Ed Miliband says will introduce Landlord licensing.

nollag2006

Great

More tax and regulation from Labour.

How refreshing.

John_Pierpoint

Being a landlord is a bit like being a banker, one hires out someone else's bricks and mortar the other hires out someone else's money. Who loves a banker?

Subprime tenants will promise the earth and lie through their teeth to get a tenancy, then completely ignore the Ts & Cs. Meanwhile pay day loan landlords will milk the rent for everything they can get.

Off shore accountants will do everything possible to evade income tax and avoid CGT.

Do we need more expensive box ticking - seeing how well it worked controlling the bankers.

Perhaps prompt enforcement of the existing laws is all that is needed?

ILW

Wouldn't licensing with some basic background checks (CRB)
help dissuade the worse elements from the business?

Seems odd that aconvicted burglar, killer or rapist is allowed to be a landlord or agent, which involves access to peoples homes.

Roundabouts

nollag2006 wrote: »

Great

More tax and regulation from Labour.

How refreshing.

Nollag, you'll be stuffed if they bring this in. I can't see your 10% monthly rent hikes meeting the criteria somehow.

BobQ

If a tenant rents from an agency and the agency does a credit check on the landlord and checks they have permission to let, why would a tenant care if the landlord they never see is a criminal?

nollag2006

Actually, as a responsible landlord I would probably welcome this. Anything that makes it harder for LL's to rent out property will only result in rents being pushed up.

Callie22

BobQ wrote: »

If a tenant rents from an agency and the agency does a credit check on the landlord and checks they have permission to let, why would a tenant care if the landlord they never see is a criminal?

Depends on the extent of the criminality and the potential risk to me as a tenant. Living with my partner I probably wouldn't care less if my landlord was a 'white collar' criminal, so long as it wasn't likely that all of his/her assets would be seized and there would be an impact on me (i.e I'd have to move). If I was a woman on my own, or living with a group of other women, I'd probably be a bit concerned if my landlord was a convicted sex offender/stalker/whatever and I knew that there was a chance he'd have the keys to the house.

John_Pierpoint

As far as I know there is nothing to stop a criminal who has "paid his debt to society" creating a property company, perhaps resident in Belize (if there was he would simply set up his wife/mother/daughter as directors.)

What about his human rights?
The next thing you will be suggesting is that you would not want him living next door; much more of a problem for an owner occupier.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REwkhARJ5t4

BobQ

Callie22 wrote: »

Depends on the extent of the criminality and the potential risk to me as a tenant. Living with my partner I probably wouldn't care less if my landlord was a 'white collar' criminal, so long as it wasn't likely that all of his/her assets would be seized and there would be an impact on me (i.e I'd have to move). If I was a woman on my own, or living with a group of other women, I'd probably be a bit concerned if my landlord was a convicted sex offender/stalker/whatever and I knew that there was a chance he'd have the keys to the house.

But who is going to decide if the tenant is concerned about the level of criminality and are we suggesting that someone who has a conviction he has answered for can never be a landlord.

You may be curious to know these details about a landlord but there are already laws in place to deal with the things you mention so what do you really need to know about the landlord.

I suspect this is just another means of raising money by doing meaningless checks on people.

Callie22

BobQ wrote: »

You may be curious to know these details about a landlord but there are already laws in place to deal with the things you mention so what do you really need to know about the landlord.

I suspect this is just another means of raising money by doing meaningless checks on people.

It's not curiosity, merely something that would allow me as a tenant to balance the risks of taking property x over property y. I don't care who lives next door to me as they are very unlikely to have a) a key to my 'home' and b) a right to enter the property, but ultimately a landlord has both of those things. Landlords can already find out far more about a tenant than a tenant can find out about the landlord, so it seems only reasonable that a tenant should be able to know if their landlord is of 'good character' or not. Ultimately it's a free(ish) market - I can decide not to rent your house, you can decide not to rent to me, and that's how it should be. But there does need to be something of a 'evening up' of the information upon which both landlords and tenants can make that decision.