PARLIAMENTARY WRITTEN QUESTION
Landlords and Letting Agents: fines (25 March 2021)

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what estimate he has made of the number of civil fines that have been issued to landlords and property agents; and how much the average fine is.

Asked by:
Navendu Mishra (Labour)

Civil penalties were introduced in the Housing and Planning Act 2016 as an alternative to prosecution for certain housing offences under the Housing Act 2004 and a breach of a banning order under the Housing and Planning Act 2016. The Department does not currently collect data from local housing authorities on the number of civil penalties issued.

Local housing authorities are expected to develop and document their own policy on when to prosecute and when to issue a civil penalty and should decide which option it wishes to pursue on a case-by-case basis in line with that policy. The amount of the civil penalty should be determined by the local housing authority in each case, up to a maximum penalty of £30,000.

Answered by:
Eddie Hughes (Conservative)
13 April 2021