PROFILE: Meet the local landlords taking on regional and national regulators

The Humber Landlords Association (HLA) can justly claim that it has the ear of local and central government – and isn’t afraid to take these authorities to task.

When it challenged Hull’s Accredited Landlord Scheme in 2019, the government delivered a sharp rebuke to the city council after finding it to be unfairly penalising private landlords by serving them with enforcement notices before they’d had the opportunity to address a tenant’s complaint.

“When the new enforcement policy was introduced, we told them it wouldn’t give people time to sort out problems,” chairman and local agent Danny Gough (pictured) tells LandlordZONE.

“It ended up at the High Court but when the council saw we were happy to go to the Court of Appeal, that made them sit up and think. We just wanted them to think logically and they’ve changed the policy. That was a real win.”

Resisted plans

The association also successfully resisted plans to introduce selective licensing and believes the fact private landlords provide more houses in Hull than the local authority gives it a mandate to step in when something doesn’t make sense for the sector. It’s even been to meet with then Housing Minister Michael Gove to outline concerns.

When it’s not campaigning, the HLA, which was set up more than 30 years ago and covers Hull, Humberside and North East Lincolnshire, meets once a month, conducts in-house training and keeps members informed about the law and their responsibilities, explains Gough, who has been at the helm for four years.

The result has been an improvement in standards throughout the PRS and more tenants living in a nice, safe environment.

Good work

“We currently have 115 members and more people wanting to join as they can see we do really good work, but there’s no desire to push the group into something bigger than it needs to be,” he says.

Involved in property since 2002, Gough has owned lettings, sales and investment firm MyPad in the city since 2012 and reckons it’s a good fit, asserting: “I’m passionate about the association.

“It’s what made my business better because I’m at the forefront of all the information, so our clients are the best informed.”