Decision Report 201401352

Summary

Mr C and his family own a number of rented properties. He said that he applied online to renew the registration of the properties rented and jointly owned. Some family members’ applications were approved, and confirmatory emails were received. However, Mr C did not notice that confirmation had not been given for his and another family member’s application, and that payment had not been taken. He thought that this might have been due to the applications being incomplete, and that the council should have noticed this. Mr C also complained that the council had failed to send reminders after the renewal date lapsed, and had charged him a late payment fee.

Landlord Registration is a mandatory registration scheme for all private landlords in Scotland and all local authorities have a statutory duty to deliver this within their areas. The scheme allows councils to establish their own processes to administer the scheme locally, taking into account the primary legislation and associated regulations.

Our investigation found that there was no evidence that the council had received an application from Mr C and had failed to act on it. Although the council did not contact him for some time after the deadline for registration lapsed, the onus to register rested with the applicant, and the late payment fee he was asked to pay was in line with the registration scheme.