Improve your rented ‘slums’ or lose them
MAYOR’S MESSAGE TO BAD LANDLORDS AS HE LAUNCHES SCHEME TO FORCIBLY BUY SUB-STANDARD PROPERTIES
GREATER Manchester mayor Andy Burnham has announced an ‘amnesty’ for the city’s worst landlords, warning them they could lose their slum-like rented homes if they’re not brought up to scratch.
Mr Burnham says that if owners of dodgy houses and flats don’t comply with measures to look after and invest in them, he will look to forcibly buy their properties.
It is unclear how it will work in practice, but Mr Burnham is determined to crack down on substandard rented homes and drive out rogue landlords.
He told a conference of the Residential Landlords Association that there are too many bad landlords in the region, describing an ‘epidemic of insecurity’ for tenants.
Mr Burnham announced an ‘amnesty’ for rogue landlords who refuse to work with him on improving standards - and warned he would look to buy them out if they still refuse to comply with his planned ‘good landlord scheme.’
The idea has been met with scepticism by some landlords and housing officials, however – including over the potential cost.
Meanwhile Manchester Labour has promised in its election manifesto to spend £14m buying up properties across the city in a bid to ease the shortage of emergency accommodation for the destitute.
Bosses remain tightlipped about which houses they are looking at, but are understood to be exploring the scope of family housing in a number of areas, including Blackley. The M.E.N. revealed how hundreds of unrecorded homeless people are living in Manchester’s private guesthouses and B&Bs, including in slum-like conditions, last week. Hundreds more people officially counted as homeless, including families, also end up in private temporary accommodation – including B&Bs – paid for directly by the council, which has seen its bill for emergency housing treble in two years as homelessness has soared. The town hall’s ruling Labour group is now looking to use its capital programme to buy up properties in order to have more control over standards and extra space for the city’s burgeoning numbers of homeless people. Currently it is placing 30 households a week in temporary accommodation, much of it in the private sector.