Author Archives: Alan Ward

Alan Ward

The Independent View: tackling bad landlords

By Alan Ward | Thu 4th May 2017 - 10:15 am

With more and more people relying on the private rented sector for their housing, the Liberal Democrats will be looking to develop a workable policy that supports tenants and encourages good landlords.

Last year Caroline Pidgeon from the Greater London Assembly published startling research. It showed that in the whole of 2015/16, just 411 landlords had been prosecuted across the capital, with a quarter of all boroughs not prosecuting any landlord at all. This is despite there being over 400 regulations governing the sector.

This highlights that the problem of tackling bad landlords is in large part due to regulations not …

Continue reading »
Posted in The Independent View | Tagged | 9 Comments
Alan Ward

The Independent View: Rooting out criminal landlords

By Alan Ward | Thu 20th March 2014 - 9:00 am

Landlod and tenant License Some rights reserved by umjanedoanIn his recent article, Julian Huppert MP declared that “landlords should have to compete on quality not just on price.” The Residential Landlords Association agrees. The question is how to achieve this.

Many councils have chosen some form of licensing to identify the ‘rogues’ who over-crowd homes and rent sub-standard properties.

The problem with licensing schemes is they identify the good landlords who sign up but fail to find the crooks. Even Newham, the most pro-active borough in this respect, has failed to reach the hardcore of 20% of rogue landlords after a year’s intensive enforcement.

Continue reading »
Posted in The Independent View | Tagged , and | 7 Comments
Advert

Recent Comments

  • Chris Cory
    While I agree with every word, I am at the same time, more than a little discombobulated. If we believe all this fine "power to the people" stuff, then isn't...
  • Ian
    The way the party runs itself is hardly an exemplar for putting our values into practice, is it? Nor evidence that senior people in the party have much interes...
  • David Allen
    British politics since the 2008 crash has been a contest between establishment Governments and insurgent opponents. The Tory and Labour establishment parties h...
  • Kevin Hawkins
    I have frequently commented on Lib Dem Voice that we should not take one week’s by-election results (or even several week’s results) seriously. We have goo...
  • Dan Falchikov
    Well said: "David Howarth’s Being Liberal explores the Liberal disposition: open-minded, suspicious of abuses of power, uncomfortable with hierarchy, treatin...