Councils face a losing battle as they crack down on rogue agencies

Despite dawn raids and legal action, the number of unlicensed rentals in houses of multiple occupation continues to growIt was before sunrise on a wintry morning that we gathered on a street corner in north London – a clutch of council officials, two police officers and myself. At a signal, the officials hammered on the doors of two tatty maisonettes above a surgery and waved warrants at the bleary faces that appeared in the windows.This was a dawn raid on two of the myriad houses in multi