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The Residential Landlord’s Association (RLA) is not happy with the BBC’s flagship current affairs programme, Panorama. The show recently aired an episode dealing with the issue of housing benefit payments to landlords and according to RLA chairman, Alan Ward, it once again portrayed landlords in a highly unfavourable light.
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The Great Housing Benefit Scandal
Reporter, Alys Harte, investigated a number of different cases of landlords ‘cashing in’ on housing benefits tenants, including a landlord with 40 people crammed into one property and a dodgy businessman who used false names and multiple companies to hide his property empire.
BBC Must Explain It’s Stance Says RLA
The RLA has asked the BBC to clarify why it refused allow a representative from one of the leading landlords associations to appear on the programme to defend Britain’s good landlords and why they focussed on specific types of property such as caravan sites and hotels, which are not standard housing in the private rental sector. The programme also claimed that local authorities don’t have the powers to tackle poor housing in the private rental sector, which is another point the RLA disputes:
If Panorama had invited a landlords’ spokesperson: “They would have been reminded of the 100 Acts of Parliament containing 400 regulations affecting the private rented market,” says Alan Ward.
The Great Housing Benefit Scandal aired on Friday 24th April
