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• National register would crackdown on rogue landlords
• Anyone letting a home would require a £50 licence
The government is considering introducing a national register under which all private landlords would have to apply for a licence to let property, it was reported today.
Anyone letting a home, including those who are doing so because they have been unable to find a buyer, would be obliged to pay a licence fee of around £50, according to a report in the Times .
The move, which is aimed at cracking down on rogue landlords, would affect more than 1 million people in England and Wales.
The plans follow an independent review into the private rented sector carried out last year for the governmnet's communities and local government department by Julie Rugg, a senior research fellow at the centre for housing policy at the University of York.
Rugg recommended the introduction of a "light touch licensing system" for landlords, along with mandatory regulation for letting agencies, aimed at increasing protection for both vulnerable tenants and decent landlords.
A spokesman for the department said it would be issuing a response to the review in the next few weeks.
Under the proposals, landlords could be required to adhere to certain standards, and failure to do so could see them struck off. It is thought this could include a penalty points scheme similar to that used for driving licences; after a certain number of points the landlord would lose his or her licence.
The National Landlords Association said it could not comment on the plans until more detail was available, but it hoped the government would "not just introduce burdensome regulation which will almost invariably not improve the experience of tenants in the sector".
However, the proposals were welcomed by the Association of Residential Letting Agents (Arla). Operations manager, Ian Potter, said: "We are fully supportive of these plans. We have been asking for 10 years for the government to regulate letting agents."
Arla today launched its own licensing scheme to cover all its members. Member agents will be obliged to adhere to a number of requirements, including holding a professional qualification, keeping client funds in annually-audited client bank accounts, and holding valid professional indemnity insurance.
The housing charity Shelter said Arla's move was a "positive step in the right direction".
Changing climate
The landscape for private landlords has changed dramatically over the past two years. The availability of buy-to-let mortgages has dwindled and finance for would-be landlords is harder to come by. Andrew Hagger, a spokesman for comparison website Moneynet, said a decade of "booming house prices and a 'me too' mentality to make a quick buck" had seen borrowers and lenders get their fingers burnt in the buy-to-let sector.
"Too many people got carried away with hearing how others were raking in the monthly rental income, but without appreciating the potential pitfalls or having the financial back up to cope when things didn't go according to plan," Hagger said.
He added that around 30 lenders were currently offering buy-to-let mortgages and requiring deposits of 30%-40%, while 18 months ago there were almost 100 lenders requiring deposits of just 10%-15%.
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