Yorkshire councils ask for help from MPs to track down landlords

Housing experts from Yorkshire councils told MPs that forcing landlords by law to register with the local authority would help councils educate them on their responsibilities and confront them when problems arise.

They were giving evidence in front of a committee of backbench MPs looking at the private rented housing sector.

Ruth Abbott, housing standards and adaptations manager at York Council, said: “One of the biggest issues we have is that most landlords in York are very small and we would like to have a system where we know where they are.”

She added: “I think there’s probably a role for having a registration scheme for all landlords so we can provide information and training.”

The MPs wanted to know how licensing and accreditation schemes were used by local authorities to improve standards in private rented housing.

David Shepherd, assistant director of housing at Bradford Council, said: “We are definitely in support of accreditation, we have run accreditation schemes in the past but there is a difficulty in keeping them going when there is no clear incentive for landlords to stay involved.”

The Communities and Local Government Committee of MPs, chaired by Sheffield South East MP Clive Betts, was in Leeds yesterday as part of its inquiry into private sector housing.

They were told that there is an increasing number of letting agents focused on the lower end of the market taking as much as 15 per cent of the rent from landlords but not apparently doing any work in return.