Following a crackdown on rogue landlords last year, City of Lincoln Council is launching a Trusted Landlord Scheme on 30 March 2017.

The scheme aims to advise and support landlords to provide good quality, well managed private rented accommodation. It will encourage tenants to choose safe, good quality housing and increase tenants’ confidence in the management of their accommodation. The scheme will allow the council’s officers to focus on those rogue landlords who give a bad reputation to the sector, while reducing time spent checking the compliance of Trusted Landlords. The scheme also aims to reduce the impact on local communities of a large proportion of transient tenants and multiple occupied housing.

The Trusted Landlord Scheme is a common badging scheme, and is open to new and existing members of DASH Landlord Accreditation, NLA Accreditation Scheme, RLA Accreditation Scheme, Lincoln Student Accommodation Accreditation Scheme, or the Private Rented Sector Accreditation Scheme. If a landlord is meeting the requirements of their accreditation scheme, with regards to management, safety inspections and repairs, knowledge and professional development, and they encourage their tenants to be considerate neighbours, there will be no additional requirements on joining the Lincoln Trusted Landlord Scheme.

The landlord will declare all of the properties that they own within the City to the Trusted Landlord Scheme. A sample of these will be inspected to check that they meet current standards and the code of practice of their accreditation scheme, and that documents like gas safety checks are up to date.

Members of the Trusted Landlord Scheme will benefit from a streamlined HMO licensing process, the opportunity to deal with disrepair complaints before the council investigates, and exemption from proactive inspection programmes such as the Rogue Landlord Project which in 2016 inspected 881 homes, carried out 110 enforcement actions and 2 dawn raids, and resulted in 5 prosecutions. Landlords will have preferential access to Choice Based Lettings to advertise available properties, tenant nominations and the bond scheme.   

For more information and to apply to join the scheme, visit www.lincoln.gov.uk/trustedlandlord .

No Comments