A taskforce has been launched to unpick the complex financial networks used by rogue landlords to hide their illegal properties from authorities.
Individual rogue landlords and family members will be targeted by investigators where they are suspected of running illegal rentals.
The owners of rental houses that pose a safety risk, have unregulated fire hazards or unsanitary conditions will be probed.
The crackdown is a partnership between councils in Hounslow, Hillingdon, Ealing and Slough after a £60,000 government grant.
Hounslow council today unveiled the scheme and said it was aimed at dismantling criminal networks that use front companies and relatives to evade scrutiny and break the law.
The borough has already fined 16 property owners this financial year for breaching housing regulations and collected £567,000 in fines.
Generation Rent director Dan Wilson Craw said councils have no way of knowing if problems in one property are also in others owned by the same landlord in different areas.
He said: “This initiative has the potential to root out more criminal landlords.”
