A landlord law expert has criticised four social housing providers for avoiding serious financial penalties themselves, while simultaneously levying big fines on private landlords.  

Phil Turtle, the director of compliance services at Landlord Licensing & Defence, reacted to judgements published by the Regulator of Social Housing (RSH) for Brighton and Hove City Council, London Borough of Hackney, South Derbyshire District Council, and Ashford Borough Council. 

All four received a C3 grading, indicating severe shortcomings and a need for significant improvement. The RSH probes revealed what Turtle calls ‘alarming safety breaches” namely: 

– Brighton and Hove council failed to ensure electrical safety for around 3,600 homes, lacked fire safety measures in 1,700 properties, and had a repair backlog of 8,000 cases;

– Hackney council’s failings included more than 15,000 homes without valid electrical safety certificates, nearly 9,000 without smoke detectors, and more than 400 without carbon monoxide detectors. The council also reported more than 1,400 damp and mould cases;

– South Derbyshire council fell short on fire risk assessments, electrical safety and had over 100 homes needing repairs due to unsatisfactory certificates;

– Ashford council displayed severe health and safety lapses, including overdue electrical checks, incomplete fire safety measures, and missing smoke and carbon monoxide detectors in some of its 4,800 homes.

The regulator said in its judgement: “We are not proposing to use our enforcement powers at this stage but will keep this under review as Brighton and Hove CC seeks to resolve these issues.”

In response, Turtle says he’s bewildered by the lenient treatment of councils compared to private landlords, claiming that if these had been private landlords enforcement action would have been instant and punitive.

He comments: “Yet again councils get let off with a slapped wrist for housing failures for which the very same council would fine a private landlord out of existence.

“Fines for not having an EICR are up to £30,000 and it’s up to £30,000 for inadequate fire alarms/precautions and another up to £30,000 for damp and mould.

“If this was a private portfolio landlord where ‘professional’ means they would get the highest possible fines, because ‘they should know better’ – they would be looking at the best part of £100,000 in fines per property.

“But the same councils that inflict these fines (which they keep for their own revenue budget) just get a slapped wrist and time to leave the tenants in mortal danger until they feel like getting around to the repairs and upgrades.

“It’s at best immoral. Some may say completely corrupt.”