Honest landlords being hit
Let’s summarise the latest proposal made by Telford & Wrekin Council to force private landlords to obtain a licence to let out their properties.
The council proposed the cost of the licence to be £610 per property and a further £100 if the landlord requested a paper copy. For whatever reason, the council says that this money would be used to administer the scheme – ensuring landlords comply with the 60 conditions which would be imposed on the landlords.
The cost would no doubt include employing members of staff to ‘snoop’ (sorry ‘inspect’ the properties). In other words the council thinks landlords would like to spend money for a licence to police themselves!
The council says that this would address properties being left empty. The council has already addressed this in that it charges council tax on an empty property even though there is nobody in the property, using the services provided by the council.
The council says that landlords would be in a position to stop fly-tipping and other crimes. This might work in areas like Wolverhampton, where the council owns 75 per cent of the rental sector in the area and can afford to install CCTV cameras and can afford to employ staff to monitor those cameras and obtain evidence. Most private landlords could not afford that!
A lot of the conditions set out by Telford & Wrekin Council are already covered in law and are already policed either by the police or the council. It is in the landlord's own interest to comply with the law and look after their properties.
It seems to me that the council is unnecessarily targeting all private landlords when it already has the powers to deal with the bad landlords.
L Jack, Wrockwardine
