Sadiq Khan has vowed to name and shame unscrupulous landlords and letting agents!
Unscrupulous landlords and letting agents who exploit their tenants will have ‘nowhere to hide’ as the Mayor Sadiq Khan today fulfilled a manifesto commitment and launched a new public online database to protect people privately renting homes in the capital.
The Mayor’s new Rogue Landlord and Agent Checker – the first such database in the country – ‘names and shames’ landlords and lettings agents who have been successfully prosecuted or have faced civil enforcement action for housing offences.
The Mayor believes the database, published on the City Hall website, will give Londoners greater confidence in renting a home by allowing them to check a prospective landlord or letting agent, as well as acting as a clear deterrent to the minority of landlords and letting agents who behave dishonestly.
Ahead of its launch, records from 10 London boroughs (Brent, Camden, Greenwich, Islington, Kingston, Newham, Southwark, Sutton, Waltham Forest, Westminster) and the London Fire Brigade have been published on the database, meaning more than 600,000 renters can now check rogue landlords and agents in their area – equivalent to 25 per cent of all renters living across the city.
A further eight boroughs (Barking and Dagenham, Croydon, Enfield, Hackney, Haringey, Lewisham, Redbridge and Tower Hamlets) have agreed to submit records in the coming weeks and the Mayor has today said he hopes all other London councils will soon add their data to help protect tenants living in their boroughs. The Mayor has no power to require local councils to submit their data, but has been working in close partnership with all boroughs to develop this new database on a London-wide basis.
Members of the public will be able to see:
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- landlords and agents’ full names;
- what type of enforcement action was taken against them, for what offence, and what fine if any they received;
- who undertook the enforcement (i.e. London borough, LFB, redress scheme);
- the address of the rental property where the offence took place;
- and the street name and first four post code digits of the landlord’s home address (to help renters distinguish between landlords with the same name).
