The National Residential Landlords Association has called on the government to tackle rogue landlords, saying that the failure to do so puts tenants across the country at risk.
The group’s new Shadow White Paper released this month includes a series of recommendations for reforms to protect good tenants and landlords.
Landlords and agents face an ever-growing list of rented sector rules, but enforcement on the ground is often lacking, the paper states. The government estimates that there are over 10,000 rogue landlords currently operating, but just 43 are registered on England’s Rogue Landlord Database.
To close that gap, the NRLA wants a full assessment of local councils’ capacity to enforce existing housing regulations, as well as more central government funding to help enforcement. Like other areas of local government spending, housing enforcement budgets have been cut severely over the last decade.
Additionally, they propose further protections for landlords and tenants, including new grounds for possession, an independent landlord/tenant service to mediate tenancy disputes, and a streamlined, tech-enabled court process to reduce waiting times for possession cases.
The trade body published their recommendations ahead of a long-awaited government White Paper on the future of the sector, expected this autumn. Part of it will focus on evictions – tenant groups have responded angrily to notice periods in England reverting to their pre-pandemic length of two months on 1 October, but politicians have already given notice that they could soon shake up the entire process again – including scrapping “no-fault” Section 21 evictions.
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