Local councils are being encouraged to use a property intelligence service that aims to make licensing schemes fairer for law-abiding landlords.

At least 20 authorities are now using the OccupID tool to find breaches of selective licencing, additional licencing, and Article 4 as well as empty homes, and founder Ben Yarrow hopes more will start employing it.

“Selective licensing is bringing money in, but some councils just wait for something fishy to turn up on an application form,” he tells LandlordZONE. “It means you still end up with bad landlords and that annoys the good ones. Housing teams have had their budgets eviscerated, so when properties are falling under the radar, councils might know there’s a problem, but they don’t have the resources to enforce it.”

Access

Instead of trying to get access to council tax information or looking through lists of properties that used to have a licence, the software highlights licensing areas and then looks to see how many financial IDs are connected to a property - as well as over previous years - to spot trends. Lots of financial IDs in a short period of time will raise a red flag.

OccupID can create a risk profile by cross referencing this with the owner to discover if they are directly linked to the property and if they live there. It can also cross reference data with planning consent to find section 257 and 254 HMOs.

Data

“We give councils the data so they can identify what they should be looking at,” says Yarrow, who also runs the landlord and letting agency review site, Marks Out Of Tenancy.

Its data has helped to convict a rogue landlord and property firm who rented out an unlicensed and unsafe HMO - the former Skyline Hotel - in Barnston, Essex, last year.

Yarrow hopes more councils will get on board especially as the tool that maps out potential issues is free, while the more granular data detailed spreadsheets are paid for.

“Last week we gave one council a shortlist of 10 potential homes," he adds. "So far, one was found to be an HMO without planning permission or a licence, and another had been split into six properties.”

‍