Plans to ban ‘retaliatory evictions’ will only succeed if councils step up law enforcement in the private rented sector, town halls have been warned.
The British Property Federation (BPF) today pushed councils to avoid hitting ‘good’ landlords with excessive bureaucracy and instead target efforts at those that break the law.
Councils have not matched significant national rises in the number of private rented properties with an equivalent increase in enforcement, the BPF said. The body added that local authorities introducing licensing schemes across whole areas were landing law-abiding landlords with extra work and fees.
The calls came ahead of Friday’s debate on Sarah Teather MP’s Private Members’ Bill, which proposes to shore up controls over the private rented sector.
Yet the BPF said it remained concerned that current plans for the Bill would not impose time limits on local authorities to respond to tenant complaints, meaning residents could be forced to stay in dangerous properties.
‘Our primary concern with the Bill as it stands is that it doesn’t hold local authorities sufficiently to account on ensuring they are picking up complaints and processing them quickly,’ Ian Fletcher, BPF director of policy, said.
‘The sector is not short of legislation, what it lacks is enforcement of it, and there needs to be something in the Bill which holds local councils more to account.’
