Rogue landlords will face fines of up to £50,000 and a ban on letting under new legislation being backed by MSPs.

Holyrood has given its support for the Private Rented Housing Bill, which targets landlords who fail to live up to their responsibilities to tenants and communities.

The Bill increases the maximum fine for houses in multiple occupation (HMO) licensing and landlord registration offences to £50,000, and expands the "fit and proper person" test to allow local authorities to ban landlords who do not deal with anti-social behaviour in their properties.

Housing minister Alex Neil said: "The people we have to tackle is the small minority, very often geographically concentrated, who give landlordism a bad name.

"But at the same time we want to ensure that the regulation being put in place is proportionate, while protecting the rights of tenants and landlords and to develop a longer term strategy for the sector's growth.

"I believe the Bill plays its part by giving local authorities greater powers to tackle bad practice and penalise unlawful operators, as well as improving tenants and landlords' awareness of their rights and responsibilities."

The SNP’s Tricia Marwick called for an assurance that the Bill would "put an end to local authorities telling MSPs there is nothing they can do".

Mr Neil said the Bill would give local authorities "the tools to do the job".

He added: "The Bill strengthens the system of landlord registration, including expanding the fit and proper person test, and making it clear to local authorities that issues such as anti-social behaviour must be taken into account.

"It gives local authorities new powers to gather information to crack down on unregistered landlords, including an ability to require managing agents to provide a list of properties they manage.

"The Bill gets tough on the worst offenders increasing the maximum fines for HMO licensing and landlord registration offences to £50,000, and it sends a clear message the we recognise the seriousness of such offences and that they will not be tolerated."

Mr Neil said the Bill will improving tenants and landlords' awareness of their rights and responsibilities through a mandatory Tenant Information Pack to be prepared upon moving in.

During the Bill's final stage three debate, members agreed to a new section to the Bill which dealt with overprovision of HMO licences.

The amendment, by Tory Ted Brocklebank, was backed 92-2 and will give a local authority the right to refuse to grant an HMO if it considers there is overprovision in the area.

He said: "To those who might say this is a fairly weighty hammer to crack a relatively small nut can I say that the daily lives of people and certain areas of our cities and towns are being blighted by the very high density of HMOs in their neighbourhoods.

"The evidence suggested that many local authorities did not believe the existing licensing provisions were specific enough to turn down applications solely on the grounds that there were too many HMOs in that locality already."