A senior Savills figure, who chairs the trade body known as The Lettings Industry Council, has issued a warning to the government not too further scare landlords away from the rentals sector.
Theresa Wallace - TLIC chair and head of Savills’ lettings customer service division - has responded to a Daily Telegraph story, based on a freedom of Information request, which has revealed that thousands of landlords have been hit with fines because they did not know their properties had to be licensed.
Wallace tells the paper: “We don’t have enough landlords and we have lost a lot of them from the sector. Scaring them out is not helping the industry. I don’t think the scheme is very well publicised. Why would anyone think to look on their local authority website? Anybody could be caught out by pure naivety.”
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Absurd level of fines for making LLs join a scheme whose small print they are unfamiliar with, then punishing them like this for being unfamiliar with that small print, and its not even vaguely commensurate with the offence. Miss your tax return its £100, not £15,000. Blatant profiteering for councils involved, and a race to the bottom if they carry on like this.
They have to pay for the CEOs and staff pensions somehow.
The licensing schemes are a nightmare. Councils should never have been allowed to establish their own licensing criteria- this should have been a single, national mandate. Costs should be commensurate with the likes of an MOT. What is kore, councils should be required to use at least 50% of revenues generated for pro-active enforcement and should also be legally required to process an application within 28 days of receipt (which is insanely long)-as opposed to some councils that are taking a year or sometimes more!!! The premise is good and right- but that is the only thing they got right.
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