I Quit! Landlord sells up because of “unfair” licensing regime

Obviously a job creation scheme for council employees.

Of Course it’s unfair. I feel the same I have all mine licensed multiple times with either Mandatory. Additional or Selective and with years not mostly HMO’s.
However I don’t ever let room and think it’s totally wrong to force me to license them. When the Scheme was first being introduced they said individual single let properties wouldn’t need a licence but changed that in the last minute.
That’s 2 girls in York that seemed to control all Government Policies on Housing, everything happened in York.

That was mostly HMO’’s this phone likes to change what I say.

Same thing happened in Ealing. My properties are not in any kind of high problem area buy they blanketed half the borough. Ealing are well know for being a predatory council in terms of targeting easy prey - first motorists, now landlords. This is the kind of think NRLA should be fighting.

What the council say they’ll do with the money and actually do with it are two different things. It is in my opinion a money making scheme for them - more money to waste. I have also properties in the area. One was not in a scheme then - OH - either the property moved or they adjusted the area to include it. So more money for em .

we should stand our ground and say NO

The money may be 'ring fenced' for the scheme but the scheme only does what the housing dept should be doing anyway! Of course ts a revenue stream! Nottingham City Council will raise £25m from their scheme. They are bankrupt - do you think that isn't a factor?

When the levelling down secretary approves something, you know it won’t bode well.

This will be just ONE reason this landlord is leaving, we all know there are many many more 😬😬

This is also going on in Southwark. There needs to be more transparency on where the money raised is going. There is a conflict of interest here: councils regulate and councils raise money in the same market. The same is true for traffic controls.

Council's are parasites, staffed by nasty little lefties, who couldn’t hold down a job in the real world.

Sorry to say it but LL's are partly to blame for the existence of these licencing schemes, as we have tended to roll over and pay for the licenses when imposed on us. LL's need to be much for militant, vocal and well organised, we should be refusing to pay and telling the general public and more importantly out tenants loudly, why we are refusing to pay for these worthless schemes that only serve the councils money needs. All costs to LL's in the end get passed on to tenants so it the tenants that ultimately pay for the money making job creation schemes designed to justify more wasteful expenditure and staff in the councils.

Nottingham City Council bust, Birmingham City Council bust, Northamptonshire CC bust, Slough bust, Croydon bust, Thurrock bust, Woking bust and may more to come. These councils are a liability and are not capable of running a properly financially controlled organisation, so what makes anybody think they are capable policing the PRS. These licensing schemes are just a new way of finding some easy money to fill these councils financial black holes.

It time LL's get properly organised, with an aggressive political lobby group that will fight our corner with and put stop this political money grabbing nonsense, as doing nothing is not an option otherwise it will only get worse. I'd be happy to contribute to such a lobby group by in would need to wide LL financial support to get what is needed.

We need a national level organisation that will loudly call out the stupidity of the policies suggested by Government, Councils, Shelter, Generation Rent, Etc. We need to lobby against, the removal of S21, the increased costs caused by S24, the danger of rent control, the ever increasing regulation and additional costs placed on LL's that are ultimately being passed on to and paid by the tenants.

How many prosecutions have the council made?

Bruce, I agree your every word. Question is how to get a strong defensive association up and running and who would be the key people to lead it? Personally I would donate £500 tomorrow and the same each year toward achieving the objective.
There are many capable people out there, some post on here.Let's hope people start to step forward..

It is a comprehensive disgrace that the NRLA have ‘rolled over ‘ on almost every key issue that threatens the PRS

It's not fair some councils have these licenses and others don't. All I can suggest is buy I areas which don't have the licence scheme. I'm in Staffordshire and I've not heard of any there. I have houses in Hull and none of them have to be licensed either. If they did I'd sell and buy somewhere without licensing.

Large groups of landlords penalised by local authorities knowingly on incorrect data or simply because authorities seek additional schemes for money grabbing should ALL consider Class Action where large numbers of landlords band together and take legal action against a local authority that have acted fraudulently and not upon correct factual data. It appears quite widespread around the country.

Bristol is introducing Additional Licensing city wide without and evidence of need except the council's own incredibly strong motivations to plug its own funding gap. The consultation process was a joke. I suspect similar situation with other councils.
I believe there should be a legal challenge on the basis that the 'licensing service' that landlords are being forced to pay for IS NOT value for money but a blatant money making scheme. I accept that with Mandatory HMOs there are more people in the property and more regulations and may require inspections; however for anything less than Mandatory HMOs, membership of an organisation like NRLA with an online portal to upload images, electric and gas safety certificates, for your properties along with accredited landlord training would be easy and cheap to do. ie we should not be allowing councils to get away with charging £1,800 per property for a selective or additional license. It's crazy and similar to the banks being challenged for charging £40 for a failed £2 cheque etc (where it didn't cost them that to auto send a letter out, so they lost the case and had to pay out many many £millions to customers back-claims of being over charged, some clause of being not fair and equal in contract law). The high fees the councils are charging the landlords for selective and additional licences do not represent the amount of 'work' involved to charge that high fee, Bristol says it 'hopes' to visit at some point in the duration of the license. So sounds more like a get rich quick scheme to me, take your money and run, when surely the council's inspection should be carried out at the beginning before any license is issued? There should be a legal challenge and a fee cap which is what happened with the banks. If there are complaints about particular landlords properties that are sub-standard etc, re non Mandatory HMOs, then the council should just put their energies investigate that particular problem and if complaints are genuine and landlords are either abusing the system or don't make good, then interventions and fines for these particular bad landlords that are match the cost of that aspect of things.

if landlords were represented this would not be happening. The NRLA supported Selective Licensing in Gt Yarmouth which was a mess and made no difference to the area whatsoever. Its time for a pro active association that spent time on looking after landlords instead of its CEPO toadying up to ministers and achieving nothing for its members. They have no voice and are a joke. Its no wonder landlords are leaving the industry.

Robin Bradford if only I had your confidence in the system.
All the cases thus far whether Court or Tribunal have all sided with the Council aren’t they all part of the same establishment. When did a landlord win at a tribunal or did I miss one, some have been known to be ex councillor.

Sounds very arkward .fishy

I'm not renewing the NRLA after my subscription ends.
But I just can't get my head around how Ben Beadle and Co are actively harming NRLA members by cosying up to Gov't,and agreeing with things like removal of S21.
Do they think we landlords are just going to keep paying them, when they are actually acting in a hostile manner towards us?
I welcome a response from Ben Beadle on this. You certainly don't speak for NRLA members.
Before NRLA decide on a massive issue like S21 they SHOULD be balloting their members.
If not you are just ignoring us.