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According to the London Evening Standard, Mayor of London and Tory leadership hopeful, Boris Johnson, has responded to the government’s consultation on how to make improvements to the private rental sector, which accounts for 40 per cent of all homes in the capital.
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Published on Twitter
The 16-page document has been published on the Department of Communities and Local Government Website, as well as via Twitter.
Boris’s demands include:
o Rogue letting agents in the private rental sector should be banned
o Repeat offenders to be given steep fines
o Letting agent fees need to be more transparent
o A public database of criminal landlords
Boris’s deputy, Richard Blakeway, also wants the London Assembly to be handed more control over landlord licensing schemes in the capital:
“This is in the spirit of not placing additional burdens on good landlords but strengthening London-wide efforts to eradicate bad practice by landlords and agents.”
The published document states that the government is considering blacklisting letting agents and landlords under the following circumstances:
• Offender has been convicted (or sentenced) in the Crown Court for any offence involving fraud, violence, drugs or sexual assault which was committed at any residential premises which the offender (or a person associated with him) owned or was involved in the management of and which neither he, nor the associated person, occupied as their main residence;
• Offender has been convicted (or sentenced) in the Crown Court for any offence that was committed against or in conjunction with any person who was residing at the residential premises owned by the offender (other than a person associated with him);
• Where an offender has been found guilty on two or more occasions of a relevant housing offence (whether in the magistrates’ court or in the Crown Court).
