City Crackdown On Unlicensed Landlords

Rotting rubbish piled outside homes, collapsed ceilings, death trap electrics and gas-leaking boilers.

These are just a few of the problems connected with rented housing which have been regularly clocked by officers of Nottingham City Council.

Often they are student houses, but they may also be occupied by economic migrants or multiple occupants of any kind, seeking the cheapest lodgings they can find.
These health and safety issues, coupled, in student areas, with noise and parking problems, are why the Government passed a law last year to force landlords to obtain a licence for homes let to "multiple occupants"

The £375 licences, granted by local authorities, last for five years and require landlords to meet basic minimum standards such as ensuring properties are safe, gardens and yards are clean and tidy, rubbish is collected and anti-social behaviour prevented.

The rules came into force in April 2006, but only nine per cent of city properties covered by the legislation have actually been licensed.

And it is not as though landlords have not been informed about their new responsibilities. There has been a national advertising, and the council has written to all the landlords it has record of, highlighted the issue at a local landlord's conference and raised it in newsletters.

Barry Horne, head of city development at the council, said: "We have done everything possible but there are landlords out there acting illegally. Now we want to go further."

Later this year he will seek approval from the council's executive board later to employ up to 20 more people to work on landlord licensing.

The estimated cost of the scheme over five years is up to £3m.

The council will initially target three areas - Derby Road, Cromwell Street off Canning Circus, and Sneinton.

The law only requires rented houses of three storeys or more and with five or more occupants to be licensed. There are estimated to be 3,700 in the city.

Meanwhile, the problem of unlicensed landlords remains all too apparent in the city.

Maya Fletcher, of the Nottingham Action Group on Houses in Multiple Occupation, highlights rubbish in gardens, noise, and parking problems, as a few of the issues faced by residents where she lives in Lenton.

While she supports licensing, she is concerned the system may simply lead to landlords selling their three-storey homes in favour of two-storey properties to avoid the licence requirement.

She said: "I am in favour of the council catching up with landlords. We need that to drive up standards. But we have always known that one of the knock-on effects is some landlords will move somewhere else."

Landlords have complained the rules are unfair since they apply only to the private rental market. They say the rules are more "red tape" that is stifling their businesses. And some landlords have side-stepped the law by reducing the number of occupants in their houses to fewer than five.

Frank Hardy, chairman of the East Midlands Property Owners Ltd, which has about 450 members, said: "The councilhas not had a successful launch but unless landlords put their heads above the parapet there will be £20,000 fines hitting doormats. We have no option but to comply with the law. We accept there are a lot of bad landlords out there and the sooner we get rid of them the better."