A council has reported that its Selective Licensing scheme has had only 43% take-up from landlords after two years. 

And a report from its officers has suggested that one option for enforcement could be for the authority to ‘take over’ unlicensed properties, receive the rent which should go to the landlord, conduct any necessary repairs or improvements, and then hand any left-over rent to the landlord. 

Durham County Council introduced its Selective Licensing in April 2022 and its officers this month presented a report to councillors; it gives a fascinating insight into how local authorities handle such schemes.

Minutes of the meeting discussing the report included a reference to 16,500 landlords not complying with the licensing, amounting to some £8m in fees not collected. In addition, other landlords were considered to be holding out in order to begin their five-year licensing in the future rather than immediately. 

In addition, of those licensed properties that had been inspected, only 15% were found to have failed their inspection. However, some of those failures involved problems rated as Category 1, the most severe.

The minutes show that at one point in the debate, an officer points out that “were there was no realistic prospect of a property becoming licensed, then the Council could take over, receive rent, carry out repairs using the rental income with the remainder of the rent going to the landlord.”

A councillor then asks how much such an approach would cost to which the officer “noted there would be some initial setup costs, with the in-house service managing any properties, reiterating costs incurred would be charged to the property via that offset rent.”

The debate was laced with councillors’ disappointment at the relatively low take up of the scheme by landlords, with 1,000 additional letters to be sent out in the immediate future and a range of other measures to be taken – at council tax payers’ expense – including:

– “Continuing identification of properties without a licence using various sources of data including Council Tax, Housing Benefit, and Tenancy Deposit data, with recent Fire Service data assisting”;

– “Intensive analysis of the areas with the least applications against modelling”;

– “Landlords written to advise that they need to apply for a licence to avoid enforcement action”;

– “Enforcement and Compliance teams working through all Lower Super Output Areas (LSOAs) in first 3 years of the scheme – targeted and intelligence driven”; and 

– “Review data in years 4 and 5 to consider areas that may be included in extension of the scheme.”

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* With thanks to local landlord Brian Fish for drawing these minutes to our attention *