Great rant from the RLA about Local Authorities

I loved this rant that I read today from the Residential Landlords Association:

The latest campaign news from the Residential Landlords Association

January 2013

Welcome to the January edition of Campaign Watch.

January may herald the beginning of a new year but that has not made the slightest difference to a plethora of local authorities, who are committed to implementing a series of ineffective and bureaucratic anti-landlord policies in 2013.

Whilst 2012 was dominated by Newham’s draconian proposals for a blanket selective licensing scheme (coupled with a blanket Article 4 Direction for good measure), this year could well be dominated by events in Liverpool, where the new Mayor has announced plans for an even bigger licensing scheme than that foisted upon Newham.

Increasingly, the RLA is perturbed at the growing number of local authorities who ignore their own failures to enforce existing rules and regulations governing the private rented sector, and are unable to correctly manage their budgets. Instead, their answer is to add a new layer of bureaucracy that masks these failures and creates non-jobs to keep members of staff employed.

If local authorities truly want to improve standards in the PRS then they should begin to work constructively with landlords – the vast majority of whom provide good quality and affordable accommodation – by encouraging the growth of self-regulating, accreditation schemes. At the same time they should use their armoury of existing powers to hunt down the small number of criminal landlords who bring so much shame to the industry. It is that message that the RLA will be spreading during the forthcoming year, as it continues to challenge these failing councils.

---------------------------------

Hear hear!!