Agenda item

Report of the Director of Law and Governance

The Committee considered a report of the Director of Law and Governance which  provided the results of a statutory consultation carried out in relation to the future of additional licensing in Coventry and which sought Cabinet approval to designate the whole of the City as subject to additional licensing under section 56(1)(a) of the Housing Act 2004 in relation to the size and type of Houses in Multiple Occupation  specified in the recommendations of this report for a period of 5 years commencing on the 4 May 2025. The report would be considered by Cabinet at their meeting on 27 August, 2024.

The report indicated that HMOs are properties that are occupied by a least 3 people in two or more households who share at least one basic amenity i.e. a kitchen, bathroom or toilet.  The definition of a HMO includes bedsits, shared houses, flats, lettings with their own facilities and some types of poorly converted self–contained flats.

The Housing Act 2004 provides a power to the Council to introduce an Additional Licensing Scheme in its area. The power was intended to address the impact of poor-quality HMOs that fall outside of the mandatory licensing HMO definition and address management issues and poor property conditions.

On the 4 May 2020 the Council introduced a citywide Additional Licensing Scheme which required all HMOs in Coventry to be licensed. The scheme runs for a period of 5 years and as such will cease on the 4 May 2025.  Within the Act there is a legal requirement to review the scheme “from time to time”. To fulfil this requirement a consultation exercise was undertaken between July and October 2023 to seek views from all stakeholders on the progress of the scheme so far.

The review showed that the licensing scheme has made good progress in improving standards in a large number of HMOs, for example, the Council has added around 11,598 conditions to licences that has resulted in approx. £1.6m being invested into improving conditions. This investment would not have happened without the scheme, but there are still a significant number of properties that remain unlicensed and there continues to be issues with non-compliance and poor management.

The Council has been proactive in its approach to enforcement of unlicensed HMOs and non-compliance, so much so that this was recognised by the National Residential Landlord Association (NRLA) in their paper - the Enforcement Lottery: civil penalty usage by local authorities, which acknowledged that Coventry ranked first for issuing the most civil penalties for HMO offences in England.

It is clear however, that more needs to be done as a significant proportion of HMOs in the Council`s area are still being managed ineffectively, and unlicensed properties are still present. The focus of this scheme will therefore be to proactively target those unlicensed and non-compliant properties whilst ensuring that those properties that are already licensed continue to provide the standards required under the requirements of the licensing regulatory framework. 

Cabinet considered a report on the 13 February 2024 (Minute 69/23 refers) and approved recommendations to proceed with a statutory consultation on the designation of a further scheme from the 4 May 2025 to the 4 May 2030. The city-wide consultation, details of which were outlined in the report, ran for 12 weeks from the 26 of February 2024 to the 17 of May 2024. The report outlined the results of this statutory consultation, details of which were appended to the report and sought a decision from Cabinet to consider the designation of the whole of Coventry as subject to additional HMO licensing for a further five years following the expiry of the existing scheme.

A further appendix to the report outlined the proposed timetable for implementation. The report indicated that, as any Additional Licensing Scheme can only run for a period of 5 years, this is in effect a new designation and a such the process is being implemented to ensure the continuous delivery of the first scheme. Once this designation comes into force it will also be subject to a statutory review and can only last a maximum of five years.

The Committee made comments, asked questions and sought assurances on a number of issues including:-

·  The different powers under the Article 4 Direction and the Additional Licensing Scheme and work undertaken with Planning colleagues.

·  A summary of the definition of an HMO

·  That the licensing process required a period of time for checks to be made before issuing a licence and if that extended beyond 20 weeks then tacit approval is given but that there was confidence this timescale could be met.

·  Whether ward level data was available on current licenses as well as enforcement actions.

·  Clarification that the landlord was responsible for large items of furniture that was left outside at the end of a tenancy, however, refuse management was the responsibility of the tenants.

·  The work that officers had done to engage students in the consultation, as well as work with the universities to raise awareness with students of their rights under the licensing scheme. This included engagement in open day activities, as well as sharing information with the student unions.

·  The estimated numbers of HMO’s in the city comparted to the number of licenses issued and ways to improve data collection and analysis.

·  The change in focus from working with good landlords to raise awareness of the scheme, to identifying those landlords that are avoiding licensing and to pro-actively work towards bringing properties into compliance.

·  The focus of work shouldn’t just be with students are there are other transient populations which will be affected.

The Committee requested further information/action on:

·  The link to the register of licensed HMO’s and whether this information could be provided on a ward map.

·  Information on enforcement activity, to be provided at a ward level

·  That action be taken to engage students in future consultations.

·  That the Communities and Neighbourhoods Scrutiny Board (4) be kept updated on this issue.

·  That officers provide information on Coventry’s performance nationally with regard to enforcement and additional licensing.

RESOLVED that Scrutiny Co-ordination Committee support the proposals contained in the report.