Ben Reeve Lewis Friday Newsround #209

[Ben Reeve Lewis’s telly program was different to advertised …...]

Hectic is not the word this week.

On Tuesday I was training the good folk of Kent County Council on harassment and illegal eviction, whilst Thursday and Friday saw me in Dorset doing a homelessness law updater for a group of council staff down there..

Ben on the Telly

At the time of writing I have yet to see the start of Nightmare tenants, slum landlords, which will by now have aired on Wednesday night and somewhere in there I had to raid a crystal meth factory and a brothel…..as you do.

Busy, busy, busy.

I am aware that the intended episode one of the Channel 5 series, which I haven’t seen, covers a bad case of rent to rent, whereby a cheeky tenant takes on a property and pretends they are the landlord, either renting out to multiple people at the same time before doing a runner, or cramming it with loads of people paying over the odds.

However the first episode might change for reasons I may explain next week.

Property Reporter reviews that particular programme story strand here  with an interview with Paul Shamplina, about the activities of Jerome Baker, a man who’s name has been doing the rounds in the landlord press for many months now.

I’ve been seeing a lot of this over the past couple of years and it is slowly coming to the attention of the courts.

Photo ID for landlords?

This week Property Hawk told us of a Judge Wood calling for landlords to have photo ID to prevent this happening following the case of Streatham landlords Alisdair and Joanna Reid, who rented out their Streatham home to Animal Physio Heidi Korn for £1,600 per month, who in turn rented it to someone else for £1,800, trousering the excess £200.

Korn was jailed for 8 months, a high price to pay for £200. Also the scam was nowhere near as bad as the ones I’ve come across. In one case a fake tenant renting out a three bed flat to 11 people and making £2,250 per month on top of the actual rent or, a depressingly common scenario, fake landlords taking rent in advance and deposits from 5 people at once who all turn up to move in, finding they’ve all been duped.

In one case a fake tenant renting out a three bed flat to 11 people and making £2,250 per month on top of the actual rent or, a depressingly common scenario, fake landlords taking rent in advance and deposits from 5 people at once who all turn up to move in, finding they’ve all been duped.

Is ‘Hanging Judge Wood’ a landlord I wonder? When I can’t even get a £200 fine for a landlord who beats up a tenant or illegally evicts?.

I have met some landlords who don’t have a problem with rent to rent, the argument being that as long as they get the money they aren’t bothered if the enterprising third party profits as well.

Admittedly I’ve not met many landlords who hold this view but I have met some.

Trouble is, everyone gets affected, both the property owners and the poor sods handing over their hard earned cash only to find they have nowhere in reality to move into.

And lets not forget my lot, the poor buggers who have to untangle the legal mess once the complaints start coming in of overcrowding and unlicensed HMOs that the owner doesn’t even know about.

Foxtons – toxic brand?

While landlords across the country are sharpening their knives in the great Foxtons War of 2015, anti-gentrification squatters have also indulged in their own methods of guerrilla warfare and squatted an Elephant & Castle pub to prevent it being converted into a new branch of what is fast becoming a very toxic brand.

Squatting commercial premises isn’t a criminal offence remember?

The hastily formed ‘Walworth society’ is badgering the council, using the Localism Act to get the pub designated as an ‘Asset of community value”, which would then require Foxtons to get planning permission before doing the conversion.

The Bond connection

On a curious side tip I notice in the article that the pub was designed by an Erno Goldfinger, who also designed nearby Alexander Fleming house..

Goldfinger?????????……Fleming????…..have I stumbled upon some hitherto unknown inspiration for James Bond?

Anyway, back to reality. Apparently in 2013 Alexander Fleming house was granted listed status while the pub was mysteriously left out. Did property developers have their eyes on it 2 years before I wonder?

Rough sleeping on the rise

London’s annual rough sleeping statistics have been published  with the depressing news that it is still on the rise having originally seen an increase in 2011 – 2012 of 40% this year we have a rise on top of another 16%..

Of course politicians would argue “Well at least it’s slowing down, so all this austerity really is working”. Isn’t perspective a funny thing.

Which reminds me of an old Viv Stanshall joke where he was pretending to be an art teacher “You remember last week we talked about perspective? Well, that all seems like a long way off now” badda bing badda boom.

Howard Sinclair of St Mungo’s pointed out:

“Worryingly, they show that the number of people who’ve previously slept rough and are returning to the streets is rising, this year by 20 per cent. We need to ask what more can be done for these people, what gaps need to be filled to prevent repeat homelessness.”

When I was 18 I began my career in what were then termed simply ‘Doss houses’. 1,200 bed direct access night shelters where men slept 40 to a dormitory. What you see in those jobs is how quickly people become not only institutionalised but also how accustomed and familiar people get with street conditions.

I’m not saying they like it or don’t want to get out but you really do see people who keep slipping back into it.

Its only the efforts of an army of support workers in a range of projects who can stop the slide but those jobs aren’t valued by most in society and funding is precarious at best.

The YMCA try to pour sawdust on the slippery slope by getting in when people are young and have called the growing crisis a wake up call for politicians but adds:

“Potential Housing Benefit cuts for 18 to 21-year-olds, promoted in May’s Queen’s Speech, could exacerbate the problem further and increase the numbers of young people forced into damaging and dangerous rough sleeping all over the UK.”

But before I get too maudlin.

What made me smile this week

I’m an obsessive cook. I make my curries from scratch using a list of 30,000 spices and even my own tomato ketchup but every now and again something simple is just the best ever.

On Monday I was out of the office, nosing around in people’s dirt as usual when I suddenly came over all Lee Marvin (Starvin….for non Londoners) I went into a sandwich shop but all the fancy Chorizo, Prawn on rye bread stuff just didn’t do it for me until my eyes alighted on plain old corned beef and onion.

No fancy bread, just white sliced. What I loved was the woman behind the jump said something that always makes me laugh in cafes “Crusty bread or normal?”…..as if anything other than a slice of Kingsmill is fancy, socialist muck, not to be trusted.

It was SUBLIME……cometh the hour, cometh the sandwich

See ya next week