Sections 7 and 8 – Penalties for unregistered landlords
14.Sections 7 and 8 give powers to the Courts to impose tougher penalties on the most severe cases of bad landlord practice. To reflect the seriousness of the behaviour of some landlords, the Act increases the maximum fine level in section 93(7) of the 2004 Act, for offences relating to acting as an unregistered landlord, from level 5 on the standard scale to £50,000 and introduces a new section 93A to allow the court to disqualify a person operating as an unregistered landlord from being registered as a landlord by any local authority in Scotland, for up to five years. These provisions bring landlord registration in line with HMO licensing. The Act outlines the landlord’s right of appeal and makes provision for revocation of any disqualification order, though no revocation can occur unless there has been a change of circumstances, and even then not within the first year of the order taking effect.
