The Scottish Government has published a consultation on making changes to the landlord registration system. The changes being considered are: –
- an inflationary increase in the principal fee/property fee from £55/£11 to £70/£14
- requiring landlords to confirm and/or evidence that they are adhering to legislation including safety certificate, EPC and legionnaires requirements in order to ensure landlords are aware of/adhering to their responsibilities;
- an extra charge (approximately £2) on the principal fee to cover the cost of running the online registration system;
- removing the 10% online application discount, the 100% joint owner discount and the 50% multiple area discount to better reflect the administrative costs in processing applications;
- charging a fee to those who need to update the register to because of a change in circumstances to cover the cost of processing these updates;
- offering discounts to landlords who have undergone training or are members of accreditation scheme in order to reward best practice.
