My guest this month is Steve Perrons of Perrons Davis, a Yorkshire letting agency which specialises in lettings to housing benefit tenants.

In this podcast Steve shares with me his secrets for profitable letting to benefit tenants and tenants on Local Housing Allowance (LHA).  For example:

• Why you should only rent in areas where the local authority has a fast track system
• How he uses guarantors to ensure rental payments to his landlords
• What sort of returns he gets
• The big benefits of renting to benefit tenants, and
• His views on the forthcoming changes to the housing benefit system.

This is a fascinating podcast and highly recommended to  all landlord  renting to, or considering renting to, housing benefit tenants.

Apologies for the sometimes poor quality of the recording – we did our best!

>> You can also listen to the podcast on the internet here

>> Or subscribe to Landlord Law Podcasts on itunes here

Or subscribe to The Landlord Law Blog Podcasts by RSS here

For more information about Steve and his firm see:

• their Landlord Law supplier page
• their website
• Steve Perrons on YouTube
• A post on the Perrons David blog on housing benefit changes

If you have any comments on the matters discussed in the podcast, please use the comment box below.

Welcome to the new column!

Each week I will be scouring the news pages for stories relevant to the private rental sector for landlords and tenants., Like the previous series, TRO Confidential, the aim is to entertain and inform.

When Tessa and I first cooked this up it seemed like a good way to keep readers abreast of what is going on out there. A rabble rousing call to arms, but with my provisional forays into my web based research though I feel like I have died and woken up in some sort of Kafka-world, where scripts from ‘Yes Minister’ and ‘The thick of it’ get played out as reality.

My challenge is to look for the positive amongst the laughable. So here we go…..what’s out there this week?

There is life in Byker Grove

Byker Grove Housing Estate has hit the headlines and set a model for the renting future.  The residents have established a trust to manage the grade II listed estate at the same time as creating training and employment opportunities.

In response Mr Shapps writes off £42 million in debts and pronounces Byker Grove Estate’s residents “The embodiment of the Big Society”. Ant and Dec will be pleased……Now if only we actually knew what the Big Society was…..or for that matter, which one is Ant and which one is Dec.

Professor Peter Roberts, Chair of the Byker Grove Taskforce and a member of the Homes and Communities Agency’s Board, takes us somewhere towards understanding this social phenomenon when he says:-

It (Byker Grove) brings together local people with the Council, the Homes and Communities Agency and central Government in a productive and positive partnership. It also builds on the deep-rooted tradition of community ownership of ‘their’ place: Byker people delivering a future for Byker.

Ooooohhhhhhh right…..….errrr…..No sorry…….I am still no further forward with this Big Society thing.  [Its about Society Ben, and its real big.  OK, I don't know what it is either ... Ed]

Maybe we can get an answer from the Association of Residential Letting Agents who last week pronounced that demand for rental properties will outstrip supply in 2011 which will continue into 2012

Ed Milliband apparently cited some research that shows that in 1988, 14% of low to middle earners were renting privately but now the figure is 41%. A good investment opportunity you may think, so where are the landlords? Anecdotally, friends I have in the lettings biz tell me that they are struggling to survive because tenants looking for properties outweigh landlords offering properties by 5 : 1.

Ian Potter, Operations Manager for ARLA [and a former LL Blog NPP - Ed] said

“with more consumers depending on rental properties and new landlords coming to market, the Government must act now to address the quality of the PRS housing stock. This means incentivising renovation, improving options for sustainable refurbishment, and introducing regulation to stamp out bad practice”.

Ah yes Ian, but the government are happy with putting “The community in the driving seat”, so how is that going to happen?

Am I being stupid here or is the Big Society, just another way of saying “You figure it out, coz we haven’t got a clue?”.

And on Ian’s last point about stamping out bad practices Mr Shapps announced proudly last year that “The Government has no plans to create any burdensome red tape and bureaucracy”  So that aint gonna happen any time soon mate!

Holding the same thought, the government’s plans to reduce housing benefit in an attempt to drive down private rents……that isn’t community led. That’s social engineering, which the government said they were against…..where’s Leon Trotsky when you need him?

Housing benefit changes and other lunacy:

It is pretty obvious all round, to anyone in housing that the proposed government changes to housing benefit are akin to that scene in the James Bond film where Bond himself, leaps from a plane without a parachute and tries to wrestle with Jaws to steal one off of him at 24,000 feet.

In other words, a reckless leap into nowhere with fingers and toes, doubly crossed. There can be no greater metaphor for the proposed housing benefit changes than that.

But wait……I’m mistaken…..there is a safety net after all…….. Welfare reform minister Lord Freud announced recently, “”We are looking to private landlords to respond to the need for lower rents and in return we are prepared to permit direct payments from the state.

“This incentive will bring an overall downward pressure on rents in the private sector. As these rents come down, more properties will become available to claimants and landlords will have certainty that their income will be protected.”

Fantastic! So the safety net is, you landlords have to drop your rents. Isn’t it great that things have been so well thought out?  [Hark!  Do I hear from afar the stampede of landlords rushing to lower their rents and take on more benefit tenants???  No, wait a minute, they seem to be rushing in another direction  ... Ed]

Photo from Horlia Varlan

And Finally

Buying abroad, here we go again:

Well we have spent the last year or so watching floods of Brits returning form their Spanish idylls, that everybody flocked to, inspired by TV Visions of sunny, sangria fed Utopias unable to find work or anyone to buy their homes off of them, and falling foul of Spanish planning laws.

Now we have The Spanish Housing Secretary, Beatriz Corridor (Great name for a housing minister) promising to change Spanish planning laws to encourage Brit homebuyers to invest in Spain again. “Come here calmly, and trust in the system that we have and the transparency we provide,” she said  [yes, we can all see through that one ... Ed].

Apparently Spain has a dearth of new built properties that nobody is buying and so they want us to help out. So dig out your Union Jack shorts [and the odd frock ... Ed], and your sombrero that you bought 5 years ago that sits in the back of your wardrobe, in hope that we might actually have a decent summer this year (of more than 2 weeks, unlike 2010) and get on down.

Let’s face it, it’s not worth doing buy to let in the UK if Lord Freud’s enthusiasm sways things. A two bed flat for £40 a week to fit in with housing benefit?……Next!!!

[What do you think of these news items?  Do you have any of your own to add?  Place your comments below ... Ed]

A day in the life of TRO Ben Reeve Lewis.

The case of the long goodbye

Explanation: Tenancy Relations Officers (TRO) work for local council’s providing advice on landlord tenant law and investigating allegations of harassment and Illegal Eviction and prosecuting landlords. All names are false but the stories are true.

For ages now I have been variously entertaining and annoying people with my tales of derring-do and complete nonsense from the front line of housing advice, from the horse in the kitchen to the throat cutting incident by the gangster. It has been fun documenting anecdotes as they come in but it is time for me to take a break and write about something else for now, although the series may return in the future.

Not just another day in the life

I hope most readers have been entertained and educated by the tales of daily madness. What I enjoyed about it was realising what a strange and mad job I have, and also, how much I actually enjoy it, even the ones where I was seriously concerned for my safety. When we do something everyday we tend to not think that deeply about it. Even the most bizarre events are just another day in the life.

Writing TRO Confidential made me aware of not only the humour in so much of what I do but also the fact that, it is really important work.

I wanted to end with my thoughts and worries for the future of this area.

The problem of rogue landlords

At the risk of starting arguments again where I get accused of demonising landlords, the actions of rogue landlords are a genuinely major, but hidden problem.

I’ve said it before, the vast majority of landlords I meet are decent, law abiding persons. Even the ones who take the law into their own hands do it mostly through ignorance of the legal obligations and sometimes just through sheer frustration at the actions of their tenants. They often apologise profusely after the event.

But there is that tiny percentage, the thugs and the bullies, who act in full knowledge of what they are doing and with serious criminal intent. The ones who don’t give a toss about the law and are bold enough to tell you that when you doorstep them. Although a small percentage, in terms of numbers there are literally thousands of them out there.

Illegal evictions

My co-TRO and I deal with between 3 and 5 illegal evictions in a week on average. Usually one of them is of the outright bullying kind. Also we get about the same number of complaints of harassment. Some turn out to be nonsense but enough of them warrant further action to keep us run off our feet and struggling to cope.

In the first 3 weeks of December 2010 the two of us were in court 13 times, mainly getting injunctions against landlords either for illegal eviction or for return of goods that the landlord had taken in lieu of rent arrears. Admittedly this was a strange spike in activity but it gives you an idea of how big the problem is. Not a single week goes by when we aren’t in court at least once trying to get illegally evicted tenants re-instated in their homes or their goods returned.

TROs in all but name

TROs aren’t the only people who do this kind of work either. There is no statutory requirement for a local authority to have a TRO service, many don’t. In fact to my knowledge I think there is only around 110 TROs in the UK.

Landlord and tenant disputes are dealt with very capably by a variety of different housing advisers working for councils. Solicitors obviously get involved and much excellent work is done by law centres around the country.

Concerns about the cuts

The trouble is the proposed cuts in legal aid and funding to law centres, which is going to mean that tenants who are in trouble with rogue landlords will have very few places to turn.

Yes I know London is obviously going to have more than it’s fair share of rogue landlords, simply because it is the biggest city in the UK with a population of around 12 million, and South East London is the roughest part so I am bound to see more than housing advisers in for instance, Worcester or Liskeard but think on this. If we see 2 genuine thugs a week, that’s 100 in a year. There are around 30 London Boroughs. If they do the same then that is 3,000 rogues in London alone.

Add the other major cities of Manchester, Birmingham etc to the equation and you can see what I am getting at. Where are those thousands of tenants going to go, once the law centres have closed and legal has been cut for these cases?

When my partner, the lovely Frazzy Cox, drops me off at work in her car on Monday mornings there is usually a queue of around 15 people waiting for the doors to open. I can tell which ones are going to be for me by the ones with black bin liners in their hands. There is usually at least 1 for me to start my week with. Where are they going to find justice in the future?

Problems with the police

Much has been written on Tessa’s excellent website about the problem with police involvement, or rather the lack of it. I know from my own past experience that training is the key.

Police will act appropriately if they know what they can do and what the legal breaches are. It is after all only ignorance of housing law that causes the problem, not their wilfulness but I cant see every officer in the land getting this training and programmes continuing as new officers join up.

Maybe it is David Cameron’s Big Society view that the citizens of the land will be empowering themselves to take their own action against their landlords, when they have been beaten up and thrown onto the street but when you look at the complexities of housing law I cant see that being practicable.

The need for a new approach

Those of us working in this field need new resources and a new approach if we are to not end up with a future that looks very grim. I know many people who, like me and Tessa and some people who post on this site are seeing the writing on the wall and looking at new ways to tackle these problems. Let’s hope it works.

Evenin’ All!

Ben Reeve-Lewis

(Don’t worry everyone, TRO Confidential may be finished (for now), but Ben will be back next week with a brand new column …)

About Ben Reeve-Lewis: Ben has worked in housing in one form or another since 1987. He has variously been a Homelessness caseworker, Head of Homelessness for a local authority, a TRO and Housing law trainer. He now divides his time between doing contract Tenancy Relations work and as a Freelance housing law training consultant for the CIH, Shelter, Sitra and many more. Read more about Ben here and visit his website here.

Photo by Lincoln SL

Perrons Davis is a Yorkshire letting agency which specialises in letting to housing benefit tenants.

Steve and I will be discussing housing benefit generally and the effect of the forthcoming changes.  But the main part of our talk will be about how to let to HB tenants profitably and the various methods he uses in his agency.

Steve maintains that it IS possible to do very well renting to tenants on benefit and he is looking forward to sharing his secrets with us.

Questions are now closed for this podcast which has been recorded and will be going online shortly.

This second Landlord Law podcast is more of a conversation than an interview. David Lawrenson is a property advisor and expert and we had a most interesting discussion. For example we looked at

• The three most important mistakes landlords made
• The best types of property to buy
• Student lets – and some warning notes for new investors
• Choosing tenants – and Davids special tips
• Agents – we talked a lot about agents and covered the Data Protection Act, the Foxtons case and agents fees, and online  letting agents
• Rogue operators, criminal tenants, and Davids own tenant from hell
• And finally Davids work with banks and local authorities

The podcast is 40.50 minutes long, the file is 37.3 MB, and you can listen via the player at the top of this post.

>> You can also listen to the podcast on the internet here

>> Or subscribe to Landlord Law Podcasts on itunes here

Or subscribe to The Landlord Law Blog Podcasts by RSS here

Huge thanks to David for being such a brilliant guest.  You can visit his website at LettingFocus.com and buy his book Sucessful Property Letting here.

Posts and topics on this blog mentioned in this podcast are:

• Are landlords entitled to see tenants references obtained by their agents
• My posts on the Foxtons case
• Preventing drug factories in rented properties

By the way I was not able to use any of the questions submitted for this interview, and I apologise for that, but I will carry them forward and will use them in future interviews.