Political posturing failing tenants

TENANTS in Plymouth are being let down by proposals from political parties designed to please their supporters but which will do nothing to root out criminal landlords.

According to the Residential Landlords Association (RLA) proposals such as from Labour and the Green Party to introduce more regulation of the sector sound good and simple, but would do nothing to help tenants in Plymouth which has one of the highest concentrations of private rented housing in the country.

With over 100 laws containing over 400 regulations governing the private rented sector, shortage of regulations is not the problem. Rather it is the inability of hard pressed local authorities to properly enforce them.

Rather than simplistic, bureaucratic measures such as a national register of landlords, the RLA is calling for a more intelligent approach. Their proposal is for a change to council tax forms which will provide local authorities with the information they need to target resources on the crooks.

Current council tax forms do not ask households the tenure of their property and details, where rented, of the landlord. The RLA is calling for a change in the law to make this a mandatory requirement. Tenants are already legally bound to have their landlord’s details when they sign a new tenancy and so will be able supply the information.

Where a tenant is unable to provide this information it would then sound alarm bells and provide councils with the intelligence they need to investigate. Where necessary, the property owner could be found using the land registry database.
Commenting on this, Alan Ward, Chairman of the Residential Landlords Association said:

“Tenants in Plymouth are being let down by a bidding war between some parties about who can clobber landlords the most. Such a tone is cheap politics that achieves nothing.

“Councils are unable to enforce the vast array of powers they already have to tackle criminal landlords so there is no point adding more. Instead, we need to get smarter and the RLA’s proposal on council tax forms is a pragmatic, workable solution that will greatly help councils crack down on criminal landlords and so protect tenants with no extra costs involved.”