I believe firmly that every let property must be licenced. Whether it be a bedsit or a mansion – the council and the government are absolutely set on licencing HMOs and some agents professional bodies are set on licencing agents, but as can be seen from the events of the last few days that gets nowhere near the root of the problem!!!
How can a largish local agent and an experieinced landlord end up being fined £12000 for non compliance and how can a local family who were rehoused from Lyndworth Mews in Oxford, after an awful fire last week,be placed in unsafe untenantable temporary housing WITH NO SMOKE ALARMS!!!!!! - via an agent !
BUT if my scheme of every let property – NO MATTER WHAT SIZE having to have a licence was adopted this could never of happened. I do not hold with the idea that councils cant afford to do the property licencing – they could appoint an agent, ie me or whoever, to be a licencor or whatever they want to call it, and if I did not do my job properly I would be fired from the licencor job, its so simple. It would improve safety across the board and the council who initiated the scheme would stand out amongst all other councils, and it would not cost them a bean, as the agents who wanted to be the licencors would charge the property owner for the licences.
More importantly this could be done very quickly, hopefully saving lives. Certainly making lives better. This is not just about safety though, it’s about clean, well decorated property, with no loose stair carpets, no open electric bar fires, working decent WC and washing facilities, basic things every person has a right to. If you do some research you will find lots of tenants have died around the country because of lack of gas safety certificates, etc.etc. You will find, by talking to the council that many tenants are housed in substandard accommodation in the private sector, and a the real problem is where local authorites use the private sector and don’t check the property out as happened maybe in the case in Oxford.
Jan Bartlett, Principal, Premier Letting Agency, Oxford
