The UK’s first controversial citywide shared house licensing scheme has had a mixed reception one year on.
Councillors, residents and students praise the scheme in Oxford, while landlords and letting agents accuse house in multiple occupation licensing inspections of pettiness.
The difference of opinion rests on interpretation of statistics about the HMO licensing scheme.
Oxford City Council revealed more than 2,000 warning letters were sent to landlords about housing standards in December.
During the year, eight landlords and one letting agent were prosecuted for running unlicensed HMOs, while two more cases are about to go to court and 88 more are under review.
The city has an estimated 5,000 shared houses, and while a 100% perfection rate is not achievable, 10 landlord prosecutions represents just 0.2% of the number of HMO properties.
The council also says fewer than 15 undersized rooms have been banned as unfit for occupation.
City board member for housing Joe McManners said: “I think this shows why there is a problem and why it is excellent that we are able to get these houses brought up to a decent standard.
“The fact that there is a lot of work which is being done shows a lot of these homes are not in a fit state.”
However landlords and letting agents claim the standards are not about poor living conditions - some of the most common calls for repairs are demands to replace battery smoke and fire alarms with systems wired in to the mains or to add a fire door between a kitchen and neighbouring living space.
Student landlords provide most of the shared house beds in Oxford. They are paying £362 per year for a licence. The revenue for the council, assuming every property buys a licence is £1.81 million, which landlords are probably adding to the cost of rents.
Meanwhile, rather than see rogue landlords run out of town, the council is pushing up rents by demanding repairs that go beyond the conditions most tenants would have in their own homes.
The National Landlords Association claims licensing on this scale does not work and will result in fewer rented homes and higher costs for students.
