Because I was buying the property from a housing association, they were duty-bound to ensure that I was a responsible landlord who could prove via a track record and live examples that I would…
- Bring the property up to a similar standard to the neighbours’ and b) would look after any potential Tenants in a professional and safe manner.
- This also seemed more important than the price I paid too. I made one (low) offer and it was accepted immediately upon passing the test. This got me thinking in light of all this talk of Landlord licensing.
Surely the best way of ensuring that licensing works is making sure it doesn’t allow rogues to fly under the radar and avoid punishment.
Licensing in its current form will only increase costs for the responsible & possible Landlords which will actually have the opposite of the desired effect: it will squeeze the good Landlords and give more opportunities to the bad Landlords.
As a suggestion how about, instead of licensing Landlords retrospectively (I.e. once they’ve bought the property, why not ensure that only a reputable and responsible Landlord buys it in the first place?
Making investment properties more affordable to good Landlords will weed out the rogues and perhaps when the buy-to-let mortgage industry becomes regulated, this should be one of their criteria for lending.
If the property is already owned, this wouldn’t be possible but after it would only be a matter of time before every property was bought by a new person.
Yes, there would be loopholes and ways round it like any new policy, but surely prevention is always better than cure?
Love, a proud new homeowner.
Nick
