[Ben Reeve Lewis is is eating jellied eels and loosing it a bit this week …]
Well last week I reported that housing stories were a bit thin on the ground, not because nothing was happening but most of the journos were still on Xmas leave and not a lot was being written.
Its all changed now and its business as usual in a week of foot in mouth gaffes, daft government pronouncements, floors made out of leather belts and haunted lighthouses.
Jellied eels
My own week began on Saturday when Frazzy and I attended an 85th birthday party in an east end social club populated with proper old cockneys done up in their finest and joy of joys, a washing up bowl full of jellied eels as part of the buffet.
Fantastic, the kind of do you wont see much more of in future as a generation dies out, my particular generation of Londoners being more used to Samosas and Brie de Meaux than Tubby Issacs finest. Happy birthday Matt.
To Business;
Well its been hanging about in the wings for sometime now but plans have moved forward to criminalise sub-letting of social housing stock. As reported in Inside Housing the government believes that 160,000 properties could be sub-let, costing the social housing world £5 billion. With what I see in my job I would guess that the 160,000 could be a conservative estimate to be honest.
Ben agrees but …
What’s remarkable about this story is that for once I actually agree with Grant Shapps, when he says
“Tenancy cheats are taking advantage of a vital support system for some of the most vulnerable people in our society and getting away with a slap on the wrist while our waiting lists continue to grow”.
Up until now, when a council or housing association finds out that a property has been sub let they take back the property but under the new proposals a fine of £50,000 or 2 years in jail will be the penalty.
Five stars for enthusiasm but only 2 for practicality. How are you going to get 50 grand out of anyone but a banker? And are we really going to clog up the prison system with ex council tenants?
Also, in my experience many offenders are very good at staying off of anyone’s radar. I know, I have to try and take legal action against them when they start harassing their sub tenant out of the property for bringing the council down on their necks.
Shocking news on crisis loans
Prize for the most shocking news of the week, again reported in Inside Housing is government plans to pass the administration of Crisis Loans over to a councils instead of being run by the Department for Work and Pensions.
In short, Crisis Loans do what they say on the tin. It is a statutorily run fund available to people on benefits that they can get when experiencing a crisis. The rules for qualifying are quite tight and it is the most vulnerable and destitute of people who need them.
Twenty organisations have joined forces to write a complaint to the government over this latest rash attempt to cut budgets. At the moment the money for these loans comes out of the social fund but if it falls to councils to decide at a local level it will inevitably be subject to the council’s own budgetary constraints and political leanings.
Yet another austerity measure that hits the poorest in society. To my mind this story hasn’t received the profile it should, probably because for most people those in need of Crisis Loans aren’t part of their daily life so they aren’t aware of how devastating this could be.
Accidental landlords – again
ARLA ran an interesting story on their website this week. Apparently figures are showing that because so many people can’t sell their homes they are instead turning to letting. Creating a new swathe of reluctant landlords, the figure rising in the last year from 40% to 47%.
As usual with their articles ARLA’s approach is one of self promotion but the idea is interesting. As a serving Tenancy Relations Officer I see many cases of harassment and illegal eviction carried out by these reluctant or as they are sometimes also called ‘Accidental’ landlords by mistake.
Because being accidental they often haven’t the slightest clue of the laws and obligations surrounding a letting. They then get into hot water with me for breaching laws and with their mortgage company when not knowing how to deal with rent arrears causes a shortfall on their mortgage. Panic sets in and rash behaviour shows up.
I suppose there is a good side. We need more rental properties and the more there are on the market the supply will push rents down, hopefully.
Rents, rents, where are they going?
And on the subject of rents……you didn’t expect me to let a week go by without complaining about poverty inducing rents did you? Upad cites the Belvoir Rental Index (whatever the hell that is) which predicts that rents will stabilise in 2012 and not continue to rise faster than a hot air balloon with Kylie Minogue as it’s sole passenger.
The index suggests that rents will simply rise in line with inflation rather than the scandalous rates we have seen over the past two years. The article also cites the growth in accidental landlords unable to sell that were picked up by ARLA.
Loosing it …
What does annoy me is the most common double speak used in so many articles written on property, this particular example being;-
“join the growing number of people across the UK choosing to rent rather than buy a property”.
AAAAARRRRGGGGHHH!!!!!!!!! When will these people get it???? Nobody CHOOSES to rent rather than buy. Nobody in their right mind would want to live in permanently insecure and crippling expensive rented property. Most people cant afford to buy, it isn’t their CHOICE!
Its alright….I’ve taken some pills and calmed down now.
[Er, Ben, some people DO choose to rent. In fact this bloke here chooses to live just in hotel rooms … Ed]
Two strange stories
Finally two strange stories of the week. The ever reliable and quirky Rat and Mouse ran a story about flooring made from leather belts. Have a look at the picture, it actually looks quite good, like a Jacobean parquet floor.
The 24 Dash told us all about a haunted lighthouse off of the welsh coast that the owner is looking for planning permission on to turn into living accommodation. It says that visitors to the area regularly see a ghostly old lighthouse keeper on the balcony. Or maybe its just someone sub-letting and keeping quiet about it.
You can imagine Shapps has got a clipping in his wallet about this that he gets out in the back of his limo between meetings and has instructed his assistant to find out how many abandoned haunted lighthouses there are around our costs that could be turned into living accommodation for the homeless.
As we all know benefit claimants are already being economically cleansed from inner London and now the rents in suburbs are rising to meet the influx, forcing benefit tenants further out into the countryside. If this plan comes off they can even be pushed beyond the coast and into the sea.
Imagine that? A whole nation of the dispossessed living in lighthouses around our coast, luring ships onto the rocks so they can raid the wrecks and pilfer stuff to sell on eBay and supplement their meagre universal credit payments.
Sorry………..I think I had too many of those calming pills as a read my morning Daily Mail.
I’ll be better next week.
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.
Jellied eel picture by Malias, Minogue in a balloon pic by Dave Parker (adapted by me)
Yep – Crisis loans is one of those issues that will torment renting claimants: they are sometimes used for emergency deposits/rent in advance, and moving, and urgent household needs. They used to be grants, but that ended and they were turned into loans. Labour suggested ending them as people could easy finance now…basically propelling poor people into the arms of loan sharks. FYI; do you know that if you claimed eg after a fire for clothing, the DWP guidelines stipulated money for 3 pairs of knickers.
Blimey if my pants went up in a blaze Frazzy would breathe a sigh of relief
Maybe it should be illegal to own another property (unless disabled and declared) while being a council or housing association tenant as well as being illegal to sublet, so making the case easer to prove. A £5000 reward and an offer of rehousing for information would soon lead to the offenders being on someone’s radar.
A postcard sent to every council and housing association property every few months giving details of the reward would soon get the message across. A bit of an investment, but I think it would be replayed quickly on getting the properties back into the intended use.
But I think it would be should be illegal to sublet any rented property without the landlords agreement with the same fines and jail for both private and public sector.
Once a few people have been jailed and it has been in all the papers, I expect a lot of council and housing association properties that are being sublet will just be handed back – if the reward is only paid when the property has not be handed back, then more are likely to be handed back quickly.
As to accidental landlords, I think there are few new rental properties created, as the landlords very likely have to rent elsewhere themselves, however it does allow people to move for work.
For the past couple of years the government have had a ‘Shop a fraudulent tenant’ reward scheme of £500 but few people have availed themselves of it Ian, because so few people even know their neighbours these days.
Frazzy’s brother is a Lewisham council tenant and he says he sees a variety of people coming and going from next door, Africans, West Indians (as he is), East Europeans but he doesn’t know who the real tenant is or who are visitors.
All councils have a reasonably consistent staff turnover so the allocated housing officer has usually never met the named tenant.
Some councils photograph the tenant. I think this is essential and should be more widespread.
Your idea that a person shouldn’t get social housing if they own another property is already the rule, even for disabled tenants.
If Shapps assessment that there are 160,000 council tenants subletting is correct and we should lock them all up they would outnumber the murderers and armed robbers currently in nick. Another grand pronouncement with no substance behind it to keep Daily Mail readers happy.
Why should it be illegal or unlawful to own another property while being a council tenant? Sounds like nonsense to me, I’m afraid.
Are you saying that a council tenant who is in work shouldn’t be allowed to buy a villa in the Algarve or a gite in France with all the spare money he accumulates from paying a low rent on the house he actually lives in. Why should a council tenant have certain investments/investment opportunities closed off to him? And if he can buy a property in Spain or Cornwall for his retirement why can’t he buy a property in the next street and let it out. His security of tenure in his council house is only dependent upon him having the council house as his only or principal home. A property that he lets out isn’t his home at all. A holiday home that he might own wouldn’t be his principal home even if he spends months on end there (perhaps choosing to wait out the British winter while safely tucked away in sunnier climes).
OK, if one is a homelessness applicant having a property elsewhere may mean that one is not homeless such that the council will not accept a duty to rehouse that person. The key questions are, of course whether that property is available to you and whether it is reasonable for you to go and live there. If this other property has been let to someone else before the applicant is unexpectedly made homeless (say through a fire) then it won’t be available to him. If the other property is in another country there might be factors making it unreasonable for the applicant to go and live there at the moment, eg his work might be in London and he would not be able to support himself in the other country.
In terms of waiting list applications rather than homelessness applicants if I recall the legislation correctly one might deprioritise those who are wealthy or who have other properties elsewhere but one can’t stop them from applying. Deprioritising applicants with a certain level of wealth is normally enough in that there will be other applicants with more serious needs ahead of them in the queue.
Oh I’m sure you are right Chris in practice, the key being found in the terms ‘Sole OR Principal home” and “Available and reasonable”
But I do wonder about the ethics of it, now that social housing has been so denuded by the right to buy and is about to be more so. The government have levvied sanctions on social housing tenants earning more than £100,000 although in this case I admit it would be a bit much to effectively tell tenants what they could spend their money on or invest in.
As for homelessness applicants in this boat I’m not so sure. Many homelessness units, particular resource strapped inner city ones may well look on the home as an assett that could be sold and used to find their own housing. Hard decisions are made, such as the case of Regina (B) v. Southwark where the council told a man relaised early from prison on an electroic tag that he wasnt homeless because he was still technically accommodated in prison. An extreme and humourous example I agree but homelessness unit thinking often stretches that far, look at the raft of case laws overturning decisions made on “Available and reasonable to occupy” and in the case of say, a house in Portugal the assett approach may well be the one taken by the homelessness unit.
Available and reasonable are very fluid concepts in hmelessness work
And sorry to double post but in my rush to get in the shower and get about my thrilling Saturday chores I forget to say…..
The climate has changed a lot from the days when many London council tenants traditionally had residential caravans in Leysdowne or Canvey Island or small cottages at Jaywick for East-enders. Nobody ever thought of them as reasonable to occupy full time.
Also, this was all before the concept of ending council tenancies for life, encouraging tenants to better themselves and move out whether they want to or not.
Many things that werent issues 10 years ago in housing are now and its not just the much trumpeted housing shortage either but the social engineering going on that is whittling away social housing at the same time as raising rents more inline with market forces for those that are left and demonising social tenants as rioters and extras in ‘Shameless’
The idea of not owning property, or a holiday home says so much about how we view council housing: that is for poor people. That was the case, as in the middle part of last centruy, they were often better than the PRS. If we keep up the idea that residents (unless homeless of course – I agree there) should have no other assets, then we will reach the same stage as the ‘project’ did in America: occupants were evicted if they earned over a certain amount, which discouraged enterprise, self-betterment and even working.
We’re there Penny. Do you remmeber a few months back when the government announced they would go ahead with flexible tenancies following the results of the pilot in New South Wales? They said it would work when I think the report (Shelter backed?….my bloody memory) showed only 1% qualified and in actual fact it disincentivised people from doing well for fear of losing their home.
We have a very damaging perceptual polarisation in the UK at the moment – homeowenership is for good people social housing for losers. Shapps this week even having a go at social housing organisations. I think the government’s view of Britain is a Stpeford family smiling in the foorway of their Barrat built Rabbit hutch while dad polishes the hatchback, whilst discovering Nirvana
I do recall that report. Had it filed away under ‘yet another report conveniently ignored by the Condems.)
Ben,
The £500 reward is unlikely enough to make sub tenant that is getting a “good deal” by subletting social housing report his/her landlord. A larger reward that is advertised by regulator postcards address to “the tenant” so the post office does not forward them may put some fair into people that are subletting. Data matching with credit reference agencies and banks etc may show when a tenant is living elsewhere long term.
You are right that we can’t put 160,000 people in jail; firstly I think the clear cut cases are a lot lower then this – e.g. I know a social tenant that let someone else live in her flat while she was at university – better then having the flat empty and not a reason to jail anyone! Just like with tax and benefit crimes, every time someone is jailed and it is reported in the local papers, a lot more people think hard about what they are doing. So the key is to take the very clear-cut cases to court while sorting out the other cases less formerly.
On the point of not being able to get social housing if someone owns a property, does this mean that a person will be left blocking a bad in hospital until such time as they can sell the house before they can get say somewhere is that wheelchair access? (Most lively social housing as the private sector has very little with wheelchair access)
Also does this stop a disabled person that must be in social housing so that they are close enough to other disabled people to allow a quick response from care staff from every owning holiday home (maybe just a static caravan)?
Ian letting out a property whilst at uni isnt sub-letting per-se and many sub-lets are carried out with council knowledge and permission anyway, such as a caretaker tenant being installed by the tenants whilst completing a short prison sentence.
And the £500 reward is for neighbours not sub tenants.
But there is a lively trade in sub-tenancies often, it has to be said with person’s from abroad who move freely back and forth between the UK and their country of origin, certainly in my working area. I was involved in one the other day that started in 1987 so god knows how many tenants there had been in the past 25 years, with each sub-tenant passing it on to someone else.
What is crucial are tenant photographs and regular verification home visits by housing officers carried out at short notice. They wouldnt stop all unlawful sub-lets but would seriously restrict them enough. Also councils need to sue sub-letting tenants for Unjust enrichment and as it becomes a criminal offence, the Proceeds of Crime Act
“Ian letting out a property whilst at uni isnt sub-letting per-se”
But how many such cases are included in the 160,000 properties that are claimed to be sublet? (I don’t trust the 160,000 number, as I don’t think most people know what a sublet is in enough detail.)
Yeah thats a good point.
The thing is with sub-lets too, that once a council tenant moves out they lose their tenant status becuase they must occupy as sole or principal home and even if they move back in they dont regain their tenant status unless a new tenancy is granted, and that applie even if they leave with the council’s permission, for instance to work abroad for a year.
Its a complex area and is also a massive problem, I can believe the 160,000 myself. I think council should target and do mass visits and prosecute and sue for ‘Unjust Enrichment’ too
For what it is worth my view is that creating a specific criminal offence for the subletting of a council or other RSL-type tenancy would be largely unnecessary and would just be an exercise in ‘symbolic legislation’. No doubt you will remember when laws were enacted against the practice of female circumcision/female genital mutilation. Does anyone think the practice still goes on? (yes). Can anyone remember if or when anyone was last prosecuted for it? (no). But we have a piece of legislation which shows by its very presence in the statute books that we think it is a Very Bad Thing.
For most unlawful sublets one might, in very many cases, already be able to prosecute under the Fraud Act 2006 (either under s2, fraud by false representation, or s3, fraud by failing to disclose information).
Putting a £500 bounty on unlawful subtenants really isn’t going to help much either. I’m sure that, on the whole, someone who is an illegal subtenant may well be a better neighbour than whoever the council may put there in his place. The illegal subtenant will probably be in work (or else he would not be able to pay his rent to the council’s real tenant) and will be anxious to keep a low profile and not annoy his neighbours. Regrettably, with admittance to social/council housing being largely reserved for life’s unfortunates there is a good chance that the person selected to be the next lawful tenant will be unemployed, quite possibly unemployable, and come with umpteen other problems as might, potentially, make them worse neighbours than the unlawful subtenant who was there before.
I totally agree about the laws Chris. Ian Hislop pointed out the same thing to the press commission yesterday about phone hacking, that new laws arent needed, adddressing the issues why existing laws arent being enforced is a more pertinent question.Are social landlrods lax in this respect or do they simply lack resources?
Also criminal offences require a far greater standard of evidence than civil cases, which would further stretch those resources.
I get involved in a lot, and I mean A LOT, of sub-letting cases but I have yet to hear of any neighbour nuisance being part of the complaint, quite the opposite in fact. 90% of the time the sub-tenant knows what is going on and tries to keep a low profile.
Areas will obviously differ but most of the sub-lettings in my borough involve people from abroad, particularly Nigeria and the head tenant flits between the 2 countries, which is another reason why tracking down offenders can often be a fools errand