The Government’s new rogue landlord database is set to be made public, allowing tenants to access the information, not just local authorities.
The database was launched six months ago but there has been a lot of criticism that tenants and would be tenants, the very people it was designed to protect, have not been able to check it.
This intensified after an investigation by the Guardian newspaper and ITV News found that not a single name has been put on the database.
‘Our rogue landlord database has only been in place since April and has been warmly welcomed by councils as an important enforcement tool. As we have said, only offences committed from April this year can be included, and it can take several months to secure convictions,’ a Government spokesman said.
‘We are clear that we expect to see entries in the database from the New Year. We also intend to make information in the database available to prospective and existing tenants,’ the spokesman added.
The Government estimated before the launch of the database that there were 10,500 rogue landlords operating in England, and said it expected more than 600 of the worst offenders to be entered into the system.
The investigation also revealed on Tuesday that rogue landlords were collecting rent, often funded by taxpayers via housing benefit, despite convictions for housing offences and failing to pass the fit and proper person tests required by housing legislation in England and Wales. Because of the way the law is written, this is usually perfectly legal.
The decision to make the database public has been welcomed. ‘It is a triumph for the industry. Keeping it hidden was a prime example of when the Government didn’t think about the unintended consequences of the policy, which is why we have branded it truly ridiculous up until now,’ said David Cox, chief executive of the Association of Residential Letting Agents (ARLA).
‘We’re pleased they have finally listened to what the industry has been saying since it was put into the Housing and Planning Bill nearly three years ago. We hope the database will now fulfil the objective of professionalising the sector, which we all wanted it to,’ he added.
Alan Ward, chairman of the Residential Landlords Association, said that criminal landlords have no place in the rental market. ‘Local authorities have a vast range of powers available to them to tackle and root out landlords who bring misery to their tenants,’ he pointed out.
‘The problem is that while Westminster enacts the legislation it is dependent on the political will of councils to enforce it. Research by the RLA has shown that few councils are yet to make use of the civil penalties now available to them, while landlords are being faced with increased licensing costs and the criminals ignore the system,’ he explained.
‘Meanwhile, public money from housing benefit is being given to rogue landlords without basic checks on the safety of the properties. This has to end,’ he added.
