Housing enforcement

Why we carry out enforcement

We focus on the housing conditions and management of the homes where our residents live. It's important for us to ensure that these homes, whether privately owned or rented, are in good condition and well-managed. 

We use our legal powers to address any housing that may pose a danger to the occupants and making sure that it meets the required safety standards. To achieve this, we enforce regulations and take action against landlords who fail to follow the rules. To learn more about these standards for your housing situation, please contact our team using the details in the 'Contact Us' section of this page.

How we take enforcement action

The type of enforcement we decide to take is always considered on a case-by-case basis and will vary according to the law. In some cases, the law tells us that we must take enforcement action. This includes serving legal notices and orders or charging a penalty fine. In other cases, officers are able to help landlords and residents by providing information and advice.

If we have previously provided guidance to a landlord regarding the safety standards of their property and they fail to comply, we escalate the case and take more rigorous enforcement measures to safeguard those at risk. In the most serious cases possible action can include taking the landlord to court.

In all cases we will use enforcement to make sure:

• everyone follows the law
• landlords take action to deal with serious risks
• landlords who do not follow the rules are held to account

Penalty charges

In some cases, we have the power to enforce penalty charges on a landlord who has not followed the rules as an alternative to taking the landlord to court.

We can issue a penalty of up to £30,000 for the following offences:

• failing to meet the terms of an improvement notice
• failing to licence a house in multiple occupation (HMO)
• failing to meet the terms of a HMO licence or HMO regulations
• failing to meet the terms of an overcrowding notice
• failing to meet the terms of a banning order

We are also able to issue a maximum fine of £5,000 for failing to meet the terms of smoke and carbon monoxide regulations. Link to carbon monoxide page

The actual amount we will charge in each case will be adjusted depending on certain circumstances such as:

• the seriousness of the risk or actual harm to tenants
• the previous history of the landlord
• whether the landlord should have known or deliberately broke the law

Rogue landlord database

In April 2018 the government launched a national database of landlords who have been:

• banned from renting out homes, or
• who have been convicted of certain offences that would harm their ability to be a landlord

We will input the details of any landlord convicted or who received a penalty for a housing-related offence onto these databases.