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The ways in which landlords are ruled not fit to let properties should be made public, according to a city councillor. Ross McKenzie also wants greater clarity on how the council determines what action to take on tribunal findings against Edinburgh landlords. The independent councillor for the Sighthill/Gorgie ward has put forward a motion before the next full council meeting on Thursday calling for the information to be released publicly. Additionally, if passed, it would ask the city’s regulatory committee to assess what changes are needed to strengthen the council’s enforcement of the private rental sector. It comes on the back of a research report by tenant’s union Living Rent, which said that the council’s current enforcement of housing and tenancy law was insufficient. The union has recently shared examples of Edinburgh landlords who were brought before a housing tribunal. One landlord, fined £3,300, told a tribunal that “the law cannot tell us what to do”, while the tribunal said it had a ‘poor impression’ of another landlord’s understanding of the law. Sign up for our Breaking Newsletter and stay up to date on the latest news stories from Edinburgh and the Lothians. Cllr McKenzie’s motion says that it is unclear what process is followed when a decision is made against a landlord at the housing tribunal. It asks that council officers discuss how tribunal decisions are communicated to the council, and how those decisions are assessed against the ‘fit and proper person’ test. Further, it requests that the ‘thresholds and criteria’ used to determine whether enforcement actions against landlords should follow. If passed, the motion would see the information placed in either a report to the city’s housing committee or an update to the city’s regulatory committee. It also asks council private rental enforcement officers to investigate outstanding decisions by housing tribunals against city landlords. And, if appropriate, it asks them to make recommendations for enforcement to the city’s licensing sub-committee. Earlier this year, the Local Democracy Reporting Service found that William Lennie, a city landlord with a history of letting offences, was given an £8 million homeless housing contract. Mr Lennie pled guilty to unregistered letting and running unlicensed HMOs in 2010, and received a fine. He also told the LDRS that he had also been charged with a range of other letting offences in the past, including housing benefit and mortgage fraud. The Living Rent report cited it as an example of the failure of the city’s private rental sector enforcement, along with a number of other incidents. It also said that a freedom of information request it filed found that the council had no record of the number of landlords who had been struck from the register. Local authorities have the power to issue rent penalty notices for failure to register a property, which temporarily prevent landlords from collecting rents. And, they can refer landlords to the courts, with a maximum penalty of £50,000 or up to five years in prison. Where landlords are letting out properties with three or more tenants without a House in Multiple Occupation licence, they can seek a fine of up to £50,000. The report said the council had, since 2017, received 3,608 complaints of unregistered landlords, and 789 of unlicensed HMOs or HMOs in poor condition. It said that, from the complaints, the council referred two cases to the Procurator Fiscal for criminal prosecution. And 119 rent penalty notices had been issued for unregistered properties, as well as 180 rent suspension notices for unlicensed HMOs. Living Rent’s report spelled out several cases where Edinburgh landlords had breached tenancy law, but still remained on the landlord register. In one case, the housing tribunal had found that the interior of one city flat was “not wind and watertight and is not reasonably fit for human habitation.” Tribunal judges found that the landlord had failed to repair issues with the flat, despite ‘years of complaints’ from the tenant. Among the issues were extensive damage to the kitchen of the flat, and that the boiler in the property had failed on a ‘daily basis’. In another case, the tribunal found that a landlord had wrongfully evicted six people, including four children, from a property, causing them to present to the council as homeless. One of the two joint tenants had to use crutches due to a disability, and two of the children have autism. The landlord had evicted the tenants on the grounds that they intended to live in the property. But the property was re-advertised for rent at a higher price eight days after a notice to quit was issued. The next full Edinburgh Council meeting will be held on Thursday, October 30.
