Amendment to Renters’ Rights Bill to double licensing to ten years
The CIEH, which has sponsored the amendment, says selective and HMO licensing schemes should be put on a more permanent footing.
Landlords and letting agents face the prospect of local property licensing schemes lasting ten instead of five years, it has been revealed.
The proposal from the Chartered Institute of Health Officers (CIEH) is within an amendment to the Renters’ Rights Bill sponsored in Parliament by Green Party co-leader and MP Carla Denyer.
This amendment says the new clause would increase the maximum duration of discretionary property licensing schemes from five to ten years and would enable local authorities operating selective licensing schemes to use “licence conditions to improve housing conditions”.
The CIEH has proposed the change because it believes longer schemes would enable more permanent housing inspection teams to be established.
Housing standards
But it also wants to see such schemes – whether selective ones covering all rented homes or additional ones covering juts HMOs – to be used more actively to raise housing standards across a council’s area rather than just targeting rogue landlords.
Mark Elliott, President of the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health, says: “We have been working hard to highlight these issues and are delighted that they will now be discussed by a parliamentary committee.”
What the CIEH doesn’t mention is that schemes lasting ten years will mean landlords having to pay more up-front for the schemes, which already cost between £800 and £1,200 depending on location.
Some experts also want to see licencing schemes scrapped entirely ahead of the planned introduction of a national database of rented homes, as set out in the Renters’ Rights Bill.
But Labour is unlikely to listening; housing minister Matthew Pennycook has already hinted that councils will soon be able to increase the geographic size of their licensing schemes without needing central approval from the Secretary of State.
