LettingaProperty.com have learnt that the Government are proposing a national register for private landlords. The aim of the register is to crack down on rogue landlords that fail to fulfil their duties when it comes to property repairs and returning of tenants’ deposits.
The new legislation which will likely be introduced in the autumn will see that landlords that let property privately will be required to pay a registration fee of £40 online and agree to a set of standards before they can let out the property.
The landlord’s details, including all of the property addresses that they let, will be passed onto the local councils so that they may intervene in the instance when a tenant complains. They may even have the power to ban landlords from letting property in severe cases.
This legislation may also include live-in Landlords who rent out a spare room in their property. These so called “spare-room” landlords have been the UK’s fasted growing rental sector with figures from the Abbey showing that the number of landlords taking in lodgers has more than doubled to 981,000 as homeowners have looked at ways to assist with their struggling finances. Abbey have estimated that homeowners net an average of £6,412 per year from lodger rents.
The National Landlords Association (NLA), which is opposed to a national register, said that giving details to the Revenue would set a dangerous precedent as at present; tax inspectors only have access to details of a landlord where they can obtain evidence of tax evasion.
Revenue and Customs admitted to the Times Newspaper that it had few details about tax income from private landlords as it is split between personal self –assessment tax returns and corporate returns. Nor does it have any idea how many landlords evade tax.
Officials from the Department of Communities and Local Government have insisted that the register is not a tool for cracking down on tax evasion but rather in assisting local authorities in tracking bad landlords.
