Two of today’s stories are landlords catching a rare break; two are the market explaining why the break barely matters. A council has quietly abandoned its own licensing scheme after landlords challenged it legally, while a different council’s enforcement policy shows where fines are heading regardless. Set against that: rents still climbing everywhere except Scotland, and leasehold flats — the one part of the market that keeps getting cheaper for reasons that have nothing to do with location.
A council shelves its own licensing scheme rather than defend it in court
Telford & Wrekin Council’s cabinet approved additional licensing for smaller HMOs — homes with three or four occupants, with a proposed £1,522 fee — back in May, after a consultation that ran 57 per cent in favour. The scheme was due to launch in August. On 11 September a cabinet member and a senior officer used delegated powers to revoke that decision after landlords mounted a legal challenge, as LandlordZone reported yesterday. The council won’t say what the challenge argued — it’s citing legal professional privilege — and Councillor Nathan England, cabinet member for safer streets and better housing, says it will “review the position in 2027” once it has assessed the impact of an Article 4 direction due in February and the wider Renters’ Rights Act reforms, a line also carried in Landlord Today’s coverage today of the council’s wider enforcement plans.
A scheme that cleared a majority-backed consultation got shelved anyway: public support doesn’t make a licensing proposal legally bulletproof, and a well-organised challenge from the landlords paying the fee can still force a climbdown. What isn’t going away is the Article 4 direction, removing permitted development rights so converting a property into an HMO needs planning permission from February regardless. That’s the change with the longer half-life — a licence fee is annual, a planning refusal can kill a conversion outright.
Anyone facing a new licensing consultation should engage with a landlord association early rather than treating a published result as final, and should check separately whether an Article 4 direction is being pursued alongside it — that’s the part worth planning around even if the licensing scheme itself gets challenged away.
Bath’s fines-first enforcement policy is a preview, not a one-off
Bath & North East Somerset Council is consulting, until 23 September, on an updated housing enforcement and financial penalty policy written to reflect new duties under the Renters’ Rights Act. The proposed starting penalties are £20,000 for failing to carry out required electrical remedial work and £20,000 for serious HMO fire-safety or amenity breaches, with aggravating factors adding up to 50 per cent on top — which lands at £30,000, the existing statutory ceiling for a civil penalty per offence under the Housing and Planning Act 2016. Propertymark’s consultation response, reported by Property118 today, backs robust action against deliberate or persistent non-compliance but objects specifically to one mechanic: treating a landlord’s failure to respond to a council letter as automatic evidence of deliberate wrongdoing, when the real reason might be a wrong address, an admin error, or reliance on a managing agent who never passed it on.
The penalty isn’t new headroom — £30,000 has been the legal maximum since 2017 — what’s new is a council actually planning to use the full range, starting from £20,000 rather than working up to it. Expect near-identical policies elsewhere, since the same Renters’ Rights Act duties apply everywhere. Propertymark’s objection to the correspondence rule matters regardless of council: a policy that reads silence as intent turns an administrative slip into a £20,000-plus starting point.
Answer every piece of council correspondence in writing, even if it’s only to acknowledge receipt and ask for time, and keep a copy. Landlords using an agent should confirm who is actually opening that post, because “my agent didn’t forward it” is not a defence this kind of policy is designed to accept.
Rents keep climbing while London house prices fall for the eleventh month running
The ONS’s September release, published Tuesday, shows UK private rents up 3.8 per cent in the 12 months to August — £1,400 a month on average, and the highest annual rate since December. England ran hotter at 4.0 per cent, Wales at 4.3 per cent, and Scotland barely moved at 1.1 per cent. Regionally the South East had the lowest English growth at 3.0 per cent, against 5.8 per cent in the North East and North West. House prices told a different story: UK growth slowed to 1.4 per cent, and London posted its eleventh consecutive month of annual decline, down 3.3 per cent. Property118’s write-up quotes Hampshire Trust Bank’s Alex Upton putting landlord costs up 11 per cent over the past year and 56 per cent over five, and former RICS chair Jeremy Leaf pointing to the real driver in lettings: landlords selling up faster than they’re being replaced.
The South East having the slowest rent growth in England while landlord costs nationally have risen 56 per cent in five years is a genuine squeeze, not a headline coincidence — margins here are thinner than the 3.8 per cent national average suggests to a landlord comparing this year’s rent to last year’s rather than to actual running costs. London’s eleventh straight month of decline is a reminder for a different audience: a “national average” house price says nothing reliable about what a specific South East property near the commuter belt is actually worth this month.
Landlords in the South East should stress-test rent against real cost increases, not last year’s rent, before assuming a modest uplift covers the gap. Buyers and sellers relying on an online estimate or a national index for a South East property should treat it as background reading, not a substitute for a proper local valuation.
Flats are the only property type actually losing money — and the reasons aren’t cosmetic
HM Land Registry data analysed by SAM Conveyancing, covered by Today’s Conveyancer today, shows leasehold flats and maisonettes down 2.27 per cent year-on-year to £216,246 as of June, and down 1.56 per cent over five years — the only property type in the UK currently losing value. Semi-detached houses are up 3.16 per cent over the same period, terraced houses up 2.76 per cent, and detached homes up 1.98 per cent. Most leasehold flats now sit on the market for more than six months. SAM Conveyancing’s chief executive, Andrew Boast, put it plainly: “the fall in value across the leasehold sector is mirrored exactly by the rise in headaches for owners and prospective buyers,” adding that “many flats are becoming borderline unmortgageable without significant legal remediation.” The named causes are all paperwork, not bricks: delayed leasehold reform, Building Safety Act compliance complexity, escalating service charges, tightening lender scrutiny of ground rent terms, and unresolved cladding liabilities.
This is squarely where my own work sits: a survey on a leasehold flat now has to do double duty. The physical condition still matters, but a lender’s decision increasingly turns on things a viewing never shows — cladding and EWS1 status, a service charge account trending the wrong way, a ground rent clause that doubles on a schedule. I’ve written before about EWS1 having no statutory basis at all despite functioning as a lending-industry gatekeeper; this data is what that gatekeeping looks like once it shows up in the price. Boast’s “borderline unmortgageable” line is no exaggeration for a flat where that paperwork hasn’t been assembled.
Anyone buying a leasehold flat should ask for the management pack, the last three years of service charge accounts, and written confirmation of cladding/EWS1 status before exchange, not after a mortgage offer is issued and then withdrawn. Anyone selling one should assemble that paperwork proactively — on this data, it’s no longer just a negotiating point, it’s what decides whether a sale completes at all.
What I’d actually do
- Facing a new licensing consultation in your area? Don’t treat a majority-backed result as final, and check separately whether an Article 4 direction is being pursued — that tends to survive even where the licensing fee doesn’t.
- Had a letter from the council? Answer it in writing every time, even just to acknowledge it, and keep a copy — under the enforcement policies now being drafted, silence is being treated as evidence of intent.
- Letting in the South East? Check your rent against your actual cost rises, not last year’s figure — regional rent growth here is the slowest in England while landlord costs keep climbing nationally.
- Buying or selling a leasehold flat? Get the management pack, service charge accounts and cladding/EWS1 status checked before exchange — it’s what a mortgage offer now hinges on, not the condition of the kitchen.
Every story today comes down to paperwork nobody chases until it’s too late — a licence application, a council letter, a management pack, a rent left unreviewed. The practice carries out Building Surveys and Buy to Let Surveys across the South East for clients who’d rather have that evidence in hand before it’s asked for. Get in touch.
Small print. General commentary, not advice for your specific circumstances — regulations, schemes and deadlines change, and your property is not the average property. Sources linked were accurate when read on 17 September 2026.