The council which has been the first in the country to force all private landlords to join a mandatory licensing scheme says it has so far registered 15,000 landlords and 28,500 properties.
Newham Council in London expects about 35,000 properties, or one-third of all homes in its area, to eventually fall into the licensing remit.
It has also shut down more than 500 ‘beds in sheds’ type of accommodation.
Mayor of Newham Sir Robin Wales, giving evidence to the Communities and Local Government committee currently looking into the private rented sector, said that voluntary licensing does not work.
He said: “We know voluntary accreditation does not work because we have tried it.”
He added: “We are discovering quite a lot of what we think is fraud going on. The scale of what we’re finding is very surprising.”
The CLG committee is looking into all aspects of the private rented sector, including rent controls and licensing of landlords and agents. It is chaired by the Labour MP Clive Betts.
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Comments
PS 1. I should point, in order to take on tenants from the 'bond' scheme either the letting agent or landlrod have to be accredited.
"Voluntary licensing does not work, Newham boss tells MPs"
That is a blantant lie. Newham Council never publicised or promoted their scheme it. Newham never sent anything through the post, although they seem to know where we are when they need to send a council tax bill.
Secondly, the bond scheme, has a bad reputation with landlords, these tenants often wreck properties or tenants with problems which Newham does not disclose.
We have so many problems with Licensing. If you haev a 2 bedroom property and it has a Selective License (it means you can only put a single family in there), if next time the property and you have a couple and their friend, you can't rent to themse as the property has the wrong type of license. As you need a small HMO license.
It gets worse, if you had a property with a family and you want to rent to sharers (e.g. couple + friend). You need to a apply for Planning Permission in Newham. All in all it is a total dog dinner.
We have had to evict certain tenants, for instance we had 4 young student/workers who were sharing a 2 bedroom. As you can't allow two friends in a room. The tenants were not keen about reducing occupancy levels and they left Newham.