Some London councils have been awarded funding to take on dodgy landlords.
The government has given £5m in grants nationally, in London ranging from over £400,000 for Newham to £15,000 for Croydon. The money will help boroughs root out illegal 'beds in sheds' and check that homes for rent are of decent standards and not overcrowded.
Newham has been leading the charge on rogue landlords, implementing the first borough landlord licensing scheme in January 2013. It's issued over 35,000 licences, prosecuted 707 landlords and banned 26 from operating in Newham. It's also collected more than £900,000 in council tax from properties where the landlord has converted them into multiple flats or bedsits and 'forgot' to notify the council. Sir Robin Wales, Newham's mayor, said
It is right that government recognises in the face of the harsh cuts they are inflicting that councils need extra funding to enable them to continue with initiatives like these. Newham has a well established landlord licensing scheme which targets criminal landlords, while supporting the good ones and their tenants.
Waltham Forest's licensing scheme has issued 15,000 licences since being set up in 2015, and last week a team of police and council officers visited over 800 rented homes in the course of a day. They found 32 unlicensed properties and are now able to take forward prosecutions on 13 landlords.
The funding has been allocated as follows:
- Barking and Dagenham £250,000
- Brent £295,000
- Croydon £15,000
- Ealing £150,000
- Enfield £360,000
- Greenwich £175,000
- Hackney £36,400
- Hammersmith and Fulham £91,000
- Haringey £100,000
- Hounslow £67,500
- Islington £112,500
- Kensington and Chelsea £91,000
- Lambeth £90,000
- Lewisham £151,378
- Newham £428,241
- Southwark £31,200
- Tower Hamlets £100,000
- Waltham Forest £225,000
