Council to consult on regulating majority of Hackney landlords

Members of renters union ACORN presented their letter to the borough’s private renting lead Cllr Sem Moema ahead of last night’s decision. Photograph: courtesy Freddie Gentz / ACORN / free for use by LDRS partners

Hackney Council has confirmed it will consult with residents this summer over plans to make private landlords across the whole borough obtain a permit before they can let out properties.

At last night’s (28 April) cabinet meeting, the Town Hall waved through proposals to trigger the first phase of the Labour-run administration’s long-awaited and much-debated ‘borough-wide’ licensing scheme.

The meeting was punctuated by jeers and heckles by members of renters union, ACORN, who had arrived on the Town Hall steps brandishing their letter to the borough’s private renting lead, Cllr Sem Moema.

By the end of the meeting, the campaigners were clad in party hats and throwing confetti from the chamber gallery as the cabinet voted to move ahead with statutory consultation.

Speaking to the Citizen, ACORN said they were “pleased to see the council taking the first steps towards landlord licensing tonight” and looked forward to collaborating with the council in implementing the scheme “as soon as possible”.

Hackney’s Independent Socialist councillors told the Citizen council officers’ “conservative” estimate was that the scheme would bring £1m in revenue for the local authority.

Freddie Gentz, the union’s spokesperson, said this was “money direly needed in past years”.

“Many renters are asking why this is only being brought forward now,” he said.

Between 2018 and 2023, Hackney Council piloted selective licensing schemes in three wards – Brownswood, Cazenove and Stoke Newington.

This meant landlords in those areas had pay £500 for a permit to rent out a single dwelling, while also meeting certain conditions to ensure properties were well-managed and up to standard.

Now, the council is proposing a fee of £925 for standard licences in 17 of the borough’s 21 wards.

Landlords who rent out specific types of shared houses, also known as ‘houses in multiple occupation’ (HMO), will have to pay a £1,400 licensing fee.

The council is also considering discounts for property owners certified by the London Landlord Accreditation Scheme, and whose properties meet energy-efficiency standards.

The move comes almost three years after former mayor Philip Glanville and Cllr Moema, during Labour’s local election campaign, committed to applying for the policy within two years.

During the meeting, Cllr Moema said the number of privately rented homes in Hackney had doubled over the last decade, with rising demand leaving “too many residents feeling they have no choice but to stay in substandard accommodation”.

She added that a recent review of the borough’s housing stock revealed a significant number of privately rented homes contained at least one serious hazard.

This was “well above the national average”, she added, “and we all know this is not acceptable”.

But while the deputy cabinet member acknowledged the private rental sector had serious weaknesses and was poorly regulated, she said many Hackney landlords were “really key” to the borough’s housing supply in providing “well-maintained and responsibly-managed homes”.

Later, she added that the previous pilot scheme had helped the council identify where the most “egregious” cases were, but that it was important the council “hears from all sides before making any decision or jumping to conclusions”.

Under the plans, four boroughs are exempt from selective licensing: Hoxton East and Shoreditch, Hoxton West, Haggerston, and Woodberry Down.

The independent review, carried out by Metastreet Ltd, found that these wards, which sit in the borough’s southwest region, generally had a smaller rate of private rented homes with serious hazards, along with Woodberry Down in Hackney’s northwest corner.

Hoxton West had the lowest number (98) of private rented homes with serious hazards, while Cazenove – where selective licensing has alread been trialled – had the highest number (615).

However, ACORN told the Citizen they disagreed that landlord’s behaviour would be “determined by geography”.

“Considering licensing pays for itself, there is no incentive to leave any part of Hackney unlicensed other than to appease the landlord lobby,” Mr Gentz added.

After the meeting, one union member, Liza, who had interrupted Cllr Moema from the gallery, told the Citizen she had experienced a “constant merry-go-round” in her attempts to get the council’s various service teams to help with her renting situation.

A wheelchair user, Liza said the floorboards in the HMO flat she has rented for two years were “falling over the place, even though I can’t walk properly and [the landlord] knows its a slip hazard for me”.

“What concerns me is that [the council] is talking about selective licensing, but they’re not even using their current mandatory enforcement powers,” Liza said.

Mayor of Hackney, Caroline Woodley, told the chamber it was a “really great piece of work” that had taken “persistence and patience”, before she was cut off by more heckling from the gallery.

This morning the Citizen asked the council when exactly in the summer the consultation is due to start, but a Town Hall spokesperson was unable to give a more specific timeframe.