Over two-thirds of councils across England and Wales did not undertake any prosecutions against private landlords last year, according to freedom of information data gathered by the Residential Landlords Association.
And of those with selective licensing schemes in operation, which some argue raise standards, 42% had not made any prosecutions.
It is often said that such low levels of enforcement against criminal landlords are a result of councils not having enough powers to deal with them. Yet our analysis showed there are over 150 acts of Parliament containing well over 400 regulations which affect the sector, making this argument becomes hard to sustain.
In 2017-18, 89% of councils also said they had not used new powers to issue civil penalties of up to £30,000 on landlords, despite them being able to use such funds to finance further enforcement. To make matters worse, 53% of councils said they had no enforcement policy in place – a requirement to use such powers.