Number of properties investigated/ fined for violating Section 44 of the Deregulation Act during the 2016/2017 year

The request was successful.

Dear Common Council of the City of London,

I am looking to obtain data related to the number of short-term let (Airbnb) properties that have been investigated by your council for potentially violating Section 44 of the Deregulation Act during the 2016-2017 year.

I would also like to obtain data of the number of properties that were fined for violating Section 44 of the Deregulation Act during the 2016-2017 year.

Yours faithfully,

Heather A.K.

COL-EB-InformationOfficer, Common Council of the City of London

Dear Heather,

The City of London (CoL), is in receipt of your email of 12 March 2018, below, and comments as follows.

Please note that section 8 of the FOIA states as follows:

"8.—(1) In this Act any reference to a 'request for information' is a reference to such a request which—
… (b) states the name of the applicant …"

For further guidance, please see the guidance “Recognising a request made under the Freedom of Information Act (Section 8)” (version 1.2, 2 Nov 2016), published on the website of the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) at: http://www.ico.org.uk/.

You will see that the ICO states that “the intention of the legislation is for the requester to provide their real name … For a request to be valid, the requester must provide enough of their real name to give anyone reading that request a reasonable indication of their identity”, and that “the absence of a real name would make it technically invalid under Section 8(1)(b)” of the FOIA.

The guidance also states, at paragraphs 42 and 43, that, to be a valid request, “the request must state the real name of the party on whose behalf the agent is acting … A request which only includes the real name of the agent will be invalid”.

(It is also clear from paragraph 19 that if the real name of the applicant is not used, and/or someone were not disclosing to the public authority if they were acting as an agent, then the ICO would not consider the request a valid request and therefore could not mange any complaint about the response by the public authority to it).

Once we have received confirmation of your real name, we can progress your request as a valid request.

Yours sincerely,

Compliance (FOI)
Comptroller & City Solicitor’s Department
City of London
Tel: 020-7332 1243
www.cityoflondon.gov.uk

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Dear COL-EB-InformationOfficer,

I am looking to obtain data related to the number of short-term let (Airbnb) properties that have been investigated by your council for potentially violating Section 44 of the Deregulation Act during the 2016-2017 year.

I would also like to obtain data of the number of properties that were fined for violating Section 44 of the Deregulation Act during the 2016-2017 year.

Yours sincerely,

Heather Kroeker

COL-EB-InformationOfficer, Common Council of the City of London

Dear Heather Kroeker

FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT 2000 (FOIA) – REQUEST FOR INFORMATION

The City of London (CoL) acknowledges receipt of your request for information of 12 March 2018 and clarification of the same date of your full name.

Public authorities are required to respond to requests within the statutory timescale of 20 working days beginning from the first working day after they receive a request, or any subsequent clarification. The Act does not always require public authorities to disclose the information which they hold.

The FOIA applies to the CoL as a local authority, police authority and port health authority. The CoL is the local and police authority for the “Square Mile”, ie the historic City of London, and not for London as a whole. Please see the following page containing a link to a map (Explore the City), which shows the local authority area covered by the CoL:
https://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/maps/Pag....

The CoL does have some functions, including Port Health Authority functions, which extend beyond the City boundary. For further information please see: www.cityoflondon.gov.uk.

Yours sincerely,

Compliance (FOI)
Comptroller & City Solicitor’s Department
City of London
Tel: 020-7332 1243
www.cityoflondon.gov.uk

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DBE - Information, Common Council of the City of London

Dear Heather Kroeker,

 

FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT 2000 (FOIA) - INFORMATION REQUEST

 

Following your request for information of 12 March 2018, and our
acknowledgement of 13 March 2018, the City of London (CoL) responds as
follows.

 

The CoL has supplied information that relates to all short-term letting
companies, and has supplied this in calendar years.

 

Please note the CoL has applied numbering to your request to make our
responses easier to understand.

 

 1. The number of short-term let properties that have been investigated by
the CoL in total for 2016 and 2017 are as follows:

 

+--------------------------------------------------------+
|Year |Premises Investigated |
|--------------------+-----------------------------------|
|2016 |17 |
|--------------------+-----------------------------------|
|2017 |17 |
+--------------------------------------------------------+

 

Please note, during the course of any investigation we may be advised, or
our research may conclude, that the landlord/occupier uses the services of
a named short-term letting company. This information is recorded and held
within a hardcopy file for that property and is not held in a searchable
database.

 

 2. No prosecutions or financial penalties were levied during either 2016
or 2017.

 

If you have any queries or concerns, please contact us.

 

If you wish to make a complaint about the way the CoL has managed your
request under the FOIA, please make your complaint in writing to our
Complaints Officer at [1][email address].

 

For a link to the CoL’s FOI complaints procedure, please visit the
following page: [2]www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/Feedback, at the end of which
is located the FOI complaints procedure.

 

If, having used the CoL’s FOI Complaints Procedure, you are still
dissatisfied, you may request the Information Commissioner to investigate.
The Information Commissioner is a Crown appointment, responsible for
monitoring compliance with the FOIA. Please contact: Information
Commissioner, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF.
Telephone: (01625) 545700. Website: [3]www.ico.org.uk

 

Please note that the Act applies to the CoL as a local authority, police
authority and port health authority.

 

CoL holds the copyright in this communication. The supply of it does not
give you a right to re-use it in a way that would infringe that copyright,
for example, by making copies, publishing and issuing copies to the public
or to any other person. Brief extracts of any of the material may be
reproduced under the fair dealing provisions of the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act 1988 (sections 29 and 30) for the purposes of research for
non-commercial purposes, private study, criticism, review and news
reporting, subject to an acknowledgement of the copyright owner.

 

Yours sincerely,

 

 

Performance & Standards Team

Department of the Built Environment

Phone      020 7606 3030

[4]www.cityoflondon.gov.uk

 

 

 

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