The national residential landlords association has put forward a solution that they say will streamline workloads for landlords and make it easier for the "vast majority of compliant landlords to prove to tenants what they already do, namely providing decent and safe housing" and that those landlords who don't so prove their bona fides "will have no option but to shape up or ship out."

The proposal is for a system of "property passports" that could exist via an online portal accessible to tenants and where a landlord would be responsible for uploading all relevant property documentation such as gas safety certificates and EPCs etc. and where the landlord would also self certify that they were compliant.

To back the passport system up though, the NRLA says that local authorities would need to be better at enforcement, starting off by doing spot checks of passported properties in their area but also using their existing powers more effectively and in a more targeted fashion as currently, it says, authorities are failing both tenants and landlords by not enforcing properly. The organisation does concede though that government has its role to play in ensuring that local authority enforcement teams will be properly funded and resourced to carry out enforcement work.

The NRLA's report, Decent Homes and the Private Rented Sector, can be accessed here.