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Councils’ call to jail rogue landlords
Tough new measures – including
jail sentences – are needed to
tackle rogue landlords, councils
have warned.
In response to a Government
consultation, the Local Government
Association (LGA), which represents
more than 370 councils in England
and Wales, has called for stronger
sentencing guidelines for magistrates
and a wider range of penalties so that
the small minority of rogue landlords
who exploit their tenants are properly
held to account for renting out
substandard accommodation.
LGA research found it can take up
to 16 months to prosecute a rogue
operator. In almost three-quarters of
cases, the average fine for a criminal
landlord – many of whom are accruing
large profits every year while tenants
live in dangerous conditions – was
£5,000 or less. One landlord received
a fine of £100 in a case where six
tenants were left living in a property
for a year without fire alarms or proper
escape routes. In another example,
the property did not have secured
front doors and tenants discovered
strangers sleeping on their sofas.
Councils are also calling for support
to make robust decisions around
what constitutes a "fit and proper
person" to hold a landlord licence
and have broadly supported the
idea of a blacklist of persistent rogue
landlords. However they have asked
t