This is an interesting follow on from my previous post about Local Authorities being held liable for damage done by tenants recommended by them. This Blog Clinic question is from Elena (not her real name) about a tenant placed by an ALMO :
My friend is a home owner, the house next door is run by an ALMO who have put a tenant in who has trashed two social houses previously belonging to the same ALMO, this tenants behaviour has not changed, she and her children are causing mayhem and the language is foul.
My friend has approached the ALMO several times and asked them to control or move this person because they were aware of her attitude when they gave her the house, the patch manager has spoken to the bad nieghbour several times to no avail. The patch manager says nothing further can be done, is not the landlord at fault here for putting this trublesome person who they had full knowledge of into what was a peaceful and quiet area.
This is a very hard question and difficult situation. I don’t think my previous situation will apply here, as there the Local Authority was directly recommending a tenant to a landlord who then suffered physical damage to the house. Here the person suffering is a neighbour and there does not appear to be any actual damage to property.
It is quite true that landlords are not responsible for the actions of their tenants. This follows on from the general rule that one person cannot be held liable for the actions of another person.
But does this mean that social landlords can with impunity make the lives of neighbours into a misery by knowingly placing known nightmare tenants into properties in respectable neighbourhoods which they would never otherwise be able to live in? Do they not have some sort of obligation to act in a responsible manner when placing tenants, and to have some consideration for the neighbours?
But then what are they to do with these people? There is a temptation to say that tenants who act in a grossly anti social manner should be disqualified from having further help from social service organisations. But they have to live SOMEWHERE – where are they to go? I can’t see any real answer – certainly not in these straightened times when there are not the resources to give them proper support.
What do you think?
This started to happen where I lived in Cambridge – some people move to more expensive areas as they “wished their neighbours to be chosen on their ability to pay”.
It is very unlikely I would buy a new house due to the risk of having a problem talent placed next door, paying a lot less than me, in a lot better spec home. (The less capable someone is with coping with life, the more likely they are to be at the top of the housing list – a new estate does not have the informal support organizations in place to help people cope with life, so is the worse place to put people that can’t cope with life.)
I recall there being a case when the local government ombudsman ruled that a home owner human rights had been infringed by a social landlords placing a tenant with a history of problems next door. (Sorry I can’t recall the details)
One of the advantages of living up north, is we can afford to live somewhere that is too upmarket for a social landlord to be buying in the area – in Cambridge I could never afford to buy myself out of this sort of problem.
Theres the rub Tessa, ‘They have to live somewhere’.
It is very difficult for social landlords. We keep getting the same names coming up again and again, usually with several kids. If you take a hard line on intentional homelessness then you can tell the parents to make their own arrangements and if there are kids involved social services will take them into care so there is a reluctance on the part of judges to grant possession in these instances and, as you point out, councils dont have enough resources. This is the ‘On the ground’ effect of enforcement government cuts
Its the same with what are called MAPPA placements, schedule 1 offenders, often sex offenders, whose anonymity is strictly protected. People sitting on MAPPA panels, usually comprising police, social workers, probation officers, homelessness staff are personally liable for prosecution if information about the client leaks out. They place people in areas and arent allowed to inform residents