The
Local Government Chronicle reports on a parliamentary inquiry which has said that councils should gain
wide-ranging powers in the private rented housing sector. These would include
powers to improve the sector’s standards, easier imposition of licensing
schemes, fixed penalty fines for breaches of housing conditions and recovery of
housing benefit from offending landlords. The
committee’s report called for councils to be able to recover housing benefit
paid to any landlord convicted of letting property below legal standards, using
the cash raised to finance their enforcement work. This is what Brent's proposal to register private landlords aims to achieve.