Assistant Housing Minister Sean Power is supporting a registration scheme that would require all landlords to register with Housing. The department would then be able to suspend or cancel registrations if landlords were exploiting tenants.
Last month Housing Minister Terry Le Main revealed that three landlords were under investigation after reports that tenants were being threatened, abused and kicked out of properties for no apparent reason. He also told the JEP that complaints against landlords had rocketed in the past six months and that it appeared that some were picking on Portuguese and Polish tenants.
Deputy Power says that the answer is to give the department the power to ban unscrupulous landlords from renting out property.
