Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Rented property licensing scheme consultation
Until 5 September (extended from 8 August) the Council is running an online consultation on introduction of a residential property licensing scheme across most of the borough (see www.haringey.gov.uk/propertylicensingconsultation).
Even if you have no direct interest in private rented accommodation, it might be worth a look for the links to documents giving much wider background and social information about the borough - housing, deprivation, ethnic mix, etc.
My reading of the paperwork also throws up two main reservations. The proposals seem to argue that there's a direct link between private rental and anti-social behaviour (ASB), without considering any social, health, employment, poverty or other factors that play into it, or making any comparison with ASB in other rented properties, such as local authority or housing association buildings; while the scheme outline is heavy on application fees and conditions it's extraordinarily light on inspection, enforcement or monitoring to ensure compliance over the proposed five-year licence period, or even explaining how initial applications will be assessed.
The principle of licensing seems not-unreasonable, but if it's to be effective it has to have teeth, otherwise bad landlords (the ones we all complain about renting sub-standard or dangerous properties, dumping mattresses and rubbish in the street or failing to tackle disruptive tenants) will just ignore it and continue as at present. I doubt the Council has the resources to inspect every private rented property in the borough once, let alone regularly to ensure compliance, so I'm sceptical as to whether the idea is even feasible.
As it happens, I found out about the consultation because I received a council letter saying "we believe you are a tenant living in private rented accommodation". I'm not and never have been, so this doesn't inspire great confidence in Haringey's ability to even identify the properties they're concerned about in the first place.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by AndrewAW1 on
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I received the same letter. I'm also not a tenant. So far as I'm aware this property hasn't been let for decades.
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Permalink Reply by Helen Myers on
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Yes they are sending those letters to everybody. I am a landlord and a tenant, unusually.
It would require a little effort to determine which properties are being rented out, through the land registry - comparing Council Tax payers with property owners (though if the rented property is empty between tenants it would be back in the landlord's name.) From my experience with the recently introduced new selective licensing in Haringey (yes another one) they have no idea which properties should be licensed and don't approach them directly though a letter through the door is unlikely to be passed to the landlord anyway.
Landlords have to have their ear to the ground or else they could be done for non compliance when they hadn't been asked directly to license in the first place.
Of course the bad landlords won't comply anyway and it will be the law abiding landlords who have to go through the complex and expensive task of the license process.
Many of the properties in the worst condition are local authority and housing association ones, as cited above, and who is monitoring those? They get away with non compliance on many levels.
It is just a means for Haringey to get more money and in fact do very little to improve the lives of tenants or neighbours of disruptive or anti-social tenants.
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Helen — I’ve just caught up with the HoL thread from 2018 when the previous consultation on this took place, and it doesn’t look as though any of the questions you and others raised then have been answered in this latest exercise. There’s also a question about the cost of licences in years 2 - 5 for new landlords (as the scheme is apparently time-limited); do they pay full whack even if their licence only has, say, two years’ validity? Incidentally, I wasn’t making any judgement on behaviour or conditions in local authority or housing association properties, only commenting that Haringey’s background paper appears to suggest a correlation between poor behaviour and private rental without any apparent evidence or comparison with other forms of tenancy.
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Hi Don. That consultation from 2018 has gone through and is now mandatory. This is a new one. The 2018 one made converted properties in certain parts of Haringey into a type of HMO even if just the stairs are communal. The new one will enlarge on this and again cover certain areas of the borough (deemed 'dodgy') As the other scheme just came into force last year I am not sure why they are starting on a new one so soon, without assessing the impact of that one first. It's just to make money I guess. A landlord friend has a property in one of the areas covered by the new scheme and was not notified that she needed a license. The Council caught up with her when the police were called as her tenant got drunk one night. Once there has been any kind of civil disturbance the Council are notified and start enforcement. Her flats are of a high standard and there is just a communal staircase which deems her to need licensing. She already complies completely with all fire regulations etc.
I haven't yet examined the new licensing proposals and I don't know if it covers the same wards as the previous one, or is expanding it.
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Well, I’ve written to the Council to ask lots of questions about notification, enforcement, inspection, assessment of “fit and proper”, etc, so will see what emerges and add it here if useful.
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Thank you Don.
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Just to bring this up to date: licensing for residential landlords will become mandatory from 17 November in the whole borough east of Green Lanes (clearly there aren’t any bad landlords in the leafy purlieus of Crouch End, as the scheme doesn’t apply there….). The fee of £600 for five years is reduced to £350 for application before the 17th.
Council info shows the scheme is budgeted to raise just over £10 million, with administration costs absorbing, er…. just over £10 million — so it’s obviously not about raising revenue for a cash-strapped council. However, nothing suggests that any admin will include regular monitoring or inspection, so I still wonder what the point of it is
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Permalink Reply by Justin Guest on
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Don- I am subject to the already in place licencing scheme. While I applaud efforts to bring *all* rented housing up to minimum standards we pay hundreds of pounds over a 5 year period for a few emails and a visit to make sure we are up to snuff. Happy for us to cover the cost of this and any appropriate admin, but rather feel we ae subsidising the poor landlords who require more intervention to drive them towards compliance.
For me we should be paying on a sliding scale of input required, pay as you go, if you like...
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The recent borough wide licensing scheme was first advertised as rented properties with 'families or two or more unrelated people sharing.' My flats had single people in, so did not come into either category. When I looked more recently they have changed it from 'families' to 'residents' so that is less ambiguous and means everybody. I think it covers the whole of Haringey now, or certainly the areas have been widely extended.
Licensing has been shown not to improve the standard of housing. The LA's don't have the resources to monitor it and the bad landlords won't bother to comply, but will take the risk. They are breaking the law with non compliance anyway so they are not going to pay to be told to upgrade the fire safety and electrics in their flats. Some of them might get caught but not the majority.
I started the licensing process with Enfield Council about a year ago. All private rented properties in the whole borough need to be licensed. I paid half (it is MUCH cheaper than Haringey) and sent in the preliminary documents. I got a reply saying I will hear back in 5 months. However, a year later, I haven't heard anything. Local authorities are really stretched and taking on another huge admin task like this really should not be a priority for them.
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Details on the LBH website here, including a map of the area included — everything east of Green Lanes, but not the fancier bits to the west! (Obviously a better class of landlord there….):
https://www.haringey.gov.uk/sites/haringeygovuk/files/hmo-selective...
(The web address implies this is for HMOs, which are in fact already covered separately, but it’s actually the new scheme.)
I completely agree with you, Helen, about the scheme’s likely failure to do anything about bad landlords. Anyone legit will already have to comply with the scheme’s provisions as part of their deal with a letting agent anyway, though I suppose there may be a number who only let through Gumtree or equivalent and therefore don’t necessarily know — or care — that they need lx and gas certificates, smoke alarms, etc. But the bad or irresponsible ones will just carry on regardless, and the Council’s only way of discovering the situation will be through complaints from tenants or neighbours, since, as you say, they haven’t the resources to monitor regularly.
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