Councils will be given wider discretion to issue licenses to landlords in areas of housing concern from next week.
The housing department will grant local authorities the ability to issue selective licenses to privately rented homes in spots plagued by “low housing demand, significant anti-social behaviour, poor housing conditions, high levels of migration, high levels of deprivation and/or high levels of crime”.
Previously councils had to seek approval of the head of the government’s housing department, currently Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner, before handing out a license.
But from 23 December councils can issue these permits to landlords on their own, in a move resisted by the private sector.
However, the government says the measure is needed as part of its drive towards a “private rented sector that offers a greater security of tenure and safer, higher quality homes for renters”.
The housing department adds that licenses cannot be used “in isolation” and councils must be able to show this is part of an overall policy to improve homelessness, empty homes, regeneration, or anti-social behaviour among private tenants.
It adds that after issuing a license, or a designation, “local housing authorities must continue to monitor designations to show that they are achieving the desired effect”.
Licenses will come into force three months after they are issued and will last up to five years.
But landlords claim this scheme is unnecessary, as the government’s wide-ranging Renters’ Rights Bill, currently making its way through Parliament, includes a new database of landlords among its provisions.
National Residential Landlords Association policy director Chris Norris says: “It makes no sense that while planning to create a national database of private landlords, the government now wants to make it easier for councils to license landlords as well.
“Ministers must clarify how they plan to prevent the two schemes from duplicating each other. A failure to do so risks them becoming nothing more than cash cows.
“Data from 2021 to 2023 shows that seven of the top ten most proactive councils issuing improvement notices to private sector landlords did not have selective licensing schemes in place.
“This clearly demonstrates that licensing schemes do not automatically lead to higher levels of enforcement by councils.”
