Scottish Landlords Must Get Registered
or Get Fined

Landlords of Scottish properties could face fines if they don’t register on a special landlords register.

House prices and rental incomes are both doing well in Scotland and this has attracted many property investors to look north of the border.

However, what few realise is that the regulatory regime for landlords is much tougher than in England and Wales.

For instance, for a long time in Scotland, all residential let property with three or more unrelated tenants has had to be licensed as a “house in multiple occupation” (or HMO), whereas in England and Wales mandatory licensing in most areas is just restricted to HMOs with three or more storeys and five or more tenants.

To make matters worse for Scottish landlords and for any English and Welsh “Bravehearts” wishing to let property in Scotland, the Anti-Social Behaviour Act (Scotland) 2004 says that all landlords of any other private rented accommodation will need to apply to be registered with the local authority in the area where they let.  

This means that all landlords letting out accommodation in Scotland now have to be on a register of some kind. The only exceptions will be where the landlord lives in the same property and holiday lets. (Landlords with HMOs will already be licensed under existing HMO licensing rules, so they will be effectively “passported” onto the new register.)

It will actually be an offence for a landlord to continue letting residential property in Scotland if he has not submitted a valid application to register on the new database.  

Richard Williams of the National Landlords Association says, “Fines are tough - up to £5,000 for non registration and the stopping of rent payments.”

The theory behind the scheme was to remove the more disreputable landlords from the market by checking that the landlord is a “fit and proper” person and to ensure that landlords co-operate with councils to try to reduce tenants’ anti-social behaviour.

For the local authority to deem that the landlord is a “fit and proper” person, they will run checks to see if the landlord has a history of fraud, dishonesty, violence, drugs, unlawful discrimination or has failed to look after houses properly or help the authorities deal with anti-social behaviour of tenants in the past.

Landlords who are rejected can appeal.

The minimum fee is £55 and there is an additional fee of £13.75 for each additional local authority area where the landlord lets plus another £11 fee for each property.

So, a landlord with two properties, each in two different council areas will pay £90.75 (£55 + £13.75 + £11 + £11), though is a discount of 10% for registering online.

Landlords need to renew their registration every 3 years. Those wishing to amend the database, to add or subtract properties, will have to pay an amendment fee.

There are concerns about how the information will be used (or abused). The Scottish Executive admits only that the database will “provide information on the scale of private letting in Scotland.” Many feel that Big Brother is now watching them.

It seems much more needs to be done to let tens of thousands of landlords know about the scheme and their legal duties under it because knowledge of it is particularly thin for landlords living outside Scotland, especially those letting without an agent.

Landlords who are accredited with a local authority through an “accreditation scheme” which includes checks that they are “fit and proper” may be exempted from the fee.

Also unlike England and Wales, there are no firm plans yet for a tenancy deposit scheme in Scotland.

However, many people worry that this is the thin edge of the wedge and even more legislation could be in the pipeline. And south of the border there is a concern that one day a similar system could be bought in here too.

Find out more on HMO, licensing, registration and your other duties as a landlord by coming on one of my seminars or arranging a personal consultancy session. Just click on the "Seminar and consultancy" button on the top left of this page.

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