Nottingham landlords with HMOs are facing rising costs. The price of a landlord licence for properties with more than four tenants in occupation is set to rise by £420. Landlords who are ‘less compliant’ will have to pay even more.
For less compliant landlords, the licence fee rises to £1,720, an increase of £810. Even accredited landlords will have to pay more, although for them the increase is only £80. The fee is split into two parts: one part is paid when an application is submitted and the other when the licence is issued to the landlord.
Revised Fee Structure
The new fee structure replaces the old flat-fee scheme. Now, landlords who don’t comply with the scheme’s requirements or who submit a poor application will be penalised. Critics of the scheme say the increased costs will inevitably be passed on to tenants, with vulnerable tenants at the bottom of the housing ladder likely to be the hardest hit.
“The cost of it all is just getting silly. We weren’t kept in the loop or given any advance warning. There was just a consultation and we didn’t hear anything back, and then all of a sudden we’re informed that they’re going up. We never expected it to go up by this much,” says Giles Inman from East Midlands Property Owners, who represent 600 landlords in the city.
Profiteering
The group accuses Nottingham City Council of ‘raking in the cash’, even though licencing schemes are supposed to be non-profit. They point out that landlords are running a business so there is no way they can absorb the extra costs.
How do the changes to the proposed licencing scheme affect you? Let us know in the comments.
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