A landlord has said he will not invest in Dundee property anymore after claiming he has been demonised by the city council.
Steve Hainey owns several properties with Houses in Multiple Occupation (HMO) licenses in Bank Street, and says he and his tenants are consistently scapegoated.
“Any problem is blamed on us” he said. “When you’re a HMO landlord, you always have your hand in your pocket and you still get blamed for everything. Certain councillors and city residents have a real bee in their bonnet about HMOs, but the truth is if we don’t provide appropriate, affordable housing to the students of the two universities in the city, they’re just going to go elsewhere.
“I’m sick and tired of it, we aren’t wealthy landlords and we spend a lot of money to keep our properties up to snuff.”
He continued: “We have to invest in security, smoke and carbon monoxide detectors, emergency lighting safety of our tenants is a good thing, but we have more constraints than the houses the council builds itself”.
Councillor Tom Ferguson, who has welcomed a review of HMO licenses in the city, said: “There is absolutely not a witch hunt, the city is simply looking for a more positive way of dealing with HMOs.
“I want to make two things clear, firstly that I have no problem at all with good people running good properties and we cannot do without the HMOs, we need them for our student population especially they are a necessity in our housing market, it is the system that needs change.
“Secondly, there will be no summary judgement, and I won’t have anyone have their livelihoods threatened.
“We are in the very early days of this review, that’s why we can’t give all the details just yet.
“But there needs to be change in the system, because we can’t have HMOs sitting cheek-by-jowl because they can destroy the fabric of a neighbourhood.”
A review into how the city council deals with HMOs is scheduled to take place in February.