Short-Term Letting

Lord Tebbit Excerpts

Thursday 26th April 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

Responsibility for enforcement rests, as the noble Lord recognises, with local authorities. They have quite wide powers of enforcement, and potentially there is a £20,000 fine for breach of the 90-day rule if people do not comply with the enforcement notice. Information would be made available to local authorities if, for example, neighbours or people in a block of flats felt that that 90-day limit was being extended. In addition, some of the platforms with which you register to rent out your property now have a 90-day cap on the number of days you can let out your property using that platform.

[Lord Tebbit (Con)]

My Lords, can my noble friend tell me whether the Government will do anything to prevent persons who are fortunate enough to have tenancy of social housing in attractive areas, particularly in London, from sub-letting that tenancy to people who are not authorised to have such a tenancy?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

It is a breach of a tenancy agreement with a registered social landlord to sublet, and if anyone had any information that was happening, the local authorities would take tough enforcement action to make sure that people on the housing waiting list had access to that accommodation.