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The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government is spending £100,000 on a feasibility study to investigate the setting up of a national landlord database.
Companies or individuals seeking to secure the £100,000 have until Friday to respond to an MHCLG tender, which sets out the issue with this statement:
“Central government and local authorities have limited information on the 2.3m landlords who own the 4.4m private rental sector properties in England. This inhibits effective enforcement of private rental sector property standards and the development of informed policy interventions.
“Private tenants currently have limited ways to check information about their landlord prior to signing a tenancy agreement. There are also a range of different and complex requirements that private landlords must meet to let property.
“The government wishes to explore the feasibility of introducing a national landlord register.in England Through a joint policy and digitally led approach, we would like to understand the different models available for pursuing solutions to our identified problems and to further understand the difficulties individuals face when renting, letting or enforcing property standards in the Private Rented Sector.
“To inform this exploration of the problem, we would like a supplier to conduct user research, including sourcing participants, and potentially involving a survey.”
The scoping document for the £100,000 then sets out four potential users of the new database, should it ever be created.
“As a current or prospective tenant, I need to find out basic information about my current/prospective landlord and information about renting a property. This will enable me to make an informed choice about renting a property.
“As a private landlord, I want an easier way to demonstrate compliance with existing lettings legislation and to access information relating to letting property. This will enable me to better understand the legal requirements and more effectively demonstrate my compliance.
“As a local authority housing enforcement officer, I want access to consistent data on the private rented sector stock in my area. This will enable me to better prioritise my time and resources when undertaking enforcement action.
“As a government official, I want a holistic aggregated dataset on the PRS. This will enable me to better evidence suggested policy interventions.”
You can see more details about the feasibility study here.
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And the government interference that’s destroyed so many industries in this country continues to rip this trade apart.
Honest to god you couldn't make this up. Why don't they spend the 100k on buying a house somewhere and provide a home for someone?
Thats just for a pilot study. Real cost will be in grossly in excess of that. Real aim to hand over the market to corporate landlords, which should create another sub prime type crisis.We seem to have a communist type government. This is Jenrick who is giving permission for matchboxes in the sky, built on traffice roundabouts !
IMO it's a study to beget a countrywide study. They are dipping their toe in the water to gauge the feasibility of a much more costly study, inter alia, incorporating the ages, income, type of property, number of occupants and whether they are related ie: family.
Naturally, we know that not all landlords are operating legally and I doubt whether any government will ever know the numbers involved.
And a national data base for tenants ? can't have one without the other.
My landlord agreed to note my rental payments with TransUnion (thus Equifax and Experian) which gives a clear indication of my payments for the last 11 years. I think that obviates the need for a tenant database as any late or missing payments are recorded as well as all addresses in which the individual has resided, regardless of whether previously owned or rented.
Grace Ryan, You are not the only tenant. When tenants withhold rent, because they can and prefer to drink it away, any future landlord need to understand that tenants values. BTW..What ever happened to the Data Protection Act??? to be swept away at the government's bidding? This is one landlord on his way out of this madness.
It would be useful to be able to consistently define ‘a rogue landlord’ and ‘a rogue tenant’.
Without such definitions it will be difficult to define what needs to be collected into either database.
Eg A rogue landlord is compliant with housing standards, but abuses the intimate privacy of the tenant.
A good landlord is perfect in every way but doesn’t issue the ‘How to Rent Booklet latest version’ and has simply made a minor oversight.
A good tenant misses a couple of rent payments due to being made redundant, but still makes every endeavour to find work and is remorseful for missing the payments.
A rogue tenant would be someone who drives an exotic car, has exotic holidays but has a cannabis farm, removes the GCH copper pipes and hot water cylinder, radiators, kitchen appliances etc to sell and moves on to the next property. Rinse and repeat.
So how is the data to be captured to reflect the above scenarios.
It is very easy to record the wrong version of the ‘How to rent booklet’ or the couple of missed rent payments.
How do you collect the data about the landlord abusing the tenant and the cannabis farmer?
It says for Tenant to find out information about renting a property, one of the 4 uses given. Hello don’t we already have ‘How to Rent’ by Shelter (one of the 4) forced into our Tenancy Agreements, for about the last 6 years and changed at least 9 times in this short time, should be scrapped the incompetence is insulting.
I am in favour of a LL database - especially if it then supersedes Selective Licensing schemes. If LLs had to register and then put their registration number on all tenancies surely prospective tenants would be able to see straight away whether or not their LL was compliant? If not they could be reported and maybe, just maybe we could start to see enforcement action against the real rogues instead of ever more regulation of those of us already complying with the law.
At present many tenants rent from rogue LLs through ignorance or because they want to rent cheaply. This fuels the 'rogue' sector but with a registration number (or not) on documents they would be able to see easily if the LL is compliant. If they rent from a LL knowing there is no registration they would be part of the problem instead of a victim. Anything that exposes these crooks and removes them from the PRS is welcome in my view.
I agree totally
Amen to that.
I’d like to set up a waste of public money by incompetent politicians study
It’d cost 5p at most
I note that we have tenants on this forum.All the tenants I know would egard this as a gross waste of their time. No money it for them, got better things to do. I suspect these are activists who are promoting their point of view.
boris is a dictator
Yes, Terry Sullivan a very articulate comment !
I don’t see any point in another database they have several already. I don’t see any use in LL having a Registration No. on Tenancy his name is already on it, if you haven’t served latest HOW TO RENT your agreement is invalid & probably thrown out of Court but not possible to know which one that is I have discarded scores had to have them reprinted again & again you are not notified of Changes.
The Councils definition of Private LL, is a Rogue Landlord.
The worst thing to ever happen to this World in my life time is the Internet the root cause of all.
They will spend the £100,000 then the addition money only to find out it is useless in real terms because of data protection. You can't simply give out information on people. Either that or it would have to be extremely generic and a watered down version of what would actually be useful.
I totally agree with you can't have a landlord register without a Tennant one. However no one is going to pay for that no matter how many times we ask. Therefore we will have to use other levers such as robust use of CCJS. This will be a flag to the next landlord.
I agree, money claim online is cheap and easy to use, no need for a solicitor, there's a chance we might get lucky and get our money but the main thing is the nonpaying tenant gets a CCJ to their name
Andrew can you explain to me what is the use of a CCJ? To be able to find out whether the tenant has a CCJ you need to know their previous address. If the tenant does not disclose the address and they will not disclose this addressas they know it will show a CCJ and it has not been linked i.e. the tenant has used that address to obtain credit then it will not show up on any search . The streetwise tenant only need to say he has lived at home all his life or give any other address and providing his home address has not been linked to any address he could have hundreds of CCJs.
CCJs are not the panacea people think they are
I take your point Jim but if a tenant is cagey about his/ her previous address / s then we would smell a rat we can also check on the electoral roll, once again if there is no record smell a rat, bank statements are another give away what address had they been sent to ?
You only need to look at history to see that having a landlord database is a waste of time and money. Various councils have set up approved landlords schemes and abandon them because tenants did not use them. Yes in theory it sounds great but it's a waste of £100,000
Jim Haliburton the HMO daddy
Hi Andrew thank you for your feedback. I forget as landlords we deal with different tenant groups . With my tenants I cannot remember the last one who had a bank account. Some have what I call hole in the wall accounts which do not give bank statements with addresses on just a bus ticket like receipt showing latest transactions and balance. I don't think I've ever seen one of my bedsit tenants who is registered to vote as you can identify who is registered by the post that arrives through the front door at election time. All I see is request to register to vote. Nevertheless the same point applies there is very little verifiable evidence of where they have lived before to find out whether they have a CCJ and the tenant who is cunning enough will not have an address linked to where he stays so avoid any trace of CCJs.
As I say to my staff if the tenant has a credit card they are 100% certain not to default. I can't think of any tenant but has a credit card that has defaulted on the rent. Unfortunately finding such tenants is extremely rare. A different world .
Agreed Jim, we deal with different tenant types, I've never got into HMOs or bedsits, I'm not a snob by any means but I don't want to deal with those kind of people.
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