A website claims that Banning Orders on private landlords have not been served because of local government funding shortfalls.
Open Democracy says only 16 landlords in the whole of England are currently subject to banning orders “because cash-strapped councils can’t afford to take them to court.”
The site claims that Welwyn Hatfield council has handed out two, while seven other councils have handed out one banning order each: Cornwall, Telford & Wrekin, Wirral, Cambridge, Leeds, Bristol and Bournemouth. Camden in London has handed out seven.
[This omits to mention the recent Brent banning order, reported this week on Landlord Today].
Open Democracy cites an anonymous “local authority enforcement officer” - not even the local authority is named - claiming that some banned landlords continue to let properties, while other authorities do not consider applying for Banning Orders because of the legal and officer time required to push one through.
The article also quotes Giles Peaker - described as a “leading housing lawyer” saying that councils are cash strapped, which is a disincentive to seeking Banning Orders.
“It involves prosecutions, which is time-consuming and costly to local authorities. There are disincentives to use it when local authorities are cash strapped … It is very, very complex, very, very time-consuming to put together all the evidence to the standard criminal tests. It is not straightforward. You really do have to do a lot of background work and investigative work. People hide behind different companies, changing names, spellings.”
You can read the full article here.
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So it's difficult and expensive for Councils to get a banning order. What actually happens to the property and the tenants when one is obtained?
Does it get boarded up and the tenants evicted or does it just get managed by someone else? Would that be the Local Authority, a Lettings Agent or the wife/brother/cousin of the banned owner? Are any of those alternatives much of an improvement for the tenant?
The full article goes on to say "councils often pursue other penalties such as a civil charge notice, which can be up to £30,000".
While criminal landlords should be penalised are Councils simply being pragmatic? As recent government policies have caused so many good landlords to sell up are LAs in the position of beginning to think criminal landlords are better than no landlords? Especially if they can get civil penalties out of them from time to time.
Jo- that’s their real aim to steal the equity from your property. Selective Licensing gives them increased powers to do this
As a tenant I am appalled at how councils generate fake jobs and pensions by introducing licensing schemes which simply translate into higher costs for honest landlords whilst pushing up rents for the tenants yet these councils do not properly enforce the rules of these schemes against shady operators. All they seem to worry about is threatening to fine "good" landlords for leaving clutter in the garden or for not having fire extinguishers in exactly the right spot. When it comes to how the rent is collected the landlord is given fairly free rein, so what you end up with is lots of "current tenants" advertising on SM and SpareRoom, etc who don't actually live in the property but sub-let the rooms with permission of the owner and insist to the tenants that they themselves are in fact the immediate landlord. Often these guys collect rent in cash, give no written tenancies and have no address or even a consistently identifiable name. I'm aware of a property in one London Borough, run by such a character, that has had an illegal immigrant living there since long before the licensing scheme was introduced. An objecting tenant has got nowhere with the council who simply don't seem to understand the concept of the shady middleman and are happy that the HMO has a wall-plaque with the owner's own name and address details, meanwhile at least one tenant has been illegally evicted by the middleman, there have been various infestations of vermin and the presence of the illegal immigrant has not been investigated by the council nor the Police and when the tenant contacted the Home Office he was told they couldn't do anything unless he was able to supply the illegal immigrant's surname! He's not even entirely sure of the "landlord's" surname let alone people in the house without documents who receive no mail. These licensing schemes are a complete scandal and seem to be "selective" only in how they are enforced against the lowest hanging of fruit.
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