At the start of the year I submitted a series of Freedom of Information requests following correspondence with the licensing department at Highland Council. I was seeking support from the council to help deal with my landlord who did not want to make repairs on her property; my home and – I had discovered – did not have a valid landlord registration. Despite the council warning to landlords that such a breach of the licensing laws could lead to a £50,000 fine, the council were not supportive. No such fine was ever issued. In fact I discovered that in the previous 18 months not a single such fine has been issued in the Highlands to rogue landlords. Indeed; nine months later and the property I was eventually evicted from can still be let according to the Scottish landlord register. To add insult to injury, Highland Council would eventually refuse my housing register application after I was evicted because they deemed my eviction invalid.
Context
My concerns at the property related to a list of repairs, lack of a valid rental contract, concerns about safety; no working fire or carbon monoxide alarms, no electrical safety report as well as common damp and insulation woes. These were serious concerns, latterly a home report would concur with my belief that the place was a total disaster. I politely (far too politely) expressed myself in a “sorry to bother you, but…” type letter to my landlord testing the waters. My landlords response was not what I expected; she wrote that if I did not want the property; someone else would. She failed to engage with the repair issues, suggesting I must give her some inappropriate amount of notice if I felt it “was time to move on”. Shortly after I began an application to the first tier tribunal who asked that I provide a license number for my landlord, hers wasn’t valid. What to do? I thought the council would be keen to help.
First Contact
I called Highland Council in December 2023. “Hello licensing team, I am having trouble with my landlord and she is not registered. Help!” I found their response astonishing. They suggested I give my landlord another chance. They suggested that I, the tenant, should remind my landlord of her statutory requirements. I was informed that there was a huge backlog and that the “Rent Penalty Notice” (RPN) I was seeking – as leverage to get my landlord to take my concerns seriously – was not something that they knew much about. This was not what I expected.
I started trying to understand the licensing departments’ process. I simply wanted to know when they might back me up. After I discovered my landlord had already been chased by the council to arrange her registration application I thought they can’t be far off issuing an RPN which I had read – in their own guidance to landlords – would allow me to legally stop paying rent and force my landlord to the table. If I understood the process that might help determine a timeline so I started asking questions; of everyone. Correspondence with the council, my councillor, my allegedly homophobic MSP and my MP were all marked by a noticeable lack of interest and empathy. The council’s lawyer, in particular, responded to me with a bizarre and defensive tone from the get-go, as if my persistent interest in the department policies had hit a nerve… someone had clearly said something they shouldn’t have in my initial call. The lawyers first reply to me concluded with a statement that she was “confident” the initial call I had made to the council was not as I remembered it. It was suggested I had been obstructive as in my first call I did not want to give my landlords details for fear she would evict me – after discovering how unhelpful the council would be I was quite right to be so cautious. It seems that helpfulness is in short supply at Highland Council, but defensiveness is not.
I was eventually evicted. The first tier tribunal was over subscribed and in the end I withdrew my third (and final) case after reading through a number of archived case reports from tenants in much worse situations that I; who’s diligent evidencing of crooked landlords was rewarded with two hundred quid and a slap on the wrist for the criminal landlord. I will share some of the stories I found there another day. What an unjust and unfit system.
I never quite knew what to do with the information that follows. So, I’m just going to leave it here and see what comes of it. I do not have a conclusion today there isn’t one here.
Finally; let us begin. During a housing crisis coinciding with a boom in short term let registrations not a single fine has been issued to rogue landlords in the Scottish Highlands. I concede there have been a number of late fees but not a single big whopper £50,000 fine. No wonder there are so many inept landlords out there.
A final aside in this introduction which is going nowhere – I have no conclusion – what you are about to read is a sort of ranty list… perhaps I will reword this into something else another day. For now – to set the tone – I give you my final tongue-in-cheek FOI which the council were unable to provide an answer for: FS-Case-576367555: wherein I enquired: what percentage of license dept. employees are landlords?
