Agenda item

Report of the Director of Environment and Resident Experience.  To be introduced by the Cabinet Member for Housing Services, Private Renters and Planning.

The Cabinet Member for Housing Services, Private Renters and Planning introduced the report which sought approval for consultation to commence in relation to the designation of the whole of the area of the London Borough of Haringey to be subject to Additional HMO licensing for the period from 27 May 2024 up to no later than 26 May 2029, licensing fees and licensing conditions.

RESOLVED to

1.            Agree that officers consult on the following:

a)    designation of the whole of the area of the London Borough of Haringey to be subject to Additional HMO licensing for the period from 27 May 2024 up to no later than 26 May 2029.

b)    licensing fees and charges detailed at Appendix 2.

c)    licensing conditions detailed at Appendix 3.

Reasons for decision

The Government sees the private rented sector as having an important and long-term role in meeting the housing needs of the nation. One of the key powers available to local authorities to improve property standards and management practices in this sector is through the utilisation of discretionary licensing powers bestowed on local authorities through the Housing Act 2004.

A third of Haringey’s population live in homes rented from a private landlord. More than one home in every four rented from a private landlord in Haringey is in such poor condition that it presents a risk of harm to the health or safety of its tenants¹. The Council’s vision through the current Corporate Delivery Plan 2023-24 is for a borough where everyone has a safe, sustainable, stable, and affordable home. One of the fundamental principles of property licensing is to ensure that residents who live in the private rented sector have access to this. Although HMO accommodation makes up only a small percentage of the overall private rented sector, it is a part of the sector that poses the greatest risk to tenants. Through the HMO Licensing scheme, we will be able to contribute towards addressing these issues and achieving this vision.

[¹ Haringey Corporate delivery Plan 2023-2024]

The Corporate Delivery Plan highlights the correlation that improving housing has with our ability as a council to respond to:

·           our climate emergency,

·           supporting residents during the cost-of-living crisis,

·           addressing inequality and

·           building strong communities.

The existing additional HMO licensing scheme has contributed towards achieving these commitments and specifically towards achieving the Council’s pledge to ‘Deliver homes for the future;’ by improving the quality of the private rented sector and supporting the reduction in households presenting as homeless.’

It is anticipated that a further scheme of this type will continue to contribute towards this pledge.

We will also through the scheme, work with and educate landlords, encouraging them to improve the quality of their housing stock voluntarily including enhancing the energy efficiency of their properties.

The Council’s existing Housing Strategy 2017-2022 and proposed Housing Strategy 2022-2027 (which was recently consulted upon from September to December 2022 and is due to be adopted by about November 2023) both endorse the use of additional HMO Licensing. Officers consider that using these measures, combined with the council’s existing enforcement powers under Part 1 of the Housing Act 2004, will contribute to its strategic objectives, which are to improve Haringey’s property condition and management.

The intelligence held relating to licenced HMO premises such as their location, who the licence holder is, and the number of occupants it should have has shown to facilitate the work of a wide range of council officers when undertaking their own investigations or enforcement action. This level of available detail often expedites investigations, creating greater partnership working and achieving more successful outcomes.

The existing 2019 HMO Licensing scheme designation has allowed us to see the benefits of having borough wide HMO licensing in Haringey. Not having the further powers provided by this type of additional property licensing, would mean us having only limited options available to protect private tenants and ensure landlords behave responsibly. Because the scheme is financed by licence fee income it can deliver those interventions economically.

A key benefit of the licensing scheme is that it enables the Council to take a proactive approach to enforcement against poor property conditions, in particular identifying at-risk properties and undertaking inspections, rather than waiting until a resident has notified the Council of an issue, which may be weeks or months after it arises, or even may not be resolved at all.

This is particularly important given that residents in the PRS are likely to be more vulnerable, transient and may have less regular contact with the Council that would otherwise enable issues to be picked up. For instance, they may be representative of the marginalised communities that live in Haringey such as being recent arrivals, or where English may be a second language. Moreover, they may be vulnerable to exploitation because of discrimination they face because of their minority ethnic profile, and/or lower socio-economic status. This is set out in the Equalities Impact Assessment at Appendix 3.

Although progress and good outcomes have been achieved through the existing HMO Licensing scheme in Haringey, we are acutely aware that further work is required if we are to improve the sector overall. The current HMO licensing scheme has.

§   Allowed us to identify where HMO are in the borough, information available publicly on the council’s property licensing register. There are currently 3375 Licensed HMO listed on this register.

§   Given us a database of license holders, a named person who is responsible and accountable for the property at all times.

§   identified some of the deficiencies within this sector through both the application process and through compliance inspections.

§   Given many tenants protection from illegal eviction.

Improving conditions within the PRS, maintaining the quality and management of this type of housing, changing the perception that tenants and residents have of this sector and the way the Council deal with non-compliant landlords, as well as creating a positive relationship with our letting agents and landlords, is a cultural change that was always going to take longer than 5 years to achieve. The impact of the covid pandemic on the delivery of our current HMO Licensing scheme can also not be understated.

We believe that we are at the infancy of this journey and remain excited about the future prospects that having Additional HMO Licensing can bring to our borough. Ensuring compliance is assessed and that interventions are put in place to address non-compliance is a key objective of the scheme and one that has been impacted on by the pandemic. Providing better support for renters who are experiencing landlord harassment, illegal eviction or wish to take civil prosecutions against their landlords continues to be an aspiration of our licensing schemes and one we wish to improve.

Alternative options considered.

The council could decide to do nothing. Doing nothing is not a viable option due to the significant scale of poor housing conditions and the poor management of HMO in the borough as outlined in paragraphs 6.2-6.6 of the report. To do nothing would mean relying on a reactive property inspection programme, which depends heavily upon complaints being made by tenants as the means of identifying poor HMO standards. Without HMO licensing our human resources to do this as well as powers to achieve compliance would be limited. Doing nothing would also mean an inability to continue to work in the way that has been established through having the existing HMO Licensing regime and would reduce the amount of operational partnership working that we are in the infancy of developing.

Use of Part 1. The council could continue to rely on Part 1 Housing Act 2004enforcement powers alone. Those powers include issuing Improvement Notices, Hazard Awareness Notices or Prohibition Orders to improve living conditions or remove hazards, among other things. This formal action however is slow with appeal provisions against most types of notices served, which can significantly delay the time period for compliance. In addition, the council’s powers under Part 1 do not enable it to regulate the management of property as licensing schemes do. The Part 1 provisions are currently available to the council but despite our best efforts to exercise these powers they have not provided the necessary large-scale improvements in the sector. All the above options are time consuming, resource intensive and not feasible on a large scale.

Voluntary Regulation. The council could rely on voluntary accreditation schemes or landlord membership organisations, such as the National Landlord Association or the Residential Landlords Association. These can help to support and improve a professional approach by landlords, and we have encouraged this by promoting voluntary regulation through voluntary accreditation schemes, but this does not give the council any additional powers to take enforcement action against non-compliance.

Opting for a smaller designation within the Borough. The data analysis and evidence gathering has highlighted that HMO exists across all wards in Haringey. There is no evidence that any one particular ward has HMO of a better quality than another and there is no evidence to suggest that any one ward has property owned by landlords who are more compliant than another. It is therefore proposed that HMO Licensing continues to be required borough wide.