A council has given an insight into its past five years of enforcement actions against private landlords.
The Labour council in Newham, east London, says that between 2018 and 2022 (so including the relatively inactive Covid period) it banned 84 landlords from running licensing properties; launched almost 2,000 ‘breach of licence’ investigations; issued 342 financial penalty final notices; levied fines of between £5,000 and £30,000; and sent 6,447 enforcement letters to landlords.
The council has issued the figures along with information about its latest licensing regime which started on June 1.
This succeeds Newham’s previous scheme which expired at the end of February and which saw 42,000 properties licensed – of which 70 per cent were subject to officer visits or audits.
Since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, an average of 800 licensing compliance inspections have been undertaken each month to check on property conditions, safety and management.
The council is telling landlords that there is still time for them to get early-bird discounts on the new scheme.
Anyone making a successful application for the Selective Licence by Friday July 14 2023 will pay an early-bird discount fee of £400 – a saving of £350 on the full price of £750.
Selective licences are required for all residential accommodation that is not a Mandatory or Additional HMO in every ward in the borough except for Stratford Olympic Park and Royal Victoria.
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Labour
That’s a surprise
Clearing the decks with draconian laws, targeting Private Landlords, discriminating against them for the big boys to take over.
So all the corruption, unjustified over the top Fines, Penalties, Repayment Orders, Banning Orders, Confiscation Orders, one sided Tribunals, Section 24, The scandalous Renters Reform Bill, Removal of Section 21, Re-introduction of Sitting Tenants & Sitting Dog, Licensing / Mandatory / Additional / Selective, Collusion, Corruption, Higher taxes, Higher Stamp Duty all this is not enough let’s try Bribery.
Newham Council have made great strides this last 5 years, they found the honey pot.
What happened in the Previous 5 years ? Oh it didn’t matter we weren’t bothered then we had to wait for the expensive unaffordable replacement Flats to go up first.
I think the Private Rented Section should be Regulated they are getting away with murder hahaha, let’s have a Redress Scheme and an Ombudsman that will fix them.
Newham council do anything for money even down to following you around with camera cars and filming you when you stop to unload your shopping at your front door for 2 to 3 minutes carefully editing the clip so that the act of unloading is not shown. That was the last straw for me. I left Newham after 14 years of this abusive local authority.
I've been renting my property to a lovely tenant for over 10 years at well below market price. I have no plans to sell and she has no plans to move. Am I now supposed to obtain a license at either £400 or £750 or is this purely for new tenancies?
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