Housing minister Sajid Javid plans to plug a hole in the fight against bad landlords with a national database of offenders.
The system is due to go live from April 2018 and will list banning orders against rogue landlords.
The measure will stop landlords with convictions for housing offences in one council area from letting homes in another council area.
Until now, rogue landlords renting out homes in more than one council area were able to avoid detection as councils did not swop data about offenders.
From April, if a landlord or letting agent is convicted of one of a list of offences, the council can apply to the First Tier Tribunal for a banning order, which will see the offender's details posted to the database.
Only councils will have access to the database, so tenants will not see if their prospective landlord has any convictions.
Meanwhile, The Treasury is offering a £2 million reward to fintech entrepreneurs who can develop a system for improving credit scores for tenants.
The aim is to include rent payment information on credit profiles to ease applying for mortgage applications for renters.
Economic Secretary to the Treasury Stephen Barclay said: "People's monthly rent is often their biggest expense, so it makes sense for it to be recognised when applying for a mortgage. Without a good credit score, getting a mortgage can be a real struggle.
Sounds like Sajid Javid has missed a couple of tricks there.
It seems to protect only tenants receiving benefits, if only the Council has access to the database. What about protection for private tenants?
And what about protection for decent landlords? A database listing rogue tenants is long overdue.
25 years ago Malcolm, there was a data base for landlords to list rogue tenants. It was called List666,there is a certain irony there, run by SW Landlords Assoc, now defunct. But they had to stop publishing the lists as I believe legal action was threatened, as it was against the Human Rights and Data Protection etc. of the poor rogue tenant!!!
The Guild took over the list but it was rarely used. The reality was that landlords didn't bother putting tenants on the list. Even when they did, others didn't bother checking the list before letting tenants in because they often only had that one applicant and so almost had to let it to them. The list was very localised so chances of finding anyone were very remote too. What was needed was a national list to capture more names. It got to a point where there was just no point running the list anymore.
These people used to work on a national list based system but presumably encountered the same problem of a lack of landlords actually putting names on the list and are now focused on credit checks (similar to what we also provide). Credit checking is still the most reliable option combined with a home owning guarantor because the credit check captures general spending and if they have credit problems regardless of whether they've been a tenant or not.
I had a a family rent my lovely modern 3 bed detached house. He claimed to be a builder who had sold his own house and wanted a 6 month's let while he looked to buy another house. When I finally got them out, they owed me a lot of back rent, the house stank of dogs and carpets ruined with dog pee. He was an employee of a builder and the credit agency clearly had not checked his story. They just failed to get a previous landlord reference because of his story. He also had some scam running with an elderly gentleman whom his wife had persuaded to pay bits of the rent very occasionally. I took him to the bank and he then realised he was being defrauded.
The tenant eventually left, of course with no forwarding address. I managed to find it but was reluctant to tell his new landlord otherwise I might have been guilty of interfering with the tenant's human rights. Ha! Clearly he was a professional rogue tenant.
Thanks for that Guildy. certainly for me to let a home owning guarantor is an absolute must.I was not aware the Guild do credit checks, cost pls?
Cost is £12.50 including VAT. Full details here.