Navigating the ever-evolving landscape of selective licensing schemes across the UK can be a daunting task for letting agents and landlords. With new regulations popping up in various locations, staying compliant requires constant vigilance.
Earlier this month we reported that 2024 is on track to beat 2023’s record of 32 new schemes launched. Not only are the volume of schemes across the country increasing, the complexity is too.
These upcoming selective licensing schemes, each with its unique challenges and intricacies, highlight the complexity of manually managing property portfolios in today’s regulatory environment. From the geographical oddities of Scunthorpe’s scheme to the detailed street-level targeting in Wirral, the task of ensuring every property meets the necessary licensing requirements is becoming increasingly complicated:
Bristol selective licensing scheme
Source: Kamma
Bristol has a selective licensing scheme coming in August covering the wards of Bishopston and Ashley Down, Cotham, and Easton.
The Bristol selective licensing scheme was put into place after a consultation which took place last year.
Despite 37.48% of respondents strongly disagreeing with the proposal to introduce selective licensing measures, the scheme is still set to go ahead.
Source: Bristol Council
What makes this scheme complicated?
Due to the nature of Bristol’s ward boundaries, there are cases where properties that fall on the same road and post code won’t have equal licensing measures applied to them.
This is bad news for agents and landlords trying to cut down time on determining whether their property needs licensing – It’s not safe to assume that properties with the same postcode and road will share the same licensing requirements.
With the risk of non-compliance for properties that lie on streets that cross ward boundaries heightened, Bristol landlords and agents who manage their portfolio manually will have to spend wasted time searching council licence registers for each individual property to determine whether it needs a selective licence or not.
Here’s just one boundary on the scheme where this is the case:
Source: Kamma
You’ll note here that half of ‘High Kingsdown’ and a tiny portion of ‘Saint Michael’s Hill’ is covered, but the rest is not. This is just the tip of the iceberg – ward boundaries across the entire upcoming Bristol licensing scheme suffer from this same issue.
If there’s one silver lining to Bristol’s upcoming scheme it’s that it at least adheres to covering jurisdictions within three officially established wards. Our next entry on the other hand is not as kind to those trying to be compliant…
Scarborough selective licensing scheme
Source: Kamma
Scarborough’s announcement for their new selective licensing scheme in June officially describes it as “a selective licensing scheme for privately rented properties in parts of Castle, Falsgrave and Stepney, and Northstead divisions.”
The consultation data appears to have been archived, but the map we constructed based on the street level designations for the schemes in the consultations tells you all you need to know about how landlords and agents may have felt about it:
Source: Kamma
Despite the fact that Scarborough has now offered a neater map to show the designations for the upcoming schemes, that doesn’t make it any less of a compliance nightmare!
What makes this scheme complicated?
Unlike Bristol’s comparatively neat ward boundaries for its upcoming selective licensing scheme, Scarborough’s boundaries are all over the place! The scheme zig zags between specific buildings and spans across sporadic areas of separate wards, targeting properties on a street level. This makes it an absolute compliance headache for anyone aiming to licence privately rented properties manually.
Source: Scarborough Council
This boundary on the west in the upcoming Scarborough selective licensing scheme dips in and out of streets to encapsulate handfuls of properties. What’s worse is that it’s presented by the council on a map where the road names are hardly legible.
This makes life extremely difficult for landlord’s and agents to ascertain whether their property requires selective licensing without the help of an automated property licensing solution.
Aside from a map shared by Scarborough council, further details of the designated areas on the Scarborough council selective licensing announcement are sparse, but the scheme is set to commence from June. However, with the leverage of our geospatial tech, we can determine properties that potentially need a licence now with ease.
While we’re on the topic of ultra targeted selective licensing schemes: our next upcoming licensing scheme takes the cake…
Wirral selective licensing scheme
Despite the majority of people strongly disagreeing with measures to implement a second selective licensing scheme (noticing a trend here?), Wirral is set to launch a new licensing measure in April.
Source: Wirral Council
The upcoming Wirral selective licensing schemes covers parts of Birkenhead and Wallasey, but that only tells part of the story…
What makes this scheme complicated?
Since the upcoming licensing scheme is so disparate and targeted on street level, Wirral council never uploaded a full map of boundaries to expose just how complicated it is for landlords with properties spanning across the area.
Not to worry though – with the power of our bespoke data we’ve constructed a map ourselves to show you how sporadic the Wirral licensing scheme is:
Source: Kamma
And that’s just the upcoming scheme in April – The council already has another selective licensing scheme in place that will run in conjunction with the upcoming Wirral licensing schemes. Here’s what the map boundaries look like with both of the selective schemes toggled:
Source: Kamma
These awkward scheme boundaries make compliance a strenuous task of wrestling with inefficient council registers for those licensing their properties manually – and strenuous tasks are prone to mistakes.
With enforcement as strong as ever across the UK, selective licensing adds to the pile of burden on letting agents and landlords alike as they try to navigate upcoming schemes to avoid hefty fines.
This is where our expertise comes into play: Our technology effortlessly identifies properties within your portfolio that fall under current and upcoming additional and selective licensing schemes through the use of our in-house geospatial tech. By automating the identification process, we not only help you navigate these complex regulations with ease but also safeguard your business against the risk of non-compliance and the potential for hefty fines.
If you’re looking to decrease compliance headaches, increase your credibility, and avoid fines for non compliance, book a demo with us.
Contact us or book a demo now to understand how Kamma can solve property licensing for you.
