Greater Manchester has revealed a big increase in rogue landlord fines as part of its tough crackdown on the private rental sector first revealed two years ago.
The combined authority’s 10 housing enforcement teams are working to boost the number of landlords fined the maximum penalty of £30,000 for renting failing properties. The pilot scheme has led to £1.5 million in fines being issued over the past two years, compared with £1 million in the two years before that, reports The Times.
In 2022-23, 1,651 civil penalties were issued to landlords by English local authorities, according to an NRLA report. Nearly two thirds came from just 20 councils, with half of English local authorities issuing no civil penalties at all.
Greater Manchester’s ten teams have issued 113 civil penalties against rogue landlords during the past two years, a 43% increase from the two years before the project started.
The team in Wigan went from issuing zero civil penalties to 20 in the past 12 months. One landlord was given multiple penalties totalling £64,000 for safety breaches, such as having no electrical safety certificate.
“Word gets around,” says Wigan housing enforcement officer Helen Baskett. “We used to send an enforcement letter telling [landlords] to repair something after an inspection and just be ignored. Now the landlords talk to each other. They’ll say, ‘I got fined £10,000, so you’d better do as they say, or it will be you next.’”
Andy Burnham (main image), mayor of Greater Manchester, says the pilot is part of delivering his Good Landlord Charter in the region, setting out clear, practical, and accessible standards to drive up the quality of renting. “For years now, local councils have been left reeling by a combination of growing pressures and squeezed resources,” Burnham says.
“With this new generation of enforcement officers, we are stepping up and strengthening local enforcement teams, so that we can do more to crack down on bad housing practices.”
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