A MOVE to force landlords to sign up to an online rating system monitoring the standard of the properties they provide has been rejected by the States Assembly.
Senator Kristina Moore brought forward the mandatory Rent Safe scheme, which would have led to rental properties being listed according to a star-rating system.
More than 2,000 properties are listed on a voluntary Rent Safe scheme, which gives landlords an accreditation with a rating of three to five stars.
‘This is a solutions-based approach. It delivers for the public something that is long-awaited,’ said Senator Moore, who called it a ‘common-sense approach’ to use the existing scheme, which was ‘well-known, trusted and respected’.
‘This is not just about the bad. It is about celebrating the good, and communicating that we have high standards,’ she said.
The proposal had been tweaked, after Senator Moore accepted an amendment from Deputy Rob Ward to the effect that properties which failed to pass the three-star threshold would not be able to be rented out. Deputy Ward had said that the listing of one- or two-star-rated properties on the Rent Safe website could give ‘tacit approval’ to lower-quality housing.
However, some States Members raised concerns over the extra government staff that would be required to expand the scheme to thousands of other properties, and Housing Minister Russell Labey said that work was already under way to update the Island’s ‘outdated’ Residential Tenancy Law, which would include a register of landlords.
‘Landlords feel that this is licensing by the back door,’ said Deputy Labey.
And Environment Minister John Young, who has previously brought a licensing scheme to the States, said he had been advised ‘not to go this way’.
Deputy Young’s proposal was defeated in the Assembly by one vote last July, despite States Members supporting the concept – lodged by Deputy Ward – six weeks earlier.
At the time the Jersey Tenants Forum labelled the U-turn ‘absolutely appalling’.
Yesterday, Deputy Ward said assertions that landlords would be put off by the expansion of the Rent Safe scheme were ‘simply flawed’.
But Chief Minister John Le Fondré said there had been anecdotal evidence of landlords already leaving the market, while Deputy Richard Renouf said the adoption of the proposal would create an ‘administrative nightmare’.
States Members rejected Senator Moore’s proposal by 26 to 20, with one abstention.
