Manchester finds another way…
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Manchester finds another way…
Ruling out the path many other councils have gone down by introducing selective licensing, which Manchester City council says is “very expensive and produces mixed results”, the council plans to “crackdown” on slum landlords, whilst at the same time introduce a ‘rental pledge’ that will spell out the expectations of both the industry and tenants – a measure which has been introduced in Liverpool and London.
Manchester’s planned strategy aims to support growth in the city’s private rental sector, with 55,000 new homes created in the last 13 years, but remains concerned about the market’s image which is ‘fragile’ with much good work “undone by a few rogue landlords and letting agents”.
The crackdown will in particular target landlords, agents and neighbourhoods’ where there is a growing number of flats above shops, and council concerns over living conditions within them.
As reported in the Manchester Evening News by Jennifer Williams, Manchester City Hall bosses are to launch a radical ‘zero tolerance’ crackdown on slum landlords, but at the same time potentially giving a tax break to the good ones.
As part of the region’s Devolution Agreement, agreed last year with Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne, the council is considering asking the government for new powers to give good accredited landlords a tax break – and take tougher action on the bad ones.
Manchester wants to introduce ‘tailored’ powers to deal with the ‘small number’ of rogue landlords within the city, arguing it is currently restricted by a one-size-fits-all approach from central government. The council wants to retain money it collects in fines from landlords found to have broken the law, instead of handing it over to the Treasury.
The move by Manchester is in contrast to the route taken by several other councils which have chosen to go down the controversial road to borough-wide selective licensing.
Selective Licensing was introduced by the 2004 Housing Act and was intended to address the impact of poor quality private landlords and anti-social tenants in “selected” areas of a borough. It was primarily been developed with the need to tackle problems in areas of low housing demand.
In an area subject to selective licensing, all private landlords must obtain a licence and if they fail to do so, or fail to achieve acceptable management standards, the authority can take enforcement action - e.g., issuing a fine of up to £20,000 or in some cases, assuming management control of the property.
The London Borough of Newham was one of the first to introduce a selective licensing scheme covering ALL private rented properties in the borough in January 2013 and since then upwards of 30 councils have either introduced selective licensing, or are seriously considering doing so.
Most landlords see this as a cynical move on the part of many of these councils, using selective licensing as a money raising exercise to pay for the running of their environmental health departments. Landlords can see little direct benefit for the £500 per property they pay every 5 years for every property they own. In some locations the charge has been as high as £800.
