Selective licensing for rentals extended

[Ebenezer]

Selective licensing has been extended in Southwark ( it already exists in most of East Dulwich)

From 1 November 2023, you will need to apply for a licence if you let your property privately, it is not an HMO and it is in one of the following wards:

North Walworth
Nunhead & Queens Road
Old Kent Road
Peckham
Camberwell Green
Chaucer
Dulwich Hill
Dulwich Wood
London Bridge & West Bermondsey
Peckham Rye
Rotherhithe
Rye Lane
South Bermondsey
Surrey Docks

 

Great timing for landlords! 😁

 

 

[redpost]

Great timing for tenants, yet another reason for landlords to sell up

[malumbu]

Just Googled this but rather a long document.  Great if one of you can explain what this is about.  Thanks 

[redpost]

Landlord has to pay £600 or so for a 3 year license to rent and submit a load of docs: plans, EPC, fire report etc

In theory, the fee goes towards employing more inspectors, in practice I susepect it just pays for the admin of the scheme. There will still be rogue landlords, and the compliant landlords will raise rent to cover the costs

[Spartacus]

In the 60s criminals tried to make perfect printing plates to print money.

Now all they need to so is work for a council and come up with even more schemes with fees, CPZS, Selective Licencing, brown bin fee... the list goes on.

Whilst all good intentions, the cost to the public is growing daily as none of the taxes by other names schemes are cheap.

Edited June 22, 2023 by Spartacus

[malumbu]

I'd be interested to know where the money is going.  I've checked salaries and Southwark, as with most of the public sector, pay considerably lower than the private sector for comparable jobs (spare a thought for the voluntary/third sector where pay is even lower).  The good news is that most in the public (and third) sector are dedicated to improving life for the masses.  Now of course you may not agree with the way they do it, but hey ho that is life.  They are also accountable through a number of means if you are unhappy from a simple complaint all the way up to the Audit Committee. I sense that most of you who are a bit mithered don't know any public servants, perhaps there should be some befriending schemes.

As for licensing, in a parallel universe I was a small scumlord.  Sorry landlord.  And saw the introduction of gas and electricity safety certificates, minimum room sizes, fire safety and the like.  I wouldn't like to go back to a time of tenants dying from carbon monoxide poisoning.

This was the tail end of rent controls which Thatch got rid of which may have  been the start of the buy to let explosion.  It would be great to see such controls reinstated.

The scheme does appear a little pricey but there again my return was relatively tiny compared to today's rents.

Edited June 23, 2023 by malumbu

[Spartacus]

What will happen here is that Landlords won't swallow the cost and whilst it's around £20 a month over three years, you can bet your left arm that the landlords will add on £50 a month to rents. Doesn't seem much but add that to the additions they are already adding to cover higher interest rates (and they are even higher if its a buy to let mortgage compared to domestic mortgage rates) then I fully expect rents to be increased to a point where only Mr and Mrs Sunak can afford them... 

Whilst a fair inspection and registration scheme is a good thing, the cost has to be sympathetic to the problems it will cause.

[malumbu]

It's a different business model to when I was a small scumlord - buy cheap, let out cheap, a nice earner on the side (done through the books) and most of us would absorb regulatory fees, changes in interest rates and the like.  When licensing came in we'd be hit by bills for improving windows, adding fire doors, mains smoke alarms and the like, but as these were improvements wouldn't bang the rent up as we were investing in the property.

Different world driven by the relative ease of borrowing, at low rates, with guaranteed profit on selling up.  Some got burned from investing in parts of the country where supply was greater than demand.  Certainly not London.  I've disliked most of the landlords family have dealt with but do come across the odd one who was more like me and easy going.

A whole to thread on the lounge about affordability in the rental market.  

[alice]

Count how many actual real slum landlords Southwark has prosecuted over the last few years.  

[CPR Dave]

Looks the fee for renting out your own home is actually £900, not 600 

[malumbu]

My experience with reporting unfit properties has been good Alice.  I encourage everyone to start off with the positives.  If you want to have a moan then look at the fiscal/political situation the lead to the housing crisis.

Thatcher and the property is king ethos that I bet many of us benefited from.

The wide availability of buy to let loans that hardly existed 25 years ago

The view that property prices in the SE will continue to rise and you can't lose

Thatch, Major, Blair,  Brown, Cameron, the plethora of even more  useless PMs after this.

selling off of public housing and not replacing this etc etc.

surely that is not all Southwark fault.

we are not even talking slum landlords here, but greedy ones maximising their profits.

 

[Ebenezer]

The Chancellor really should have checked this forum ...!

 

Edited November 3, 2025 by Ebenezer

[malumbu]

Labour should be applauded for bringing in the Renter's Rights Act.  But so many of you are carried away with slagging them off.

Married couples with busy lives sometimes forget who did what. On this occasion Mr Rachel Reeves was sorting out the rental agreement.  Ms Reeves was a bit flumoxed with all the grief/demonsing/witch hunts she is getting so forgot to check with her other half.  

Not the first or last time this will happen with couples.

(That's not having a go at the post above)

[CPR Dave]

How does an MP on a 75k / yr salary afford a 4 bed detached buy to let house in Dulwich Village in the first place?

[beansprout]

Who knows.. point is, reached national press and radio. says zero for people in power and if it is correct a local established agent in Dulwich.

On 03/11/2025 at 16:03, malumbu said:

Labour should be applauded for bringing in the Renter's Rights Act.  But so many of you are carried away with slagging them off.

Married couples with busy lives sometimes forget who did what. On this occasion Mr Rachel Reeves was sorting out the rental agreement.  Ms Reeves was a bit flumoxed with all the grief/demonsing/witch hunts she is getting so forgot to check with her other half.  

Not the first or last time this will happen with couples.

(That's not having a go at the post above)

Oh, so that is all fine..in my book, no.!

Agent was at fault and also lanldlord for not making sure .. nothing to do with being in power or not..

As a landlord and an agent you have legal responsibilities.. 

[CPR Dave]

Well, it didn't wash for Boris Johnson when the other half of his married couple organised a surprise birthday party for him by turning up to a meeting he was due to attend in his own house with a small cake during lockdown.

[beansprout]

Move on.. life is to short.. 

[Dogkennelhillbilly]

On 04/11/2025 at 19:00, CPR Dave said:

How does an MP on a 75k / yr salary afford a 4 bed detached buy to let house in Dulwich Village in the first place?

Probably by working as a banker for a decade before being an MP, being married to another high earner, and using some of the accommodation allowance that all out-of-town MPs receive.

https://www.theipsa.org.uk/news/why-do-mps-need-an-accommodation-budget

Tbh mate if someone in her position couldn't work out a mortgage to buy a house in suburban London, they probably shouldn't be Chancellor in the first place...

[Earl Aelfheah]

On 23/06/2023 at 20:38, alice said:

Count how many actual real slum landlords Southwark has prosecuted over the last few years.  

Old article, but suggest that Southwark has, at least in the last, been relatively good at pursuing rouge landlords https://www.londonpropertylicensing.co.uk/southwark-council-take-most-landlord-prosecutions-london/#:~:text=Southwark – 131 prosecutions (3 civil,data on civil financial penalties)

[David Peckham]

There can't be many French, red ones about, but they probably stand out.

Edited November 7, 2025 by David Peckham

[Earl Aelfheah]

After being prosecuted, their faces often turn rouge 

Edited November 7, 2025 by Earl Aelfheah

[David Peckham]

Are they like the 'Gilets Jaunes' with BTL mortgages?

Edited November 7, 2025 by David Peckham

[rollflick]

https://southwarknews.co.uk/news/news-plus/southwarks-cabinet-member-for-housing-resigns-after-not-having-the-same-licence-as-rachel-reeves/

You couldn't make it up. No wait, this is Southwark Council, let your imagination run wild.

While he's done the right thing and resigned, cut and pasting Reeves' blame of the letting agent does not seem appropriate here and undermines his apology. I mean housing in Southwark was his day job, he really ought to have known about the licensing scheme. And he hadn't just moved out of what was his home a few months ago to take on a new very high pressured job like Reeves, these were his rental properties.