a landlord doesn’t improve the properties within a specific timescale, we can carry out the work and then recover the costs from them and we can prosecute or issue fines.”
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153 out of how many landlords in the area, and how many complaints were justified ? I wonder how this figure compares with complaints with council and housing assoc landlords in the area, be interesting to hear the whole true story
Andrew
Great minds!
Only 18 out of 153 were urgent repairs. Wonder how minor the others were?
Your post and mine were clearly being typed at the same time!
Only 18 out of a huge number of private rental properties had urgent repairs outstanding and almost half of these were successfully dealt with informally leaving only 10 needing formal enforcement.
Sounds like Pendle private landlords are doing a great job overall with only a tiny minority causing problems, especially when it seems that 60% of tenants are breaching their tenancy agreement in failing to keep their homes properly heated and ventilated.
PS. Wonder how the local social housing properties compare?
The council managed to get these improvements done without a licencing scheme, which proves you don't need licencing schemes.
John. That’s true the Council had so the Powers they ever needed as far back as 1992 to deal with any matters regarding landlords and Tenants, I still have the cutting of the News Paper Article, so they have just wasted 30 on bull sugar creating bureaucracy damaging the economy, when the Confidence is gone it’s gone well done.
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