You are viewing 1 of your 1 free articles
Tower Hamlets Council to ask Javid for borough-wide landlord licensing
Tower Hamlets Council has decided to ask Sajid Javid if it can expand its private landlord licensing scheme to cover the whole borough.
The mayor agreed last night to start a consultation process for the expanded licensing scheme, which would make it one of only a handful of local authorities to have borough-wide scheme.
Councils are not allowed to extend selective licensing to more than 20% of their geographical area without permission from the secretary of state.
Tower Hamlets’ plan is not as wide ranging as some, which covers all landlords, but will be limited to homes occupied by three or more tenants from two or more households.
READ MORE
The cabinet report on the proposals noted that the private rented sector had overtaken social housing as the largest tenure in the borough and the council is forming new policies accordingly.
It also said that a borough-wide licensing scheme would help the council prevent homelessness by identifying and working with landlords to reduce evictions.
Another area the council believes a licensing scheme would be useful is in identifying owners of empty properties to bring them back into use.
Newham Council was the first council to bring in a borough-wide mandatory licensing scheme for all private landlords in 2013. The government, however, ruled in 2015 that local authorities had to obtain permission from the secretary of state to extend licensing schemes beyond 20% of their geographical area.
In December, Newham successfully renewed its licensing scheme, though the Olympic Village area was excluded.
Other councils, such as Redbridge, have tried to bring in similar schemes, but have been blocked by the government.
Update, at 4.30pm on 1.2.2018
This story was updated from an earlier version which described Newham’s scheme as the only borough-wide licensing scheme. In fact, other councils have followed Newham to introduce their own schemes.
