A day in the life of TRO Ben Reeve Lewis.
The Case of 3 Daft Interviews
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.
Introducing Sheila
Sheila comes in with her arm in a sling, accompanied by her sister who translates (Sheila is from Ecuador, English OK but not when she is a highly emotional state). Her landlady Natasha had gone to court and obtained a possession order but before waiting to see if Sheila was going to move out she let the property to a new tenant – one of her existing tenants Aleisha – who was from another property Natasha was also renting out.
Interview #1: Sheila
The story goes that Sheila opened the door to be greeted by Aleisha and her boxes of belongings, brandishing a shiny, new tenancy agreement for the property that Sheila had yet to be evicted from.
Aleisha had 2 removal men with her. Aleisha forced the door when Sheila protested and her arm was hurt in the process. The ambulance was called, as was the landlord who duly turned up at the property at the same time as the ambulance.
Our helpful police
Police were also called who tried to pour oil on the troubled waters, arriving as they did at a time when much complaining was going on and Sheila was being treated by the ambulance crew. Sheila was taken away in the ambulance and the attending police officers then helped Aleisha carry her boxes upstairs into her new flat…….unbelievable!
I speak to them as a group and then call the incident room to see how the case was recorded at the police end. I get told that it is recorded that police did attend at stated time but that no allegations of assault were made, even though the ambulance was there at the same time as the police and the tenant taken away to hospital. I find this strange.
Three women looking for justice
Sheila, Aleisha and Natasha are all in our reception area looking for justice.
Natasha swears that butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth, adding that she is a bank manager and obviously wouldn’t behave in such a way.
Aleisha tells me that she took the property on in good faith, following Natasha’s instructions. Sheila accused Aleisha of being the one that forced the door and assaulted her (although she later admitted she didn’t see who actually forced the door). Aleisha said the 2 removal men were the ones that forced the door and caused the injury. So I get Aleisha into interview room 4…..
Interview #2: Aleisha
Me: So who were these 2 men?
Aleisha: I don’t know I just contacted them as men to help me move.
Me: How did you find them?
Aleisha: They left a card in a phone box.
Me: So did you call them to help you?
Aleisha: Yeah.
Me: OK. So you still got their number on your phone?
Aleisha: Er……no.
Me: How can we contact them?
Aleisha: You can’t. I don’t know their names or where they are, it was just one of those cards in a phone box.
Bubble wrap landlord
I go back and speak to Natasha who is by now fuming because things aren’t going her way. She complains that a friend is looking after her child whilst she is sleeping in a garage under a sheet of bubble-wrap. She says she can’t occupy Sheila’s flat because now Aleisha is in there and she can’t occupy Aleisha’s original flat because it is damp and her son can’t live there because he has Asthma.
Aleisha relents and says she will move out to a friend’s so Sheila can move back in, but Natasha threatens to burn down the house with Sheila inside. So I have to call the police.
The police again
2 young officers arrive. They interview Sheila and get the same information I already had. Natasha repeats her threat to burn down the house and kill Sheila. The 2 officers call their sergeant…..By this time we are now we are around 4 hours into this nonsense.
The sergeant arrives and starts saying to Sheila, “Now look love. The landlord has got a possession order so it is now its all down to you and you have to move out”. I groan and have to stop the interview and take the police outside to explain the eviction process, re; the legal requirement for a landlord to obtain a Warrant of Eviction if the tenant doesn’t move out after possession is granted, we then all toddle into another interview room to talk to Natasha, who is by now shaking and tearful.
Hysteria reigns
The sergeant says that he will have to arrest her if she continues to threaten to kill Sheila. Natasha relents and says she will only burn down the house when Sheila is out, adding that she will then kill herself. The sergeant tells her not to be so silly and, newly advised, he tells her to just go and get the bailiff’s warrant and finish it properly.
Interview #3; Natasha
Me: Look you have done the right thing and got the possession order. Sheila hasn’t found anywhere else yet so now why don’t you just pay the £95, get the warrant and end the tenancy properly?
Natasha; (Shaking and crying) I cant afford it
Me; Have you got a partner?
Natasha: My husband, lives up north and doesn’t know anything about what is going on.
Me: Well, can’t he lend you the money?
Natasha: He has no money, he’s an asylum seeker, he isn’t allowed to work (more tears, more shaking)
Me: (thinking for a minute) Well if Aleisha is going to stay at her friends why don’t you move into the empty flat?
Natasha: (Near hysterical) I need arms……I needs arms. The removal men just dumped all my stuff in the hall and I can’t move it to get in.
Me: Then why don’t you get your husband to help you move the stuff?
Natasha: (Even more hysterical and wailing) He’s disabled……….
Ben sums it up
Me: So Let me get this straight Natasha, coz a lot of information has been exchanged in the last few hours and I want to know If I have things right.
You are a bank manager and a portfolio landlord, owning more than one property. You are sleeping under a sheet of bubble-wrap in a garage and you are married to a disabled asylum seeker who lives up north and knows nothing about what is going on?
Natasha: Yeeeeeeeesssss!!!!!! Why is all this my faaaaauuuuullllltttt?.
So where do we go from here?
Cut to scene. 1 wailing woman, 1 TRO sitting blowing his cheeks out wondering how to phrase the next question, 3 Coppers in stab vests looking equally bemused, the silence broken by the crackle of a police radio reporting a disturbance next door in MacDonalds.
Just a day in the life …
Ben Reeve-Lewis
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.
Natasha reminds me of an opposition landlord in an unlawful eviction case I had dealings with about a year ago now. Landlady basically shouted and screamed and threatened an HMO tenant into leaving then installed a fresh tenant. We injunct, landlady fails to attend return hearing. We then apply for committal, landlady doesn’t turn up (despite being personally served with the papers and slapping the process server and calling him a “c**t.” Landlady fails to attend committal hearing, sent down for 9 months in her absence (it was very serious harassment and a rather strict Judge who normally sits in Crown Court.)
Anyhow, she then, acting in person, applies to purge her contempt and at the purge hearing starts flabbling about how our client was a devious maniac who was casting witchcraft at other tenants, putting broken glass in their food, never paid rent, gave her the evil eye, probably eats deep-fried kittens, and shot JFK from behind the grassy knoll (probably). She, on the other hand, is noble and suffering and disabled and couldn’t afford legal advice and was never told of the hearing and as such her human rights were breached and would never do anything like this because she’s a single woman who’s disable and has a heart problem and the banks are breathing down her neck and is being persecuted generally.
For whatever reason, this purge hearing’s in a Crown court just before the same Judge is due to hear the start of a large criminal trial listed for four weeks and as such there’s a squadron of criminal barristers hanging round waiting for their case to begin. As the ladnlady’s taken back down to the cells, one of them stage-whispers, “that is the most dishonest woman I have ever encountered.”
Hahaha. You should contributing to TRO Confidential JS.
I love those cases, they are so beyond the norm and firmly in the realm of the surreal. “White lies” doesnt go anywhere near describing pathalogical behaviour.
There used to be a woman who actually worked for my local authority in the right to buy scheme. She got 18 months for fraud of the council’s scheme.
Once released she started a lettings agency and carried on in the same vein.
I had to apply for an arrest warrant against a violent landlord and was doing so in the tea room/Backstage are of the local magistrates court.
One of the resting judges, reading a paper and drinking tea, overheard where I was from and asked if I knew said woman. I said I did. He told me that he had committed her for contempt following a related housing issue. She got 7 days and was ordered to return to court on release and apologise for her behaviour. He Said:-
“So you have been ordered to apologise. What have you got to say for yourself? And she replied ‘Your a F******g W*****R’, and I said ‘I accept’, because I know that is the closest to an apology I’ll get from you” hahaha………….you couldnt make it up!
Ben, unfortunately since moving from West to East London in September I’ve had all of one illegal eviction and on that the client bottled it even though the landlord came to our office to remonstrate with us and in so doing admitted it. Most, if not all, my cases are against social landlords as they seem to be the mainstay of the rental market in the E postcode area. There probably is lots of illegal eviction but it doesn’t come to our attention. The local Council here doesn’t even have a TRO.
To be fair, I googled the landlord in the bottler’s case recently and lo and behold, he’s installed himself in the tenant’s property and is now letting out his two other properties in the same dodgy manner. I can’t wait for him to come into my radar again just so I can curbstomp him because I thought he was a right slimy Karma Houdini.
Incidentally, Ben, I was talking to a barrister I kinda know a while back and he mentioned about in his experience there are certain serial tenants who try and provoke their landlords into illegally evicting. They sign up to a tenancy with a casual or part time landlord, pay a few months rent, then quit paying. Landlord serves notice, they phone landlord and say, “I’ll be out the property in 7 days.” Nothing in writing so it’s deniable. Day 8, landlord comes round and finds nobody there and some stuff moved but no keys returned. Landlord changes locks thinking they’ve left. Tenant comes back and screams illegal eviction, injuncts, tries to shake down the landlord for compo.
Just so you know, this barrister acts mainly for tenants and in a lot of public law cases.
Real or malarky?
Yeah I can believe that. I have come across serial defaulting tenants who collect housing benefit and don’t pay until the 8 week kick over when payments go directly to landlord and then they move and start again.
I recently attended our local county court users group meeting and the judges said they are seeing quite a few cases where people take on a tenancy ad then advertise it themselves posing as landlord and take rent in advance plus deposit from 5 or 6 tenants who all turn up on the same day to find they’ve been scammed.
What’s the coup with your social landlords in terms of bad practices? I recently saw a Notice to Quit issued by a housing association. When I called them and asked why an NTQ was served instead of a Section 8 the housing officer told me that because the tenant had breached their agreement by mending and selling cars on his drive he had obviously lost all security of tenure and an NTQ would be sufficient, no possession order necessary…………….. I feel a training course coming on!
I have heard the dodgy sublet scam many a time before. When I was looking at somewhere to live in this borough I actually looked at somewhere that was a dodgy sublet. The landlord claimed they’d done Right to Buy but they still said that the Council would send him lots of correspondence about the flat and that he would be there every week to pick it up. I smelt a rat and escaped.
About poor practice by social landlords… well… here’s a few gems…
Round here the main bad practice for social landlords is basically letting their properties completely decay and ignoring any and all repair reports. Seriously, the worst disrepair I’ve come across is with social landlords. I mean some of these flats are absolutely dire in their state. Dampness. Mould that’s actually got to the mushroom stage. Cracks in the walls. One tenant had to rely on honey buckets because the toilet pipe had broken off and this lasted for over a year before we came along and threatened to injunct them. I recently was told in writing by one Housing Ass. solicitor that their “policy” is that a complaint and legal action, including letters before claim, cannot coexist and as such they can’t “action” my letter before claim until the client’s own complaint’s resolved. Gnagh. Even though they’re about the same issues. Double gnagh.
Then there’s one association’s attitude that seems to be “we don’t have to do repairs if you’re in arrears.”
Then there’s the ineptness. About 18 months back I was at a dinner in my home town and I got speaking to an accountant for a certain Housing Association who will remain nameless but may remind you of an elaborately advertised Irish beer. I told him I was in L&T law and he took it a bit personally. He said that in his experience, Housing Officers work their !!SOCKS!! off for the tenants, they bend over backwards, and they try to come to some sort of amicable agreement and to deal with “challenging” tenants without resorting to evicting them but when they do get to Court they’re “thrown to the wolves.”
I get into an anti-social behaviour case with a certain association who never instruct solicitors. So I go through their pleadings (which are pants and show little to no evidence or even clarity as to the allegations), and bung in a Defence (which contains lots of instances of “denied” and “put to strict proof”). The day before the hearing I ring up the Housing Officer and I tell him, now look here, we’ve put in our Defence, there’s clearly lots at issue here, let’s try and agree directions. He laughs snarkily and says, “I am not inclined to agree to your request. The evidence we have against Mrs V is so voluminous, so overwhelming, that we have no choice but to press for an immediate possession order.” So we get to the hearing and he bottles it and agrees an undertaking with no order as to costs.
Another personal favourite of mine that I’ve brushed against is one association failing to credit Housing Benefit payments until 2 weeks after they are actually made, trying to enforce a suspended possession order by way of bailiff’s warrant on those grounds, and then when pulled up by the Judge claiming that Housing Benefit’s paid in a big lump and it takes them two weeks to sort out whose payment is whose. Needless to say that warrant did not last much longer.
Going for an outright possession order on less than £100.00 rent arrears when there’s a disrepair counterclaim clearly worth a lot more and insisting on pushing for it and then only relenting three days before trial. That’s another piece of silliness.
In another rent arrears versus disrepair case, telling the Judge in the hearing that by putting in a Defence and Counterclaim we are “wasting the Court’s time.” The Judge then sets deliberately lengthy directions all the way to trial because he’s annoyed.
I would go on but I’d be here for days.
Hi JS – if you want to do a guest blog post on any of these let me know!
You clearly get as irate about unfairness as me JS haha.
On your first point “dodgy sublets”. I have this week been dealing with the case of a lovely family who moved in a year ago, no arrears, no nuisance, nada! The landlord got re-poed by the bank, the agent got the family to sign a new agreement (£160)on the Monday. They came back on Tuesday and locks had been lawfully changed by the mortgagees.
We sent the agreement to the bank to defend on the new protection of tenants act and the signature didnt match. Basically the agent had forged the landlord’s signature to get the fee. Landlord lives in Nigeria.
And the thing is both the original agreement and the renewal has a pre-notice letter attached stating possession may be required on Ground 2, ‘Mortgagees right to sell”, suggesting to the tenants that the bank were aware of the letting, which they werent.
As for RSL’s (RP’s or whatever the hell they are supposed to be called these days) I am genuinely shocked and surprised. That’s the sort of behaviour I get dealing with banks, not social landlords.
My Sister, my ex and several friends are social housing officers and they share their tales with me and it chimes with the views of your dinner party guest from you know where haha…….
You are in the trade, what do you think is behind that? Pushy managers trying to get their stats down?, Lack of training?, burnt out, seen it all before, old front-liners who find it difficult to dredge up any patience or compassion anymore? I’ve met all of them in my time, and even have some sympathy with the latter.
Everyone is under the cosh these days, including me. I got into this work to help people but feel more and more disenfranchised by the obssession with statistics.
I dont think helping landlords and tenants has much of a future in council’s now, there needs to be a third force in there somewhere. I am trying to find what that is…..as is Tessa too.
Tessa – perhaps, though personally I would want to use a pseudonym. I’ll consider it for now.
I think the disrepair factor is the one that annoys me the most, and I do have a theory why social landlords are so awful at it. A private landlord might own a couple-three rental properties. He will want to keep them in a good state because they represent his pension fund and one day he’ll want to sell up and retire. As such he cannot allow these assets to deteriorate through neglect. Also, if a private landlord gets stuck with a non paying tenant he would not want the disrepair to be seized on as an angle to prevent the tenant’s eviction and lose him more money.
Social landlords, though, once they have a property, they’re stuck with it. They can’t sell it. They rent it at cost, effectively, and hoover up Government grants for keeping it. If it falls to pieces, they haven’t lost out because they’ll just temporarily decant while they put it back together (probably with duct tape and the power of prayer). The only motive they have not to let it fall down is that they might get sued.
And somewhere along the line, esp. as far as my local Council is concerned, someone has come to a decision that only 10% of their tenants are likely to, if their property is falling to bits, commence legal action. Therefore they’ve obviously weighed up “cost of keeping all our properties in an acceptable state” as being higher than “cost of neglecting all our properties and associated damages and costs orders for the whiny 10% of those who will commence legal action.”
One thing that seems minor but is an example of what the inimitable TV Tropes describes as “fridge horror” is when I noticed that a certain Housing Association, Family Mosaic, sends out all its correspondence on special paper with the bottom corners rounded off to match the logo of the Association. How much money is spent on procuring this needlessly complicated paper?!
I think it’s because of a culture of brute force managerialism, for want of a better term, that’s pervaded public sector thinking. Ever noticed that to public bodies, we, the great unhosed, are “customers” and “service users” rather than “residents” and “constituents.” There seems to have been a shift at some point in the fairly recent past in which the political classes are seeing ordinary folks as a wayward flock of sheep who would be lost without their beneficience and guidance and nudging. This has percolated down through the ranks of the public sector and as such we are seen as being potential problems right from the moment of conception, almost. To a Housing Association, for instance, an estate might be like a nice shiny shoe, but by complaining about disrepair, the tenant is the dog-turd that just got trod in.
I would go on, but there are many authors out there who have written entire books about this sort of thing. And it’s getting super late.
I think your analysis is correct JS but I find myself, having spent most of my working life in public sector, leaning their way a bit on this one.
I have some food cupboards at home so packed out that just to get the soy sauce I have to remove half the cupboards contents and then put it al back together in a certain order so it stays in one place.
That’s what it is like working in the pubic sector. Every single thing you do has to take into account everything else. Imagine what a pain it would be to cook if the pickles had their own management team and the brown sauce had a steering group accountable to the pasta