An urgent independent review is needed into a registration scheme which is failing to weed out bad landlords and protect tenants from poor practice.

Shelter Scotland's report 'Landlord Registration in Scotland: three years on' also calls for a national publicity drive after research revealed a lack of awareness amongst both landlords and tenants about their renting rights and responsibilities.

The report - published on the third anniversary of the scheme - shows that a minority of landlords continue to taint the sector with Dickensian treatment of their tenants and an estimated one in four properties is still not covered by registration.

Shelter Scotland today put forward a three-point action plan to get registration back on track and ensure that it does tackle private rented sector problems, like withheld deposits, poor landlord management, harassment and unlawful eviction.

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Graeme Brown, Director of Shelter Scotland, housing and homelessness charity, said: "We share the desire of responsible landlords and local authorities who want to see Landlord Registration being made to work.

"Good landlords have paid their money each year to sign up to this scheme based on the promise it would level the playing field between them and the minority of cowboy operators who undermine the private rented sector’s reputation as a whole."

Mr Brown said the report highlights areas of good practice but there are still instances where a minority of landlords are giving the sector a bad name.

"We document cases where tenants have been illegally evicted, with their belongings turfed out on the street or stolen, or they have been threatened with serious abuse, or worse, assaulted."

He added that the private rented sector has an important contribution to make towards Scotland's internationally acclaimed commitment to give everyone the right to a home by 2012.

John Blackwood, Director of the Scottish Association of Landlords (SAL), said: "Our Association supports the Scottish Government's policy on registration as being a good idea and offering benefits for both landlords and tenants. But, as the Shelter report and our own research shows, one of the main problems is enforcement. We know of situations where councils are being told of unregistered landlords and quite simply nothing is being done.

"If this continues, Landlord Registration has the potential to fail because decent landlords will start to wonder, three years down the line, whether there’s any point in re-registering. Landlord Registration has to have teeth in addressing the problems of tackling unregistered landlords or there is simply no point in having it."

(GK/JM)