Lambeth’s rogue landlords could now face fines of up to £30,000 and banning orders from the council.

The council has introduced measures to tackle rogue landlords and managing agents, which will see the council using powers from the Housing and Planning Act 2016.

According to Lambeth Council documents: “The adoption of these powers supports the council’s commitment to target and drive out irresponsible, criminal landlords who fail to provide decent homes and to drive up management standards within the private rented sector.

“The exercise of these new powers should have the result of forcing non-compliant, criminal landlords out of the private rental sector (whilst encouraging others to comply) and in this way prevent the commission of housing offences.”

Under the new rules offenders would also be added to a national database – which would help to catch culprits who operate across local authorities, documents explained.

“The purpose of this is to provide local authorities with a tool for keeping track of known rogues so that enforcement action and resources are  focused on those individuals and organisations who knowingly flout their legal obligations and to assist in the identification of such individuals especially those who operate across council boundaries.”

The changes, which give the council the power to hand out fines of up to £30,000 as an alternative to prosecution, also extends rent payment orders to cover illegal eviction and breach of a banning order.

The rent payment orders used to apply to situations where a landlord did not have a licence but is now extended to cover use of violence to secure entry to a premises, eviction or harassment of occupiers of a premises, failure to comply with an improvement notice, failure to comply with a prohibition order or a breach of a banning order.