Brent Council in London has opened a public consultation on plans to designate a new, phased, selective licensing scheme covering the private rented sector across 21 wards in the borough.

On 1st June 2022 we reported on a housing standards prosecution taken by City of Wolverhampton Council against a landlord who had put his tenants "at serious risk" to their health and safety due to numerous breaches of housing management regulations. On that occasion the landlord had to pay £4,808 in fines, costs and surcharges.

Proposed Company Limited bought the maisonette flats in 1993 but had refused to carry out repairs that had been reported to them. Officers from Barking & Dagenham council's private sector housing team made several visits to the flats and ordered the freehold landlord to carry out repairs within a set period but were ignored.

On 6 May 2022 we reported on a First Tier Tribunal (FTT) case involving an unlicensed HMO in the borough of Haringey in London. The property was a warehouse occupied by "property guardians". The FTT imposed a rent repayment order (RRO) of just over £31,000 and the landlord appealed against this amount.

The council served an improvement notice on the landlord following tenant complaints about living conditions in their rented home. The complaint triggered a visit from the council's Environmental Protection team who found a series of hazards inside the property including excess cold and electrical disrepair.

Andrew Stephenson MP, Under Secretary of State at the Dept' for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, has confirmed that Rental Reform remains a priority for the current Government and that "we will want to bring forward the legislation in good time so that it can go through all the stages before the next general election.

After their private sector housing team carried out an inspection of a property in Hawarden (in Deeside) which was occupied by 5 people, the council deemed the property to be an unlicensed HMO. The council inspection also showed that "other housing laws" had been broken.

Who’d be a private landlord today? Certainly it’s obvious that many private rented sector landlords (on the evidence of local press interviews and property portal commentary) feel, shall we say, under-appreciated. But the question can also be asked - could they look at things from a different perspective?

Middlesbrough Council is set to open a public consultation on extending selective licensing in the Newport area of the borough with a projected start date for the new scheme of April 2023 if the Council Executive gives the go ahead after the 10 week consultation period has concluded.

Nottingham Council has announced that it has been awarded Government funds to enable it to enforce energy efficiency regulations saying "this funding will help create a new team who will be making sure that properties are meeting the national minimum energy efficiency standards [MEES] and that no rental property has an EPC (energy performance certificate) below 'E'."