Landlords who rent out unlicensed properties to tenants in receipt of benefits are to face a new national scheme that will see councils applying for Rent Repayment Orders (RROs) on behalf of such tenants in order to recoup money for the public purse.

A pilot has been running for several months at three councils including the London Borough of Camden and this will now be expanded to include 38 other areas all including several big city councils. These include Leeds, Nottingham, Middlesborough, Plymouth, Bristol, Oxford, Peterborough, Portsmouth and Coventry.

The scheme, which sees Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) and local councils work hand-in-hand to identify ‘benefits tenants’ living in unlicensed properties, means letting agents managing these kinds of properties will have to be even more careful about checking if a property needs to be licensed before renting it out. Once all the councils are up and running some 400,000 households will be covered by the scheme.

And although the Government says it will target ‘rogue operators’, often RROs are awarded against landlords who have not been aware a license is needed rather than sought to evade the rules, and it is not unusual for one side of street to require rental properties to be licensed, while those on the opposite do not, making compliance tricky.

Widened criteria

While RROs are normally applied for via a Tribunal by private tenants who believe their landlord did not licence their home as requested under local HMO or selective licensing rules, the expanded scheme will see councils apply for an RRO to recoup housing benefits paid to landlords not only if a property is unlicensed properties but also if the landlord has ignored an council Improvement Order or if they have failed to fix mould and damp problems.

Tenants can currently claim back up to 12 months’ rent via a RRO but when the Renters’ Rights Act is implemented on May 1^st, this will increase to 24 months regardless of who is making the RRO application.

Minister for Social Security and Disability Sir Stephen Timms (main image), says: “Thanks to this pilot, private renters in receipt of housing support will have stronger protections against landlords who fail to meet public standards.

“No-one should live in unsafe or unsuitable housing.

“No-one should live in unsafe or unsuitable housing. We are giving local authorities the tools they need to deter bad housing practice and ensuring better value for money by upholding safe standards.

“Enforcing better standards will drive up living standards through incentivising better practice in the future, as well as protecting taxpayer cash.”

The key feature of the new clampdown has been data sharing between the DWP and local councils, enabling a council to identify tenants in receipt of housing support and then check their address against the council’s HMO and selective licensing registers.