Plymouth awarded £60,000 to tackle rogue landlords

Plymouth City Council has been awarded £60,000 of Government funding to deal with rogue landlords.

The news comes after the council submitted a bid to the Department for Communities and Local Government's Rogue Landlords Fund.
The additional funding will support existing work and enable more to be done with trading standards, voluntary providers supporting tenants, and working with local landlord associations, as well as expanding a scheme to provide better accommodation for homeless people.

Councillor Chris Penberthy, Cabinet Member for Cooperatives and Housing for Plymouth City Council said: "We are delighted to receive this funding which will complement the work we are already doing in Plymouth to tackle substandard landlords and housing.

"There are a lot of good landlords, however there are unfortunately a few who do not live up to the standards that people in Plymouth can and should expect.

"We will continue to work with local landlords and tenants to improve our private rented homes, including building on our Charter for Private Rented Housing."
The funding will be used to:

• Enable Trading Standards to undertake audits of letting and managing agents to ensure that they are aware of and meeting their legal obligations
• Undertake surveys of areas known to have high numbers of houses in multiple occupation to identify those that need inspection or have failed to comply with licensing requirements
• To improve landlord knowledge of their obligations by developing the Local Landlord Accreditation Scheme administered by South West Landlord Association and increasing the resource available to deal with tenancy relation problems
• Expand the Easy Let scheme managed by Plymouth Access to Housing to help provide good solutions for homeless people in the private rented sector