Is regulation for landlords on the horizon?

Comments made in the press today point to the future likelihood of mandatory licensing of landlords – yet another burden for buy-to-let property owners to shoulder. Mark Hayward, chief executive of Propertymark, who sat on the Government's Regulation of Property Agents working group says the licensing of private landlords is “on the horizon”. Although he adds that realistically, this would require a huge amount of time and effort to bring to make it happen

The RoPA working group wasn’t asked to include private landlords in its recommendations. But its report published last year includes this proposal: …”the legislation required to regulate property agents should allow for future extension to the scope of regulation”. It goes on to state that in time, new rules could include landlords, freeholders, retirement housing managers and Right to Manage companies.

With the abolition of Section 21 still very much on the cards and a likely upswing in rent arrears this winter as the furlough scheme ends, landlords are under the cosh. And many are also being hammered by the postcode lottery of local authority licensing schemes. There may be merit in the idea of regulating landlords but this is clearly not something to lose sleep over. As Mark Hayward rightly points out “it’s a vast piece of work to find out who [private landlords] are, where they are and how they could be regulated.” At present both the Government and the rental sector have more pressing prbolems to worry about.

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