Housing: Letting Agents

Lord Palmer of Childs Hill Excerpts

Tuesday 31st October 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, my noble friend has raised this issue on occasion; I am grateful to her. She will be aware that there are considerable powers to proscribe bad landlords, which are exercised, and there are powers to fine them. We will bring in additional banning provisions before next April, which I am sure will please her. However, there is already a battery of powers with regard to poor landlords.

[Lord Palmer of Childs Hill (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for confirming that the measure, which was really an enabling part of the legislation, will be introduced shortly. However, can he and his department also commit to putting real resources into enforcement to ensure that rogue letting agents are driven out of the market? Furthermore, will he take back to the Government the possibility of ring-fencing the fines and compliance costs so that, when those moneys are obtained by local authorities, they can be used for enforcement rather than for other matters?

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

I am grateful to the noble Lord, whom I know has done a lot of work on client money protection. I reiterate that the consultation will be forthcoming this week, along with the draft Bill on letting agents. The noble Baroness, Lady Grender, who is not in her place at present, has worked hard on that. We are concentrating resources on tackling bad landlords and are doing what we can to improve the market, which is important to us all.