One of London’s big councils says landlords with properties within its boundaries have been issued with fines totalling £207,500 for not licencing HMO properties.
The extraordinary sum covers a four-year period which includes 43 fines with a further 16 warnings that were resolved before being becoming a Civil Penalty Notice.
Haringey council has warned any other landlords who have yet to licence their HMOs that as well as a fine the council will help their tenants chase them through the Tribunal system for a Rent Repayment Order.
Cllr Sarah Williams, Cabinet Member for Housing Services, Private Renters and Planning, says: “We will do everything in our power to protect our residents in the private rented sector in Haringey.
“Our HMO licensing scheme provides us with an even better platform to do this.
Renters’ rights
“Whilst we continue this journey to improve housing standards across the borough, we will fight for renters’ rights and ensure residents across Haringey live in homes that are well managed, of good quality and most of all, safe.
“As shown with this case, landlords who fail to comply will face tough enforcement action. Rogue landlords will not be tolerated in Haringey.”
The fines will cause some controversy among its landlords, whether they are compliant with its HMO and Selective Licencing schemes or not.
Decent homes
In March Haringey was censured for managing its own stock of rental properties poorly, with the Regulatory of Social Housing finding that 30% of its homes did not meet the Decent Homes Standard and that thousands of requests to repair properties had not been completed.
The council was also criticised recently following an National Residential Landlords Association (NRLA) investigation into its Additional (or HMO) licencing scheme.
It said the council’s own data revealed that “Haringey is inspecting properties but finding significantly fewer category 1 (i.e. serious) hazards than you would expect if the properties were substandard, which the council used as justification for introducing the designation”, said Samantha Watkin (pictured), Senior Policy Officer at the NRLA.
