Investors wary of national landlord register
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Landlords fear that a government proposal to force all landlords in England to register on a national database will end up driving investors away from the buy-to-let market.
The government first mooted proposals for a national landlord register in May.
The idea is to that landlords and letting agents would have to pay an annual registration fee to an independent organisation in return for a landlord registration number.
This number would then be included on tenancy agreements, in court proceedings, and in housing benefit claims.
Paragon Mortgages Trends survey of around 200 landlords found that some 57% of those polled believe that the landlords will be forced out of the market altogether because of the increased regulatory costs.
A further 56% believe that the introduction of such a register would deter landlords from making further investments in the rental sector.
Nearly half of respondents did not believe the register would do anything to raise standards in the buy-to-let market, while one third argued that it would also offer no benefit to tenants.
John Heron, managing director at Paragon Mortgages, says: “Landlords are already subject to an estimated 50 Acts of Parliament and 70 sets of regulation, so they are naturally going to be sceptical about the introduction of another major regulatory initiative.
“Whilst it is right that the government takes steps to drive out the rogue elements of the private rented sector, it must ensure that any regulation is fair and proportionate.”
He adds: “The government needs the private rented sector to grow to help support the rapid formation of new households in the UK and its expanding population, so it should be careful of introducing legislation that may damage individuals’ desire to invest in the sector.”
Readers' comments (2)
Rod Moulton | 28 Sep 2009 4:11 pm
National Landlord Register
As John Heron says, there are numerous Acts and Regulations governing the letting of residential property. This latest proposal says what it will do, but does not state why - the answer of course is simple - yet another stream of income for the government to be drawn from a soft target.
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London Landlord | 4 Feb 2010 0:34 am
True. I agree with NLA. I think the government is being stupid. Look at the way housing benefit works now, they got LHA, which is a good idea, but the payment made to tenant is not being paid to landlords. So what option does that leaves to the landlord, if the rent is not paid, what can a landlord do?
The government lives in a fairyland, they dont realise a lot of unemployed tenant have finance problems and many are also on drugs or have gambling addiction. Government need to wake up. Some of the tenants are claiming housing benefit and not paying the rent, shouldn't that be seen as benefit fraud?
Secondly the register for landlord will not work. Best thing to do is have a ombudsman to work by resolving issues for tenants and landlord. And the deposit protection scheme should be scrapped, the deposit protection scheme is not working and its very unlikely the landlord register will work.
Just open a ombudsman for tenants and landlords to resolve issues, scrap the deposit protection scheme, scrap paying housing benefit paid directly to the tenant, pay the housing benefit direct to the landlord, this will reduce the fraud.
Create a database for all non UK citizens. The database to contain all European Union national as well as all foreign nationals to ensure they dont cheat the housing benefit system. I know there are lots of fraud due to the government paying housing benefit to the tenant, now the tenant dont pay the rent, and secondly once they get tenancy agreement then they stop paying the rent and claim housing benefit, so the landlord evicts them, however the tenant use mail redirection letter with the post office services to redirect all housing benefit cheques to other address and they cash the cheque, when the innocent landlords have no idea whats going on as he have already evicted the tenant and knows nothing about the housing benefit claim as the landlord is not informed the tenant is claiming the housing benefit. Now why should the landlords get punished???
Look at the tenant, the tenant offers no security, they just run away with rent, furnitures, and appliances, now when these tenants steal and leaves without paying rent then the landlord have to be very worried next time s/he rents out as they dont want same things happening again. So get the tenant sorted, get the law sorted to protect landlords too just like there is law overprotecting the tenants then see whether the landlord follows and works ethically.
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