Unscrupulous Landlords

Debate between Jon Cruddas and Andrew Smith

Wednesday 8th September 2010 Westminster Hall

[Jon Cruddas]

If my hon. Friend will bear with me, I want to raise that precise matter. I appreciate and respect his experience.

The essential points that I want to make include the following. Most private landlords are responsible and honest in how they deal with their tenants. That is beyond dispute, but those who are not bring down the reputation of the whole sector. The Government must accept that Shelter’s investigation has uncovered significant problems with rogue landlords that require action. Many aspects of existing law are not properly enforced by local authorities. They often do not treat this as a matter of priority or do not have a properly resourced enforcement team available.

Let us consider some basic statistics from Shelter. There are just over 3 million private rented households, representing 14.2% of all households. In that sector, 1.3 million tenants—approximately 40%—are in receipt of housing benefit. The sector has surged in popularity in recent years, with the percentage of households renting privately increasing by 40% since 2001. If that rate of increase continues, there will be more private renters than social renters within the next five years.

Some 80% of private renters are aged under 55; almost one third are aged 25 to 34; 58% of 16 to 24-year-olds are private renters, and 59% of private renters expect to buy in future, compared with 27% of social renters. However, compared with two years ago, private renters expect to rent for longer before being in a position to buy their own home. Vulnerable households who rent their accommodation privately are more likely to live in non-decent homes compared with social tenants—the averages being 51% and 26% respectively.

MPs regularly deal with problems associated with unscrupulous landlords, and my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham East (Chris Leslie) touched on this. They include harassing tenants or throwing them out of their homes without notice, effectively making them homeless; failing to carry out essential maintenance, leading to unhealthy or unsafe conditions; deliberately ignoring the legal requirement to protect tenants’ deposits using an approved scheme, and then unfairly withholding the deposit at the end of the tenancy; and driving tenants into arrears by adding exorbitant fees or charges to their account without telling them, and then presenting them and their guarantors with a huge unpaid bill at the end of the tenancy.

What does the law say? Harassment and illegal eviction are criminal offences. Local authorities can prosecute landlords who commit such crimes, and can serve improvement notices or prohibition orders if housing conditions fall below acceptable standards. If the landlord fails to comply, they can be prosecuted. Landlords and letting agents are legally obliged to protect tenants’ deposits using an approved scheme, although that can be enforced only if a tenant takes the landlord to court. Landlords are now obliged to obtain a licence from their local authority to rent out larger houses in multiple occupation, and must meet certain standards to do so. Failure to obtain a licence is a criminal offence.

[Mr Andrew Smith (Oxford East) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate, and I commend the Shelter campaign. Does he agree that proper regulation of multiple occupation properties and private landlords must go hand in hand because the problems overlap? Indeed, in retreating from and watering down the measures that the Labour Government were introducing, after much campaigning by many MPs on behalf of tenants in that sector, the coalition Government risk giving a green light to rogue landlords.

[Jon Cruddas]

I agree totally, and I shall conclude my comments with similar questions. My right hon. Friend will agree that rogue landlords escape the law because of three basic elements: lack of awareness by tenants, lack of enforcement, and lack of resources afforded to authorities to carry out such tasks. On lack of awareness, victims of rogue landlords frequently do not report them because they are not aware of their rights, or fear that if they come forward their landlord will find out and evict them. On lack of enforcement, the law is not enforced often enough. For example, in 2004 only 26 landlords were convicted or cautioned for unlawful eviction, and in 2008 only one person received a custodial sentence under the Protection from Eviction Act 1977.