Plymouth City Council says it wants to “showcase how to do it right” when it comes to enforcing the Renters’ Rights Bill once the legislation receives Royal Assent in the next few weeks.

Cllr Chris Penberthy (pictured), Cabinet Member for Housing, told the city’s Housing and Community Services Scrutiny Panel that: “Good landlords should have nothing to fear from enforcement, but for those people who are breaking the rules we will have to come down tougher than we have before,” adding, “We don’t want criminal landlords in the city.

sweeping reforms

The legislation will shortly become law and will introduce sweeping reforms, including the abolition of section 21 ‘no-fault’ evictions, the ending of fixed-term tenancies, a ban on rental bidding, rent rise restrictions and strengthened enforcement powers for councils.

Under the new legislation, councils will be able to issue fines of up to £40,000 for serious non-compliance, up from the current £30,000 maximum. And there will be penalties of up to £7,000 for breaches such as failing to register on the new private rented sector database or encouraging rental bidding wars.

ahead of the game

Penberthy said Plymouth was “ahead of the game” in preparing for the new regime and is already operating as a pilot for the new national database.

However, he told Plymouth Herald that staffing levels currently fall “significantly short” of what will be needed and that Plymouth is awaiting confirmation of “new burdens” funding from the Government.

And his colleague, Matt Garrett, the council’s Service Director for Community Connections, admitted that the 19 per cent of private landlords that had sold up were a concern, adding that: “This will have an impact on the city but what we know is that good landlords in general will stay and we will be dealing with criminal landlords rather than the good ones.”