The importance of landlord and tenant licensing

 As we progress into 2018, Brent council is proceeding with it’s tightening up of controls for property in the borough. A new announcement made of a selective licensing scheme covering five wards, which will come to force on 1st June 2018:

    Dudden Hill
    Kensal Green
    Kilburn
    Mapesbury
    Queen’s Park

Brent already operates a borough wide additional licensing scheme in the wards of Harlesden, Wembley and Willesden.

In July 2017, Brent Council’s cabinet had a majority vote in extending licensing to all privately rented properties in the borough. This was over ruled by the government, after a permission request to the Secretary of State denied the borough wide licensing scheme. However Brent were allowed to enforce the council’s area 1 designation, which established on the grounds of poor housing conditions, anti-social behaviour, migration and high levels of crime.

This now means that every private rented home within the five new wards will need to be licensed. According to the council 10,000 households in Brent can now rely on the selective licensing initiative for up to five years, protecting them from rogue landlords.

Cllr Harbi Farah, Cabinet Member for Housing and Welfare Reform at Brent Council, said:

“This is great news for thousands more of Brent residents. Brent Council is driving up housing standards in the private rented sector and cracking down on rogue landlords. We are hoping that the government will agree to extend selective licensing across more wards in the near future.”

Since 2016 Brent council has won 125 prosecution cases against agents, landlords and subletters. This has resulted in more than £730k in fines and in excess of £100k in civil penalties.

Landlords renting out Houses in Multiple Occupation (HMOs) in Brent are advised to comply with the law and get a property licence. For more details visit www.londonpropertylicensing.co.uk/brent

With regards to compliances it perhaps is a noteworthy to bring attention to unlicensed activities such as tenancy deposit not protected that are becoming more popular, like “rent-to-rent”.  This can be described specifically as a third party renting a property for a set fee from a landlord, usually under the guise of a guaranteed rent scheme over a set period of time. The third party then proceeds to rent the rooms of the property out, with the intention of making a profit using a multi-let strategy. To our knowledge and feed back, this sort of enterprise has not been well received by lenders, who have cited on occasion a breach of mortgage contract. It also may not sit well at local authority level, if the third party is not a licensed property professional, adhering to statutory standards of health and safety and housing guidelines.

If you have any questions on the latest insights and how you can make the most of Brent’s property market, feel free to give us a call

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