Another Rogue Landlord?

We know they exist - the media and tenant groups constantly remind us - but fortunately rogue landlords are few and far between AND typically they are not uncaring, money grabbing slum landlords or like those responsible for the Highland Clearances in the 18th century, these days they are more likely to be under-resourced and badly managed local councils or social housing providers,  

This months example identified fire risks that needed to be addressed over 10 years ago and they are still unresolved.

GOSPORT! The borough has become the fifth local authority to be given a C4 rating after the English regulator found "very serious" failings, including fire safety remedial work overdue since 2012. 

The grading means the local authority, which manages nearly 3,000, must make fundamental changes to fix 'very serious failings' in its delivery against the outcomes of the standards.

In its judgement, the Regulator of Social Housing (RSH) found more than 900 overdue fire safety remediation actions, with some overdue since 2012. It also discovered more than 300 overdue electrical safety checks and more than 100 category 2 electrical safety remedial actions, some of which have been outstanding for up to seven years.

It said Gosport has a lack of accurate and up-to-date information on tenants' homes, with a third of properties having no survey on record. The council did not use the Housing Health and Safety Rating System (HHSRS) to assess potential hazards in tenants' homes and has had no planned improvement programme in place since 2023.

RSH found serious failings in the council's understanding of the diverse needs of its tenants and provided no assurance on the handling of complaints by its repairs contractor. There were also serious failings in how the council works to deter and tackle anti-social behaviour and hate incidents.

In its judgement RSH said: "The very serious failings identified include a lack of assurance that the council is meeting legal health and safety requirements including completing all necessary checks and remedial actions, and a lack of accurate and up to date information on the quality of tenants' homes, including any potential hazards in homes.

"Gosport has demonstrated a willingness to resolve these issues, but we found limited evidence that it fully understands the scale and breadth of the issues and limited evidence that it has the capability to effectively address them. Fundamental changes are required to the service to improve outcomes for tenants."

RSH said that since its inspection, Gosport has been "engaging constructively" but "needs to urgently develop a full understanding of current risks to tenants and the root causes of the failings identified." RSH said its engagement with the borough will be "intensive".

Gosport becomes the fifth council handed a C4 grade, following Arun District Council, Castle Point Borough Council, Newham Council and Tandridge District Council.

A Gosport Borough Council spokesperson said the local authority acknowledges its housing service faces long-standing issues and is already taking action to address the regulator's findings.

It said it is working to update and improve accuracy of stock condition improvement; compete overdue checks and remedial actions; strengthen tenant engagement and improve transparency and communication.

He said: "Gosport Borough Council takes the regulator's judgement extremely seriously. Our tenants deserve safe, well-maintained homes and high-quality services, and we are fully committed to taking necessary action. We continue to work constructively with the Regulator of Social Housing and improvements to the housing service are already being delivered."

Portsmouth City Council are probably breathing a sigh of relief that 'housing' is not one of the shared services between the local councils and this issue is wholly Gosport's problem - but remember, this time last year Portsmouth was itself called out for having over 1,000 such issues unresolved (details here:  Official: HMOs Safer Than Council Houses - PDPLA News - Portsmouth & District Private Landlords Association) 

We constantly complain that the sector is over regulated and the compliance overhead is not justified. In support of that view, we would suggest that with 1,200 social homes in Gosport and 1,000 in Portsmouth that fall well short of  required standards (just based on what the regulator has noticed, before we add in the appalling MoD properties and the issues we have seen reported with Vivid, Guinness and others), we would suggest that either there are many homes destroyed through fire, explosion and the like in the area, coupled with equivalent numbers of badly injured or worse tenants OR the sector is over regulated and the risks are grossly exaggerated by the trade associations and public sector organisations who benefit from the work this creates. Either way, sadly it is the tenant who pays the cost.