Tackling rogue landlords and substandard housing. Local authorities’ legal instruments and their effectiveness

DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1108/JPPEL-08-2018-0025
Pages2-19
Published date07 March 2019
Date07 March 2019
AuthorMichel Vols,Alexandre Copeland Belloir
Tackling rogue landlords and
substandard housing
Local authoritieslegal instruments and
their effectiveness
Michel Vols and Alexandre Copeland Belloir
Faculty of Law, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands
Abstract
Purpose In 2011, Dutch municipalities requestedsupplementary legal enforcement instruments to tackle
rogue landlords and substandard housing.The national government implemented new legislation granting
municipalitieslocal authoritiesmore legal instruments in 2015. The purpose of this paper is to evaluatethe
applicationand effectiveness of these instruments.
Design/methodology/approach Using both quantitative and qualitative (legal) empirical research
methods, this study establishesthe frequency these instruments are used and the manner they are appliedin
practiceto determine their role in limiting abusive practicesof rogue landlords.
Findings By comparing legislation and policieswith their enforcement, the authors pinpoint differences
between the law in the books and the law in practice and argue that the legal instrumentshave a stronger
effect on the informal power than on formalpower of local authorities. Moreover, the paper shows that the
shift of responsibility from the Public ProsecutionsOff‌ice to local authorities has left the Public Prosecutions
Off‌ice disinterested,feeling that it no longer has to deal with substandard housing violations at all, therefore
leaving therepeat offenders free to continue their activities with minor consequences.
Originality/value The paper presents original data on the ways governments address substandard
housing and rogue landlords. Thisis the f‌irst study that analyses the f‌ight against substandard housing in
the Dutch context.Although centred on legislation and procedures in The Netherland,the papersf‌indings are
relevantin other jurisdictions facing similar issues.
Keywords Legislation, The Netherlands, Enforcement instruments, Habitability, Rogue landlords,
Substandard housing
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
Rogue landlords, also referred to as slumlords, remain one of the most hated f‌igures in
society because of their reputation of beingexploiters of the downtrodden and harassers of
vulnerable tenants (Block, 2008, p. 147). Their regular appearance in the media, along with
the addressment of their conduct being a focal point of political debates, attests their
unpopularity and how problematic their illegal and harmful practices that exploit tenants
have become. Consideringthat the demand for private rental properties within the European
rental sector grows because of an increase in geographic mobility, along with evolutions in
the economic climate and the sphere of higher education (Whitehead et al.,2016, pp. 115-
116), abuse towards tenants isa more and more pressing issue thatneeds to be resolved. In
Financial support to conduct this study was obtained via a grant issued by the Dutch Ministry of the
Interior and Kingdom relations. This has however not inf‌luenced the studys outcome and results.
JPPEL
11,1
2
Received14 August 2018
Revised13 November 2018
Accepted24 November 2018
Journalof Property, Planning and
EnvironmentalLaw
Vol.11 No. 1, 2019
pp. 2-19
© Emerald Publishing Limited
2514-9407
DOI 10.1108/JPPEL-08-2018-0025
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/2514-9407.htm
this sense, it remains central to determine the effectiveness of legal mechanisms by
establishing if they protecttenants and hinder the violation of national housing regulations.
Seeing the rise in demandfor private rental housing, governments are continuouslyfaced
with calls for stricter standards and sanctions to address issues in housing quality, and
more emphasis on tackling landlords that take advantage of the system. These demands
from all around Europe have been met by nationalgovernments and authorities establishing
policies, acts and laws in an attempt to limit abuses committed by property owners. For
example, in April of 2018, a nationaldatabase that records and warns of landlords convicted
of housing offences was rolled out in England (Ministryof Housing, Communities and Local
Government, 2018a), whereas in the same month, the Irish Housing Minister received
Cabinet approval for a new law that could sentence rogue landlords to jail time (McQuinn,
2018). Furthermore, the new loi Elan was adopted by the French Senate in July of 2018 to
respond to the lack of harsh penalties imposed on marchands de sommeil that rent out
substandard and overcrowdedhousing (Ministère de la Cohésion des Territoires, 2018).
Regardless of these measures, a lack of clarity around the term rouge landlord exists,
with no one single concrete def‌inition emergingfrom the academic or legal discourse. When
looking into various def‌initions, it would appear that they vary from country to country
consequently shedding light onto each nations focus. We can therefore distinguish f‌ive
central characteristics from the literature, in which the presence of one or multiple criteria
are used to describe a rogue landlord:
exploitation and the unruly treatment of tenants;
discrimination;
substandard housing;
the use of property for illegal activities; and
tax evasion.
The exploitation and unruly treatment of tenants can be characterized as a criterion as it
emerges that in the UK, property owners often tend to be christened roguewhen they
resort to intimidating tenants and/or charge excessive rent. This designation can be traced
back to the UKs origins of tackling abusive landlords, when the 1950s London property
mogul Perec Rachman became infamous for winkling, best described as [...] a practice
whereby controlled tenants were forced to vacate their homes because of harassment or on
payment of a sum of money(Jackson, 2017, p. 147). Discrimination in housing, illegal in a
number of European countries(Harrison et al., 2005), also regularly surfaces in the literature.
This second criterion is central to Belgiumsdef‌inition of rogue landlord, as these property
owners often knowingly rent out unsafe, cramp or unkempt housing to individuals in a
precarious situation, as they will be less likely to speak out about the squalid living
conditions (Hubeau, 2005;Loopmans et al., 2005, p. 211). Although landlords here
discriminate by selecting tenants who are less likely to denounce the unsatisfactory living
conditions, substandard housing, which can be def‌ined as housing that does not provide
adequate space, or protectionto the occupants from the elements, alongwith other threats to
health and safety such as mould, structural hazards and inadequate f‌ire protection
equipment (Hohmann, 2013;Vols et al., 2017), can itself be considered the third criterion.
This criterion is inherent to the Dutch def‌inition, as in 2011 the municipality of Rotterdam
described rogue landlordsto the national Government as property owners whose
Buildings, structures, terrains or yards can be characterized by fundamental overdue
maintenance, overcrowding, cannabis cultivation and other behaviours that lead to violations of
the Housing Act, the Housing Allocation Act, or the Opium Act[1].
Rogue
landlords and
substandard
housing
3

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