Detailed landlord data on rental property, type and residential
Dear Greenwich Borough Council,
My name is Martina Radovanic and I am a research assistant for Professor Thiemo Fetzer at the University of Warwick who is also affiliated with the London School of Economics and the National Institute of Social and Economic Research, among others.
In the midst of the energy and climate crisis, retrofitting the building stock has become a priority. Since a significant part of Greenwich's residential stock consists of private rentals, one specific challenge for our outreach strategy is whether landlords can be mobilised to act and retrofit their homes. It is essential to study to what extent natural person or legal entity ownership and foreign or non-local ownership may be an impediment, as it may require alternative policies to move “absentee” owners to invest in the properties.
I first request detailed information regarding the landlord data that is stored by the council for each rental property. This information should be provided as a comprehensive list of variables. For instance, if the council stores information on the residential address of landlords, the nationality of landlords, the type of landlord (such as type of organization or freeholder versus leaseholder), the type of property held (such as property characteristics), or the number of households in the rental property, please provide a detailed list of these information categories.
I also request an anonymized dataset based on the current landlord register that provides information on the landlord’s type (natural vs. legal entity) and resident location type (foreign vs. domestic) for each rental property in Greenwich. The type of landlords can be deduced from the legal status of the landlord. For instance, Public Limited Companies, Private Limited Companies, Charity or Association, Limited Liability Partnership, are all different potential legal statuses of a legal entity. In contrast, an individual is a natural person. The resident location type can be deduced from the residential address of the landlord.
Specifically, I request the most granular dataset available.
1. Property level data
For each private rental property, I request access to the following property-level data:
UPRN (if available), Address (Street, house number, locality), Postcode, Indicator of natural person vs legal entity, Indicator of foreign vs domestic landlord residential address.
2. Postcode level data
If the information rights teams judges that data 1) cannot be provided, a justification should be provided. In that case, conditional on 1) not being satisfied, I request the information rights team to provide access to the dataset that is aggregated at the postcode level.
The tabular data layout should be:
Postcode, Indicator of natural person vs legal entity, Indicator of foreign vs domestic landlord residential address, Count of Properties.
For example:
Postcode / Landlord Type (Natural Person, Legal Entity) / Landlord legal residence (Domestic, Foreign) / Count of Properties
CV4 7AL / Natural / Domestic / 12
CV4 7AL / Natural / Foreign / 6
CV4 7AL / Legal / Domestic / 8
CV4 7AL / Legal / Foreign / 7
3. Census Output Area level data
If the information rights teams judges that data 2) cannot be provided, a justification should be provided. In that case, conditional on 2) not being satisfied, I request the information rights team to provide access to the dataset that is aggregated at the Census Output Area level.
The tabular layout should be:
Output Area Code, Indicator of natural person vs legal entity, Indicator of foreign vs domestic landlord residential address, Count of Properties.
If data at the Census Output Area level is below a certain threshold to avoid disclosure these should be flagged as being omitted.
4. LSOA level data
If the information rights teams judges that data 3) cannot be provided, a justification should be provided. In that case, conditional on 3) not being satisfied, I request the information rights team to provide access to the dataset that is aggregated at the LSOA level.
The tabular layout should be:
LSOA Code, Indicator of natural person vs legal entity, Indicator of foreign vs domestic landlord residential address, Count of Properties.
If data at the LSOA level is below a certain threshold to avoid disclosure these should be flagged as being omitted.
5. MSOA level data
If the information rights teams judges that data 4) cannot be provided, a justification should be provided. In that case, conditional on 3) not being satisfied, I request the information rights team to provide access to the dataset that is aggregated at the MSOA level.
The tabular layout should be:
MSOA Code, Indicator of natural person vs legal entity, Indicator of foreign vs domestic landlord residential address, Count of Properties.
If data at the MSOA level is below a certain threshold to avoid disclosure these should be flagged as being omitted.
Qualifiers
* If the information rights team does not have data on some of the variables requested in the tabular layout, the dataset that comes nearest in spirit should be provided. An explanation of why said data is not held or shared should be provided and, in line with the spirit of FOI legislation, the Local Authority should attempt to help the requester of information about where or which government entity may hold said information.
* Data should be provided as early as possible
* Datasets should be provided, ideally in a tabular and accessible format.
* Datasets can be provided in formats as they are stored by the council. There is no need to combine them into the exact layouts requested to reduce processing costs.
* If any of the requests involve costs beyond the statutory limit for the council, then data that is of a similar spirit that can be extracted that involves a cost that is within the statutory limit should be provided.
* A justification of how the council determined that the cost of extracting said data would be beyond the statutory limit should be provided.
I am more than happy to provide technical assistance or input.
Yours faithfully,
Martina Radovanic
Dear Ms Radovanic
Freedom of Information request: FOI-72437
Thank you for your request dated 24 March 2023
Your request will be answered by 25 April 2023.
If you have any queries about this request, please contact me, quoting the
reference number above.
Yours sincerely,
David White
Head of Information, Safety and Community Services
Directorate of Communities, Environment and Central
Royal Borough of Greenwich
* 3^rd Floor, The Woolwich Centre, 35 Wellington Street, London, SE18
6HQ
8 [1]www.royalgreenwich.gov.uk
ü Please consider the environment before printing this email
Dear Ms Radovanic
Freedom of Information request: FOI-72437
We apologise for the delay in providing the response to your Freedom of
Information request. We do remain committed to responding to your request
and will respond as soon as we are able to do so.
Yours sincerely,
Freedom of Information Officer
Information, Safety and Community Services
Directorate of Communities, Environment and Central
Royal Borough of Greenwich
* The Woolwich Centre, 35 Wellington Street, London SE18 6HQ
8 [1]www.royalgreenwich.gov.uk
ü Please consider the environment before printing this email
From: foi <[Greenwich Borough Council request email]>
Sent: 27 March 2023 11:32
To: 'Martina Radovanic' <[FOI #964570 email]>
Cc: foi <[Greenwich Borough Council request email]>
Subject: FOI-72437: Freedom of Information request - Detailed landlord
data on rental property, type and residential
Dear Ms Radovanic
Freedom of Information request: FOI-72437
Thank you for your request dated 24 March 2023
Your request will be answered by 25 April 2023.
If you have any queries about this request, please contact me, quoting the
reference number above.
Yours sincerely,
David White
Head of Information, Safety and Community Services
Directorate of Communities, Environment and Central
Royal Borough of Greenwich
* 3^rd Floor, The Woolwich Centre, 35 Wellington Street, London, SE18
6HQ
8 [2]www.royalgreenwich.gov.uk
ü Please consider the environment before printing this email
Dear Ms Radovanic
Freedom of Information request: FOI-72437
Thank you for your request dated 24 March 2023
Our response is as follows:
In the midst of the energy and climate crisis, retrofitting the building
stock has become a priority. Since a significant part of Greenwich's
residential stock consists of private rentals, one specific challenge for
our outreach strategy is whether landlords can be mobilised to act and
retrofit their homes. It is essential to study to what extent natural
person or legal entity ownership and foreign or non-local ownership may be
an impediment, as it may require alternative policies to move “absentee”
owners to invest in the properties.
I first request detailed information regarding the landlord data that is
stored by the council for each rental property. This information should be
provided as a comprehensive list of variables. For instance, if the
council stores information on the residential address of landlords, the
nationality of landlords, the type of landlord (such as type of
organization or freeholder versus leaseholder), the type of property held
(such as property characteristics), or the number of households in the
rental property, please provide a detailed list of these information
categories.
I also request an anonymized dataset based on the current landlord
register that provides information on the landlord’s type (natural vs.
legal entity) and resident location type (foreign vs. domestic) for each
rental property in Greenwich. The type of landlords can be deduced from
the legal status of the landlord. For instance, Public Limited Companies,
Private Limited Companies, Charity or Association, Limited Liability
Partnership, are all different potential legal statuses of a legal entity.
In contrast, an individual is a natural person. The resident location type
can be deduced from the residential address of the landlord.
Specifically, I request the most granular dataset available.
1. Property level data
For each private rental property, I request access to the following
property-level data:
UPRN (if available), Address (Street, house number, locality), Postcode,
Indicator of natural person vs legal entity, Indicator of foreign vs
domestic landlord residential address.
The Councils property database does not identify ownership, so it is not
possible to provide a list of private rented properties. Further, property
address information is available from Ordnance Survey:
[1]https://beta.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/produc...
[2]https://beta.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/produc...
2. Postcode level data
If the information rights teams judges that data 1) cannot be provided, a
justification should be provided. In that case, conditional on 1) not
being satisfied, I request the information rights team to provide access
to the dataset that is aggregated at the postcode level.
The tabular data layout should be:
Postcode, Indicator of natural person vs legal entity, Indicator of
foreign vs domestic landlord residential address, Count of Properties.
For example:
Postcode / Landlord Type (Natural Person, Legal Entity) / Landlord legal
residence (Domestic, Foreign) / Count of Properties
CV4 7AL / Natural /
Domestic / 12
CV4 7AL / Natural / Foreign /
6
CV4 7AL / Legal /
Domestic / 8
CV4 7AL / Legal /
Foreign / 7
Section 12 (1) does not oblige a local authority to comply with a request
for information if the authority estimates that the cost of complying with
the request would exceed the appropriate limit.
The Freedom of Information and Data Protection (Appropriate Limit and
Fees) Regulations 2004 (“the Fees Regulations) sets the appropriate limit
at £450 for the public authority in question. Under these Regulations, a
public authority can charge a maximum of £25 per hour for work undertaken
to comply with a request. This equates to 18 hours work.
A public authority is only required to provide a reasonable estimate or
breakdown of costs and in putting together its estimate it can take the
following processes into consideration:-
a. Determining whether it holds the information;
b. Locating the information, or a document which may contain the
information;
c. Retrieving the information, or a document which may contain the
information, and
d. Extracting the information from a document containing it.
We have estimated the length of time it will take to do the following
tasks in accordance with section 12.
Determining whether the information is held.
The information is held in a database named Tascomi. There are 11449
records. We would need to search for all records that are listed under the
Private Rented Housing Module and then manually check each one to read
through each case record to assess if it contains the criteria requested.
This would require opening attachments and multiple tabs on the system. We
would also need to conduct a search of each record that has not been
recorded in the Private Rented Housing module as the individual records
might hold some of the criteria.
Retrieving and extracting the information.
To retrieve and extract the information one officer will have to read
through each case record, this would take approximately 4 minutes (1
minutes to locate file and 3 minutes to retrieve and extract the
information. (4 minutes x 11449 records) = 763 hours. The information
where held, is held electronically.
Total hours to complete the request equates to 763 hours
We estimate that it will take us in excess of 18 hours to determine the
appropriate material and locate, retrieve and extract the information in
reference to your request. The council is not obliged to comply with this
request because it exceeds the appropriate limit.
Section 16 of the Act imposes an obligation on public authorities to
provide advice and assistance to a person making a request, so far as it
is reasonable to do so.
In order to provide you with advice and assistance we suggest you review
and extract the publicly available data from the Mandatory HMO Licence
register at
[3]https://regulations.royalgreenwich.gov.u...
.
You could then amend your request by asking for postcode-only data on
other privately rented property types within a 12 month period (calendar
year), however, please note that the tenure status would only have been
correct at the time the report was received by the council, and may have
since changed.
3. Census Output Area level data
If the information rights teams judges that data 2) cannot be provided, a
justification should be provided. In that case, conditional on 2) not
being satisfied, I request the information rights team to provide access
to the dataset that is aggregated at the Census Output Area level.
The tabular layout should be:
Output Area Code, Indicator of natural person vs legal entity, Indicator
of foreign vs domestic landlord residential address, Count of Properties.
If data at the Census Output Area level is below a certain threshold to
avoid disclosure these should be flagged as being omitted.
RBG are neither the publishers or custodians of this information, which is
published openly by the ONS. The requested data has not been extracted by
the Royal Borough and cannot be provided. Available Census data can be
searched for here:
[4]https://www.ons.gov.uk/census
4. LSOA level data
If the information rights teams judges that data 3) cannot be provided, a
justification should be provided. In that case, conditional on 3) not
being satisfied, I request the information rights team to provide access
to the dataset that is aggregated at the LSOA level.
The tabular layout should be:
LSOA Code, Indicator of natural person vs legal entity, Indicator of
foreign vs domestic landlord residential address, Count of Properties.
If data at the LSOA level is below a certain threshold to avoid disclosure
these should be flagged as being omitted.
RBG are neither the publishers or custodians of this information, which is
published openly by the ONS. The requested data has not been extracted by
the Royal Borough and cannot be provided. Available Census data can be
searched for here:
[5]https://www.ons.gov.uk/census
5. MSOA level data
If the information rights teams judges that data 4) cannot be provided, a
justification should be provided. In that case, conditional on 3) not
being satisfied, I request the information rights team to provide access
to the dataset that is aggregated at the MSOA level.
The tabular layout should be:
MSOA Code, Indicator of natural person vs legal entity, Indicator of
foreign vs domestic landlord residential address, Count of Properties.
If data at the MSOA level is below a certain threshold to avoid disclosure
these should be flagged as being omitted.
RBG are neither the publishers or custodians of this information, which is
published openly by the ONS. The requested data has not been extracted by
the Royal Borough and cannot be provided. Available Census data can be
searched for here:
[6]https://www.ons.gov.uk/census
If you have any queries about this correspondence, please contact me,
quoting the reference number above.
If you are not satisfied with our response to your request, you can ask
for an Internal Review. Internal review requests must be submitted within
two months of the date of receipt of the response to your original
request. If you wish to do this, please contact us in writing, setting
out why you are dissatisfied.
If you are not satisfied with the outcome of the Internal Review, you may
apply directly to the Information Commissioner (ICO) for a decision.
Generally, the ICO cannot make a decision unless you have exhausted the
Internal Review procedure provided by the Council. You can contact the ICO
by emailing [7][email address], or by post at Customer Contact,
Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow,
SK9 5AF.
Yours sincerely,
David White
Head of Information, Safety and Community Services
Directorate of Communities, Environment and Central
Royal Borough of Greenwich
* 3^rd Floor, The Woolwich Centre, 35 Wellington Street, London, SE18
6HQ
8 [8]www.royalgreenwich.gov.uk
ü Please consider the environment before printing this email
From: foi <[Greenwich Borough Council request email]>
Sent: Wednesday, April 26, 2023 9:11 AM
To: 'Martina Radovanic' <[FOI #964570 email]>
Cc: foi <[Greenwich Borough Council request email]>
Subject: FW: FOI-72437: Freedom of Information request - Detailed landlord
data on rental property, type and residential
Dear Ms Radovanic
Freedom of Information request: FOI-72437
We apologise for the delay in providing the response to your Freedom of
Information request. We do remain committed to responding to your request
and will respond as soon as we are able to do so.
Yours sincerely,
Freedom of Information Officer
Information, Safety and Community Services
Directorate of Communities, Environment and Central
Royal Borough of Greenwich
* The Woolwich Centre, 35 Wellington Street, London SE18 6HQ
8 [9]www.royalgreenwich.gov.uk
ü Please consider the environment before printing this email
From: foi <[10][Greenwich Borough Council request email]>
Sent: 27 March 2023 11:32
To: 'Martina Radovanic' <[11][FOI #964570 email]>
Cc: foi <[12][Greenwich Borough Council request email]>
Subject: FOI-72437: Freedom of Information request - Detailed landlord
data on rental property, type and residential
Dear Ms Radovanic
Freedom of Information request: FOI-72437
Thank you for your request dated 24 March 2023
Your request will be answered by 25 April 2023.
If you have any queries about this request, please contact me, quoting the
reference number above.
Yours sincerely,
David White
Head of Information, Safety and Community Services
Directorate of Communities, Environment and Central
Royal Borough of Greenwich
* 3^rd Floor, The Woolwich Centre, 35 Wellington Street, London, SE18
6HQ
8 [13]www.royalgreenwich.gov.uk
ü Please consider the environment before printing this email
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