In a criminal case currently (June 2022) being heard before Canterbury Crown Court a Thanet based letting agency and its staff are accused of an orchestrated campaign of violence and vandalism directed at tenants.

“Reform” of the private rented sector (PRS) has been a long time coming, so long that it’s often seemed like every administration, no matter the political colour, has in the past been scared off by the size of the task.

Many of us are aware, not just from TV screen images of queueing ambulances outside hospitals but from our own personal experiences or those of family or friends, that our health service is under very serious strain. If more proof were needed then the news that, such is the backlog, 6.5 million people in England alone are awaiting hospital treatment, should be proof enough.

Whether or not you think the question is rhetorical, it is the case that an element of professionalism is increasingly required of landlords operating in the private rented sector and that this requirement isn’t just coming from tenants and groups supporting or lobbying for tenant interests.

Throughout the last decade, Local Authorities have had to react and adapt radically to a series of almost existential (in some cases) challenges to how they provide services to their residents, businesses and communities. Those challenges won’t be fading away anytime soon and the importance of the role that local council’s play is evidenced in the way that much government support for sections of the public is being channelled through councils.

Reading through residential property media these days isn’t guaranteed to calm a landlord’s nerves nor, for that matter, those of the average tenant, agent, environmental health officer or councillor. The sector seems to be experiencing a fever dream and it might be a while before the fever breaks.

With new rental reform legislation in the pipeline and at least 36 pieces of current legislation and associated regulations to cope with as well as, in some areas, local authority selective licensing conditions and associated fees it can seem for private landlords as if they are under the cosh on a permanent basis. But what’s the reality, and are private landlords, as a class, “hard done by”?

Arguably, the April 2022 report into regulation of the private rented sector by the House of Commons public accounts committee (PAC) didn’t really tell us anything that we didn’t already know...

In 2019 an independent review carried out for the Government concluded that Selective Licensing is an effective tool for use by Local Authorities in dealing with private rented sector housing problems in their areas. But, and certainly in the current pandemic related financial situation, can partnership working be an improvement on the current way of working for Local Authorities that decide to use the Selective Licensing tool available to them?

A recent report from the BRE (Building Research Establishment) estimates that the annual total cost to the NHS of treating patients suffering from the impact of their living conditions in properties within England is around £1.4 billion per year.