A leading property lawyer has described a campaigning MP’s latest attempt to usher in harsher regulation of short-lets in holiday hotspots as ‘intensely impractical’.
David Smith (main image) of legal firm JMW has made the comments about MP Rachel Maskell’s Private Member’s Bill, the Short-term Let Accommodation Bill.
The MP for York Central tabled a similar bill last year and overall her efforts are an attempt to get tougher regulation of holiday lets and the platforms such as Airbnb and Booking.com that advertise them, onto the political agenda.
York is one of several historic cities withinthe UK featuring central areas that are extremely popular with tourists and, consequently, have seen an increasing percentage of its housing stock eaten up by short lets.
The key plank of her previous and current Private Member’s Bill is to require local authorities to licence all short lets on an annual basis, with yearly inspections and licence fee applications and fees, with councils also able to limit the number of licences available within their boundaries or specific ‘hotspots’.
“This Bill is intensely impracticable,” says Smith. “The workload on local authorities who would need to inspect every short-let property every year for the purpose of granting a licence - as well as again on complaint - and publish an audit is simply unsustainable.
“Additionally, it seeks to do things, such as limiting numbers of short-let properties, which are far better done by other existing mechanisms, such as planning.”
Maskell is hoping her bill, which has no or little hope of becoming law, will persuade her Labour colleagues within the cabinet to upgrade their already-published plans to tackle short lets.
In August this year Labour announced it would press ahead with a national registration scheme, a lesser measure compared to licensing.
Tags:
Comments