Consultation on licensing for rented accommodation in parts of West Bromwich

If you are a landlord with properties in West Bromwich you will be interested in our consultation on proposals to bring in two new licensing schemes.

Sandwell Council has launched a 10-week consultation on proposals to introduce two new licensing schemes in parts of West Bromwich to the improve the area and living conditions for tenants.

The consultation is being launched on Monday 27 January to give  landlords, tenants and other residents the chance to give their views on the two schemes to improve housing conditions and reduce crime and anti-social behaviour problems.

The one scheme – for selective licensing – would see landlords of all privately rented properties in the specified area needing to apply for a licence from the council.

They would also need to meet minimum management and property standards, helping to protect landlords, tenants and residents.

The second scheme – additional licensing – would mean that landlords of any house in multiple occupation not covered by mandatory licensing would need to obtain a licence.

Areas where additional and selective licensing applies, landlords must apply for a one-off licence for each self-contained house or flat that they rent.

The views of local residents – including tenants, landlords, managing agent’s businesses and other members of the local community – are being sought on plans to bring in the scheme which would affect around 3,000 private-rented properties in central West Bromwich and surrounding streets.

Under the scheme these designated streets in and around West Bromwich High Street and the town centre have been identified as areas that would see significant benefits – such as improved housing conditions, less crime and anti-social behaviour, as well as improving the image and perception of the area – if licensing was introduced.

Councils can introduce licensing under the Housing Act 2004, to tackle problems such as low housing demand, significant anti-social behaviour, poor property conditions, an influx of migration, high levels of deprivation or high levels of crime.

Councillor Joanne Hadley, cabinet member for homes, said: “We know that we have a lot of good landlords who recognise their responsibilities and care about their tenants.

“We also know that there are landlords who charge high rents, allow their tenants to live in poorly-maintained properties or don’t take action against tenants causing anti-social behaviour, and all of these are unacceptable.

“We want to make sure that all tenants – whatever their type of tenancy – live in a good standard of property in a safe neighbourhood.

“We want to hear people’s views on these licensing proposals as part of the consultation.”

The consultation which runs from Monday 27 January until Sunday 5 April is available online

The results of the consultation will be reported back to the council’s Cabinet later in the year.

 

 

Landlord portal update

I just wanted to let you know where we are up to with the landlord portal, which has been out of action about a month now.

The version of the portal we have been using has some serious issues and is no longer viable; so a decision was made to buy in a newer and better version.

Installing this is a major piece of work – it’s not just a question of downloading some software. Most of the technical issues are way above my head – I’m neither a manager nor a member of our IT staff but I have been involved enough to see that it is a complex multi-stage process and not something we can do quickly.

One issue is that because it’s a new system –  although we can transfer across some of the information about current users, this will only be a partial process.

We will very possibly need people to re-register their details with us. (Although this is something we would have eventually needed to do anyway, as data security considerations mean that we have to review everybody’s  use periodically anyway).

Of course I’ll let you know when I know what and when we might need any information from you.

In the meantime, I can only apologise for the continued delay, but I would stress that we are doing our best to get this resolved as quickly as we can.

Oliver

Housing benefit rates for private tenants set to rise

The government has announced that Local Housing Allowance (LHA) rates, used to calculate Housing Benefit for private tenants, will increase in April, following a freeze that’s been in place since 2016.

According to a Department for Work and Pensions press release, the 1.4 million people who receive LHA will get an extra £10 per month on average. We don’t have any new figures yet for Sandwell and it should be stressed that the press release talks about averages only. There are no mentions of specific amounts. We can only speculate about how this will affect rents locally as LHA rates vary by area.

Obviously we will put out an update when the final figures are confirmed.

Oliver

Council Tax Changes, the landlord portal and how to use me

If you need to tell us that a tenant has moved in or out of one of your properties, the quickest way by far, is to use on online form. This feeds through straight to the relevant section and notifications received in this way are actioned much quicker than ones received by any other route. You can find the form here.

And just to update on you on our landlord portal. Unfortunately, as per my last post, the portal is still out of action. And although I’m hoping it might be restored sooner, I’m afraid that the earliest probable date for it to be back up is the end of this month. It might be longer.

I’m very sorry of course for any inconvenience this might cause. We are though, still sending out the old fashioned paper payment schedules so that you can still allocate payments to tenant rent accounts. We never actually stopped doing this, although we know that in some larger landlords where the rents / income staff might be on a separate site from other admin staff, the right people didn’t actually realise that they had been receiving them.

The good news though is that I’m hoping when the portal is restored, it will have several new features which should definitely make it easier to use.

One more point about communication.

My job role has been slightly re-drawn over the last few months and now covers some new areas. For a while now, I haven’t been able to deal with queries about individual tenants.

This used to be the bread and butter part of my job but now, I either have to pass the query on or advise the landlord to contact our customer service team direct. (And please bear in mind that unfortunately, GDPR means that even if you do contact the right people, we might not be able to share information with you anyway – it’s always best to talk to your tenant first or if tenants can make the query themselves).

However – I am very much still here as a point of contact. If landlords have general queries about our policies or procedures or need information about our service – please do feel free to contact me. And if I’m not the right person for the query to go to – I can advise you who to contact or I can pass it on.

If you need me or have a question – please just drop me an email – oliver_wright@sandwell.gov.uk

Or if you need a chat – email me your number and the best time to ring you.

And I will let you know about the portal as soon as I can

Oliver