Last Friday morning, whilst I was beavering away at work preparing for that afternoon’s council event, ‘landlord’s day’, I received an email from Frazzy with a link to an article in London’s free newspaper Metro. She titled her email to me “Homelessness is rising and these twats are out playing tennis” how could you fail to be interested?

Boris and Camo looked a bit set up to be honest, that hoary old tabloid favourite of politicians photographed doing something daft while Rome burns approach, very easy to do. Whilst the London mayor was doing a great blonde Orang-utan impression, opposite Camo’s howler monkey the article was actually a serious one about concerns over homelessness.

Most of you know by now that I am a Tenancy Relations Officer in South East London. My remit being to negotiate in disputes between landlords and tenants, prosecute landlords in extreme cases and also to defend mortgage borrowers in repossession claims made by their lenders.

To be honest? Give me a baseball bat wielding Old Kent Road thug over a bank anytime.

The mortgage lenders are doing the same thing as the rogue landlords but are simply hiding behind the law and a family friendly website to do it. At least ‘Big Ron’ has a bit of honesty about him.

I am part of the council’s homelessness team, in that my legal expertise is used to prevent homelessness by spotting legal infractions or by going to court to get injunctions to get the illegally evicted back into their homes.

Despite being stationed in that office of around 50 homelessness crew I actually forget I am part of that world, even though I see around 20 people queuing up everyday with their worldly belongings in black bin liners half an hour before the doors open. It’s like something from a Dickens novel and yet most people don’t realise it is still like this.

So I set to thinking about the whole housing crisis, the dearth of properties available, high rents and mortgage repossessions in terms of homelessness and where things are going and had a look at the Herriot Watt university report mentioned in the Metro article and an opinion expressed by Nicholas Timmins in the Financial Times.

Homelessness figures have been declining in the past 10 years but have shown an alarming 11% increase lately and nicely coinciding with cuts to housing benefit. I certainly see it in our office where there is hardly a seat available in reception most days.

One point of the Herriot Watt report mentions the disincentivisation to rent to benefit claimants created by the government’s obstinate refusal to allow housing benefit payments to go directly to landlords. The current scheme being as unpopular with tenants as it is with landlords.

When I was busy pressing the flesh at our Landlord’s Day last Friday I was asking everyone I met what we would need to do to get landlords to work closely with us and repeatedly I heard the same thing “pay us direct and we will have more trust in HB tenants”.

The government’s argument for maintaining this system is that direct payments infantilise tenants and they should be encouraged to manage their affairs, in the same way that working tenants have to. I understand that point, I think people should take responsibility for their lives but I don’t think that you achieve that by simply dumping £1,000 a month into someone’s bank account that wasn’t there before. It takes more than that. It takes education, support, training.

On top of my landlord/tenant responsibilities I also have to do our council’s Mortgage rescue Scheme work. I was surprised, having attended a recent meeting with the Homes and Communities Agency who administrates this nonsense that out of the paltry few people who actually qualify for the MRS within a very short period of time 34% are in rent arrears. MRS clears their debts and makes them housing association tenants at an affordable rent, so why do people still end up in financial dire straits?

It goes beyond unemployment and the recession. The fact is, as a nation we do not educate our kids in any form of even basic money management skills at school. When my daughter Holly was studying history for her GCSEs her homework consisted mainly of researching the genocide of mid-19th century American expansionism. I am sure, when she has sleep overs with her mates she continues to be amazed at the amount of times the “Secession of the Black Hills” pops into the conversation.

If we taught our kids how to manage money, how bills work, how to prioritise, even how to invest money wisely I think rent and mortgage arrears would be a far more contained problem than it is.

But back to the report.

Professor Suzanne Fitzpatrick of Heriot Watt said “Government reforms, in combination with the pressures of the economic downturn, seem certain to increase all forms of homelessness, from rough sleepers on our streets to homeless people hidden out of sight,”.

Grant Shapp last week urged those facing problems to seek early support  but how is that going to help when, as Leslie Morphy, chief exec of Crisis accurately said “We need the government to change course now or risk returning us to the days of countless lives facing the debilitating effect of homelessness,”.

We can educate our young – we should do, and we can urge people to seek assistance with housing problems but we also need help from our politicians in creating a housing system that isn’t fighting against itself.

• Staff cuts in local authorities mean there simply aren’t the amount of ‘Boots on the ground’ that there were 3 or 4 years ago – which means dealing with rogues and licensing HMOs proves a logistical nightmare.

• Grants and funding streams have been cut so there aren’t the financial packages available for people that there used to be – meaning it is more difficult to raise housing standards.

• The system of housing benefit payments going to tenants – is wearing away landlord’s patience with HB Tenants.

• Escalating rents – are causing a rise in rent arrears, evictions and homelessness applications.

• Banks unsympathetic to borrowers in difficulty and the FSA’s recent announcement that they frown on transferring to interest only mortgages – means 10s of thousands of people are going to lose their mortgaged homes in the coming year.

• Planning permission that at least the government has acknowledged needs speeding up is being dragged back by Nimbyism and an increase in regulation that allows greater scope for blocking applications, – meaning the homes that need to be built to get us out of this crisis are going to be long in coming.

• Legal aid being cut for a range of housing related issues, including illegal eviction, which let’s not forget is a criminal offence – putting responsibility for action back onto staff-cut local authorities.

• The steadfast refusal of the government to license letting agents – works against the professionalisation of the rental industry and supports a growth, in a booming industry, in cowboys and crooks opening up shop on a daily basis.

• The imminent disaster that is coming through increasing the age limit of the single room rate from 25 to 35 in January 2012 – will see even more landlord’s turning away from benefit tenants and a rise in arrears and evictions.

This and more is the current nature of the housing crisis, 2012 version.

I hear the government make pronouncements about these various factors but I can’t name a single plan or policy that aims to seriously address them, other than suggesting that councils use boats and caravans to house the homeless and that people worried for their home seek advice early on.

As the posters say “Keep calm and carry on”.

Ben Reeve Lewis

Ben has started Home Saving Expert, to share his secrets to defending people’s homes from mortgage repossession Visit his blog and get some help and advice on mortgage difficulties and catch up with him on Twitter and check out his free report “An Encouraging note on Dealing with your Mortgage Lender” and have it sent right to your inbox.

Keep calm post from AtomicShed

Law and the courts system has never had the appeal of the NHS or education in the public affections.

Stories of the underfunding of the courts system will, in most cases, be met with a shrug and the comment ‘so what?’.

The lawyers keep going on about how dreadful it all is, but then they would, wouldn’t they?

Why the courts are important for landlords

However landlords need the courts. As the RLA pointed out recently in their campaign to stop the court closures, if landlords have a bad tenant, their only real option is to go to the courts for a possession order. If the tenants are not paying rent, then delayed court claims mean bigger financial losses for the landlord.

It is rare indeed for a landlord to get his rent paid when a tenant is evicted for rent arrears. I have done many rent arrears evictions and I can probably count on the fingers of one (or possibly two) hands, the times when we have been able to recover all the money.

The only thing to do is to minimise your losses by getting the case to court as quickly as possible so a possession order can be made.

The effect of cuts in family law legal aid

So when I read an article in the Law Society Gazette  by a District Judge about the effect that the legal aid cuts in family law are going to have on the time it takes to hear the cases, my first thought was “this is not going to be good for landlords”.

The government, it seems, thinks that ordinary people are able to deal with their divorce and family settlements without the help of lawyers.

District Judge Peter Glover however, begs to differ. And as he, and his fellow co Judges are the ones at the coal face hearing the cases, I would suggest that he knows what he is talking about.

Here are some of his comments on why some litigants struggle:

• Many do not cope well with the written word
• Many are unable to organise their paperwork
• Poor numeracy skills are commonplace and many are financially illiterate
• They do not understand credit and debt ‘save to the effect that they have taken it and are in it’
• They often lack any psychological empathy with their opponent and are unable to see the other parties point of view
• They often have strong emotions about the case
• They have a fear of being involved in court proceedings (understandable, courts, for non lawyers, can be very scary places – indeed they are also scary for many lawyers)
• Most have no understanding or concept of the legal process, and
• Many have a subjective certainty in the justice of their own case

In the light of all this, says the Judge, “the opportunity for negotiated settlement is reduced”. An understatement if ever I heard one.

Later on in the article he paints a vivid picture of dealing with an FDR (financial dispute resolution) hearing

with two individuals who continually produce new documents from plastic bags, who will not listen to each other, and who are unable, emotionally, to compromise.

In this context, the Judge’s suggestion that

the virtual elimination of publicly funded professionals from family cases in the County Court threatens its collapse under the weight of misplaced expectations

makes perfect sense.  The Judge sums up his article as follows:

In recent years, the county court has tried – and, with the hard work and goodwill of its staff and judges – made a reasonable pretence of getting a quart into a pint pot. This time the overflow will be all too apparent.

So why am I banging on about family law cases in a landlord law blog? Because the pint pot includes the court’s housing jurisdiction.

Long delays mean more rent arrears

Many people have criticised the length of time it takes to get a possession claim to trial.

However given a choice between hearing a case where the future well being of children is at stake and a case which, if adjourned will ‘only’ result in a landlord loosing another months rent, I think you know which one the Courts are going to favour when listing.

All things are connected. As Donne rightly said “no man is an Island’. No more money is going to the Courts, that is clear. If Judges are having to spend more time dealing with family law cases which are taking twice as long as they should, because all the parties are litigants in person, what is going to happen to the housing cases?

You tell me.

You can read DJ Glover’s article in the Gazette >> here.

County Court picture by Ken Brown

Six hundred and nine (point five) million pounds.  Up 21 million from last year.

But despite saying that they are taking this ‘very seriously’ the Ministry of Justice is cutting back on its enforcement staff to save money.

Apparently this isn’t going to be a problem, as (they say) they are quite capable of collecting more efficiently with fewer staff.

Hmm

The article also points out that the MOJ is slicing £350 million from the legal aid budget, which the Law Society claims is putting legal aid firms very existence at risk (although frankly I’m amazed that any of them have lasted so long …). It all sounds like the usual topsy turvy thinking that seems to go on in government nowadays.

The other main article on the front page, is about the Law Society asking the MOJ to make an urgent amendment to the Legal Services Act to prevent non lawyers with spent convictions (eg for fraud) from becoming owners of law firms under the new rules, due to come into force in October.

You couldn’t make it up really could you?

Well I could have told them that.  We stopped doing legal aid work back in 1999 and I think my last case finished a couple of years later.

I can remember this particular client.  He was one of my very first clients from when I set up in sole practice in 1994.  The case is LONG finished, stored and I think we destroyed the files a couple of years ago (the six year time limit being up).

I see that the  certificate is limited to all steps up to and including the hearing on 10 July 1999, which shows how old it is.  The certificate was discharged apparently on 20 October 2000 when the final bill was received.

So why are they writing to me about it now?

We are now once again in a time of great economic stringency. However the current conservative government is using this as an excuse to dismantle the system of legal aid which has served over the years to protect the poor and vulnerable.

The gravy train myth

The cuts to legal aid are often portrayed by the press as being a well deserved punishment to ‘fat cat’ lawyers riding a gravy train funded by public money. However the reality is that many lawyers working in this area barely have enough to fund their expenses.

When I first started work as a lawyer, almost every firm did legal aid. Since then the number has gone down dramatically, and now it is often hard for a client to find a legal aid solicitor at all. Would this be the case if legal aid were a gravy train?

The legal brain drain

The main reason the profession is leaving legal aid in droves is the oppressive administration and low fees. All right for those individual firms and solicitors – they are now earning more money doing something else. But who is left to act for those vulnerable clients who need them?

Most of the areas of practice covered by legal aid are complex and difficult. Family and child care work. Mental health. Immigration. Human rights. Housing. It takes time and experience to develop an expertise in these often difficult legal fields. If the solicitors are starved of funding and have to turn to other work, their knowledge and experience will be lost.

Local authority cuts and the NFP sector

Then there are the problems being experienced by the not for profit section. Most of these are funded largely by local authorities, and we all know what huge budget cuts they are going to have to cope with. Already there are reports of advice centres closing in Birmingham.

Not for profit may be less expensive because they are not out to make a profit and often use unpaid volunteers.  However they are not free to run, and cannot exist without proper funding.

Their lawyers for example may be willing to work for a lower salary than they might get elsewhere but they still need to be paid.  They have their mortgages to pay, and families to support the same as the rest of us.

Making matters worse

To add insult to injury, these cuts are unlikely to result in overall savings. The people with the problems will not go away simply because no-one will be able to give them legal representation.

The most likely outcome will be that problems which might have been resolved had they been given proper legal help, will simply get worse, which will impact negatively both on society and the national purse. People who are desperate often do desperate things.

Then there is the more sinister element which is that taking away legal funding will often take away peoples ability to challenge government decisions. Nice for government of course …

What can you do?

The Law Society is so concerned about these matters that it has set up a campaign, and a website called Sound off for Justice. If you are bothered by the prospect of millions of people being denied justice, I suggest you take a look at it. You will find links to news articles which give more detail on exactly what is happening and there is a petition you can sign.

There is also a facebook page and you can follow them on twitter.

If you want more detail there is also a lot of information on the Justice for All web-site.