LANDLORDS refusing to sign up to a crackdown on poor quality homes in Worcester are facing a whopping £20,000 fine, it has emerged.

The city council has revealed how it is prepared to use hard-hitting Government legislation to hit rogue rental-owners in the pocket if a controversial policy falls apart.

The fine has been described a "scare tactic" by a landlords association, which maintains the policy will not tackle rogue operators.

As your Worcester News revealed last month, the council is considering forcing private landlords to stump up £670 for their details to be kept on a new public register for the first time.

The new database will fund a war-chest as high as £1.3 million and lead to a wave of regular enforcement inspections across the city to drive up standards in squalid homes.

And under a "fit and proper persons test" those with convictions for violence, drugs, fraud or sexual offences will be barred.

The move, one of the most dramatic council policies for years, would hit an estimated 2,000 Houses of Multiple Occupation (HMOs) currently under no local authority controls or inspections.

A consultation over it has now launched, with the council saying landlords who refuse to comply face a £20,000 fine under the Housing Act 2004.

Councillor David Wilkinson, cabinet member for safer and stronger communities, said: "The justification for this is firstly, the growing number of rented properties across Worcester, and secondly, the fact 92 per cent of properties we inspect need some kind of basic work on them.

"Thirdly, we want a level playing field."

Don Robbie, from the National Landlords Association (NLA), said: "The maximum fine they know they can levy for landlords who do not declare is £20,000.

"They are probably using scare tactics to try and get a headline and wake up the landlords to what could be coming.

"The good landlords would pay the fee anyway but I still believe the rogue ones won't, they'll just take the risk."

The £670 fee will help fund 300 inspections of private rented homes across Worcester a year, double the current tally.

The fee would be payable once every five years, and apply to all homes where three or more people from two different families live - typically those used by students or young professionals.

At the moment only HMOs of five beds or more over three storeys need to be registered with the council, with the tally a paltry 187.

* A 12-week consultation runs until Friday, January 30. To get involved visit worcester.gov.uk/voiceit.