Clive Betts says seizure threat would create ‘significant deterrent’ among those who treat fines as business cost
• ‘I was afraid of him’: renting from one of London’s landlords
Rental homes should be confiscated from private landlords who repeatedly break the rules and exploit tenants, the head of the Commons housing committee has told the Guardian.
Clive Betts, the chair of the levelling up, housing and communities select committee, said handing courts the power would create a “significant deterrent” to landlords who treated fines for letting out squalid, unsafe and overcrowded homes as simply a cost of doing business.
It was “probable” the delayed ban on “no-fault” evictions would not come into effect until after the next general election. It was first promised by May in spring 2019.
Squalor in private rented housing had been made worse and was underestimated because tenants were “simply too frightened to report disrepair”.
Labour’s policy to boost social housebuilding by negotiating harder to get private developers to build more would not solve the housing crisis.
