Banning Orders and a Criminal Database for Landlords & Letting Agents to be introduced April 2018

 

New banning orders, which could see landlords and letting agents barred from letting or managing a property indefinitely, will be introduced in 6^th April 2018. The Government said the move will go ahead subject to the regulations being approved by each House of Parliament, with debates expected to take place early in the New Year. Plans to introduce banning orders were announced as part of the Housing and Planning Act 2016, the focus being landlords who flout the law. The new database of criminal landlords and letting agents will be created under the Act and will go live the very same day. The central database will be held by the Department of Communities & Local Government ( DCLG) and will be updated by local authorities. Any landlords or letting agents who receive banning orders will automatically be listed on the register.

The Offences

DCLG has now released details of the serious offences that will merit a banning order.

• Illegally evicting or harassing a residential occupier in contravention of the Protection from Eviction Act 1977
• Using violence to secure entry under the Criminal Law Act 1977

Any of the following offences under the Housing Act 2004:

• Failure to comply with an Improvement Notice (section 30);
• Failure to comply with a prohibition order (section 32)
• Offences in relation to licensing of Houses in Multiple Occupation (HMOs) (section 72);
• Offences in relation to licensing of houses under Part 3 of the Act (section 95);
• Contravention of an overcrowding notice (Section 139)
• Failure to comply with management regulations in respect of HMOs (section 234).
• Providing false or misleading information (section 238)
• Also
• An offence under section 36 of the Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations 1998;
• An offence under section 32 of the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005

The banning orders will also include immigration offences committed under the Immigration Act 2016.

In addition, the serious criminal offences will include any offence listed in any of items 7 to 14 of the Schedule if :-

1. the offence was committed against or in collusion with a tenant occupying any housing (or another person occupying that housing with the tenant) or the offence was committed at or in relation to that housing;
2. (at the time the offence was committed, the offender was the residential landlord or property agent of that housing or an officer of a body corporate who was the residential landlord or property agent of that housing; and
3. the offender was sentenced for the offence in the Crown Court.

The offences listed in the schedule also include: -

• a range of fraud offences under the Fraud Act 2006
• any specified violent and sexual offence under Schedule 15 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003
• Offences under the Misuse of Drugs Act
• Concealing criminal property and related offences under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002
• Harassment and stalking under the Protection from Harassment Act 1997
• Offences under the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014
• Offences of criminal damage under the Criminal Damage Act 1971
• Theft, burglary, blackmail and handing stolen goods under the Theft Act 1968.