Councillors in part of Wales are considering the creation of a 'Report A Rogue Landlord’ system for tenants who claim their landlords are breaking the law.
Labour councillor Sam Swash, who sits on Flintshire council has tabled a motion which is passed would provide tenants with the opportunity to report so-called rogue landlords.
In so doing they would form part of a publicly available and searchable database of landlords who have been prosecuted, or faced civil enforcement action, for housing offences.
The local Leader Live website serving Flintshire quotes Swash as saying: "Tenants in Flintshire deserve the right to know in advance if their prospective landlord has previously broken housing law and been prosecuted. They also need to be given the confidence to report unscrupulous landlords to the Council so that enforcement teams can investigate, take action, and prosecute, if necessary."
He continues: "The council should be proactive in carrying out its duty to root out unscrupulous landlords who exploit tenants. By providing these tools to tenants, we will make Flintshire a safer place for people to rent by helping them to find housing with responsible landlords."
"We are finding that more and more people are living in properties that are damp, mouldy, not structurally sound, or suffer from faulty wiring.
"Often, people feel they have no choice but to accept these conditions because of the cost-of-living crisis and the lack of affordable housing locally. I want those people to feel empowered to report those issues to the council, so that they can be given the help they deserve."
Similar systems have been launched in Greater Manchester and London - the latter, created by London Labour Mayor Sadiq Khan, has been used more than 380,000 times since it was launched six years ago.
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Mmm. Evidence. Hope they understand libel and defamation law. Another cheap lefty landlord bashing vote soundbite. Build more homes you Marxist Muppet and you can house the homeless for free and bypass the nasty landlords. Oh you don't have the money to do it? Just take it from the 32 million "20 is plenty" budget.
I know, get off your backsides, council and monitor your landlords and tenants, actually do some work for the cost of your landlord registration and Rentsmart scheme! You initiated it, now monitor it!
The trouble is that Rent (not so)Smart Wales are interested only in relieving legitimate landlords of their cash and piling new regulations on them.
They don't even actually pursue rogue landlords, leaving it up to someone else to report them.
A useless Quango that serves no purpose other than to undermine law abiding landlords.
Report a rogue politician , never ending task
Perhaps a list of councillors whose little bit of power has gone to their heads.
Report a rogue tenant perhaps.
The only times that I would do that are firstly if the tenant initially posed as somebody who wanted to rent the flat, and then didn't live there at all, but sub-let it to a number of people at a higher price - and then, on top of that, didn't pay the rent for the flat at all. In my mind those tenants need to be identified.
And secondly, tenants who caused extensive malicious damage to a property.
The ‘rogue’ landlord would just give it to a cousin or wife, who then rents it out, or a rent to rent deal, or Airbnb, or ltd company name. A councillors stupidity list would be more appropriate.
When I think they cannot come up with anything else to attack us …. 🆘🆘🔪🔪 there you go 🤔
This will actually turn out to be a bit of an hilarious own goal, because how many Councillors and Council Officials have been or are landlords... Let's face it, corruption and convictions aren't exactly a rare bird when it comes to local and national politics.
Albert Einstein purportedly once said or wrote "Two things are infinite: The universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe," or words to that effect.
I believe with politicians irrespective of party, the above applies.
Strange that there is no proposed ‘rogue’ tenant database.
What’s missing is a Rogue Registry for Councillors, Member’s of Parliament and Mayor’s of London and Manchester..
Good idea, let's create a register of rouge tenants too. I think it is a bigger issue
Great idea and about time.
Morning Sandy B, see you are your usual cheery self...
It’s time for Sandra to buy herself a house . Who wants to rent their home to people like her?
Yes Sandra, if you hate landlords so much it should give you the motivation to buy your own property. You can even get 100% mortgages these days. Of course the downside is you would probably have to buy a cheaper property or not in the location you want for the same rent.
No point in a 'report a rogue tenant' , we'd soon run out of paper
I believe a tenant can carry out a background check on a landlord as well as a landlord checking a tenant, with their permission.
Is it not the case already that if a landlord has been prosecuted in respect housing that they will be removed from the landlord register in Wales and cannot be a licensed landlord? Once removed, surely it is noted as removed, they will still appear in searches made by tenants and agents. If the landlord passes property management onto an agent, he/she/they still have to be registered just cannot be licensed! Does this councillor want landlords to wipe tenants' ar**s too? No need for more defamatory databases.
The local Leader Live website serving Flintshire quotes Swash as saying: "Tenants in Flintshire deserve the right to know in advance if their prospective landlord has previously broken housing law and been prosecuted. They also need to be given the confidence to report unscrupulous landlords to the Council so that enforcement teams can investigate, take action, and prosecute, if necessary."
And so when we get nightmare tenants that don't pay rent,trash the place and abuse their neighbours, we are also going to have a register for them?
Can't have it all one sided bashing the Landlords.....oh hang on!
Local authorities don't have the power to regulate tenants.
It looks like the system will only list landlords who have been found guilty of breaking housing law. Why are people so angry about that?
Because nobody trusts politicians
Equally, one of the reasons we landlords have such a bad name is because something as inoffensive as listing criminals to help tenants find good landlords gets the reaction seen in this comment section.
I'm annoyed Mark, though fully support rogue Landlord's being prosecuted.
i would worry how this would be implemented. Would like to be assured that due process would be adhered, however , I really do not like this one way traffic.
It should be Landlords and Tenants Reform Bill and therefore Rogue Landlord and Rogue tenant Register!
I wonder at what point you become blessed as a rogue landlord. Minor. Very subjective, but I suspect the landlord will be guilty until proved innocent via some long drawn out process!
What was the point of Rent Smart wales then? Prospective tenant's can look up the intended property to see if its registered and who the landlord or agent are. If they agents or landlord have been subject to criminal proceedings then surly they would not have a licence as that's one of the conditions of having a licence in the first place.
Honestly Wales has become the dustbin for power hungry nobodies.
Michael. There are 2 things here. The Tenants can look at the Register and well capable of doing that to see if the Landlord has a license
(1) No license Rent at their own risk or be prosecuted for renting an unlicensed property.
(2) Be barred from receiving a 12 months rent Repayment Order for Renting a Property that they knew wasn’t licensed.
A rogue tenants list would see half of the renters homeless. But one is needed to protect landlords.
Bring it on.
Rogue landlords dont give a stuff, and just break the law all the time. Very unnickable, they know the ropes. This is about creating mass hysteria to attack honest landlords. Marxist ideology.
Essentially the government are housing illegal immigrants and are a rogue landlord.
I still think a good tenant register would be very useful. If a tenant had a good rating they would be able to find accommodation easier and landlords would be more confident in finding a good tenant.
What a great idea if you want tenants out! Get yourself reported as a bad Landlord which will disallow you being a landlord thus Tenants have to leave.
Problem is, it is you that will still have to evict the tenants, the tenants won't just leave because you're not allowed to be a landlord. Then you will be in trouble because your tenants haven't left.
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