Jon Trickett – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Communities and Local Government

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jon Trickett on 2016-10-07.

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what steps he is taking to help strengthen local authority powers to deal with rogue landlords.

Gavin Barwell

The Government introduced a package of measures in the Housing and Planning Act 2016 to help local authorities crack down on rogue landlords. They comprise civil penalties of up to £30,000 as an alternative to prosecution, the expansion of Rent Repayment Orders to cover a wider range of offences, a database of rogue landlords and property agents and banning orders to prevent serious and prolific offenders from being involved in the renting out or management of private rented properties. In addition, over the past five years, we have have made £12 million available to a range of local authorities to help them tackle acute and complex problems associated with rogue landlords. This has resulted in the inspection of over 70,000 properties with more than 5,000 landlords now facing further enforcement action.