[Ben Reeve Lewis is thinking about elephants ..]
Let’s not ignore the elephant in the room here.
They move into your area and everything goes to pot.
Property prices plummet as people sell up to avoid living in a neighbourhood which has been taken over by them.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for people bettering themselves. Who doesn’t want a better life than they have now for their families? But it’s the smell of their food and their music.
Don’t be coy….you know exactly who I am talking about….STUDENTS.
Residents of Winchester in Hampshire have been campaigning about the area being blighted by students taking over the neighbourhood of Stanmore and the resultant noisy parties and overflowing bins.
Traitorous landlord
What has annoyed local residents even more is their abandonment by main campaign organiser Amanda Chard who had promised ‘All out war’ if landlords continued to buy up family homes to let to these academic ruffians, who then disappeared and subsequently let her 3 bedroom house to….you guessed it, STUDENTS.
Councillor Derek Green is quoted as saying:
“It’s rather hypocritical, isn’t it? I’m very disappointed with her personally.”
Despite the anti-student campaign boasting 300 local residents and a situation which Ms Chard described in the following way:
“I keep imagining The Simpsons, when they’re going around with the pitchforks”
The council’s press office, as ever, try to put a positive spin on it
“Complaints about anti-social behaviour are resurfacing as term starts, but councillors are keen to highlight the positive reaction of most towards students.”
Bless ‘em. Doncha just love council press releases?
I would imagine that Dresden City Council’s press office reporting on the firestorm of 1945 saying:
“The majority of residents are unconcerned, some have even managed to reduce their heating bills”
Tenancy agreement? What tenancy agreement?
Letting Agent Today gives us our next ‘non-story’ in informing us that tenants are blatantly ignoring the conditions in tenancy agreements following a survey of 500 landlords.
One in ten tenants admits sub-letting to friends. 70% admit keeping a pet in breach of the contract and 79% admit they have decorated without the landlord’s consent.
A staggering 80% admit to breathing without the landlord’s permission.
No, I lied about that last bit but before you accuse me of being pro-tenant (I am one….why wouldn’t I be?) the tenor of my irony is also picked up in the comments of landlords below the article:
“Imagine how degrading it must feel to have to ask for permission to hammer a nail into a wall, especially if you’ve lived in the property long enough to think of it as your home. It would undermine your sense of independence and freedom, basically like being a child again.”
Says the humane James Thorncroft.
“I think like James because we all need freedom and independence”.
Echoes Grey Parker.
I too have decorated without my landlord’s permission but we used Farrow and Ball paint throughout so the property looks a bloody site better than it did when we moved in, although admittedly its all black.
I’m kidding.
An economic opportunity?
Speaking of infantilisation, I was talking to my new neighbours upstairs, two Jacks and a Mike. Three young men in decent paying jobs with no black marks on their credit rating who had to offer up guarantors to get the tenancy of their £1,750 per month two bed flat.
I also spoke last week to a 50+ tenant who had to endure the same ignominy.
Come on letting agents reading this….why are tenants driven through this embarrassing charade? Forced to go cap in hand to often elderly relatives who have to then have their own finances scrutinised?
Are you really protecting your landlord or is it simply another fee?
What is the legal or financial basis for this treatment?
The Haart Festival
Speaking of sharp letting agent practices I read with interest this piece about high street chain Haarts trying to get around the planning regulations that places restrictions on estate agent’s sign boards by pretending they are advertising a local event. This time in increasingly up and coming Brixton.
Website Brixton Buzz accurately points out:
“Looking to outdo Foxtons as the area’s most unpopular estate agents”
The boards are even going up on council estates where Haarts have no interest at all.
As Brixton Buzz point go on to say:
“There’s no clue offered as to what the festival is about, and there’s no address or contact details either, but the board conveniently advertises two phone numbers for Haart’s Sales and Lettings services, and there’s also a link to their website.”
All part of the ongoing gentrification of London and while we are on the subject.
Natural development?
Architect Norman Foster has been doling out his wisdom on people being frozen out by increasing housing costs He doesn’t see it as a problem at all but a natural result of growth in prosperity and something to be celebrated.
He isn’t talking about local people being forced to relocate but artists and creative types. He offers:
“”If I think of New York, if I think of Beijing, artists have created areas, that area thrives and then it’s become so fashionable that they become too expensive and the artists have moved back away and they’ve then found a new area prospered and then that’s been revitalised.”
If I understand Norm’s logic right, creatives move in, tart up a rundown area which drives prices so high that even they can’t afford to live there anymore and have to start somewhere else, driving up the prices yet again for the local non-creative residents who are also forced to move.
So if I see someone walking down the street sporting a beret and a paint-streaked smock or heaven forbid, someone juggling, I’m going to chase them with some rocks yelling ‘Rent rise’, to alert others to the cause, who will hopefully join me in the run up the road in pursuit of the fey, Pre-Raphaelite nonce.
I’m not going to comment on what drives Foster’s opinion on this other than to quote the magazine’s description of him, which speaks volumes:
“I don’t think that’s necessarily bad,” added Foster, who was the only architect on the Sunday Times’ 2014 Rich List of the UK’s wealthiest people.”
Methinks there was a surfeit of Brandy and cigars going on there.
What made me smile this week
Wednesday was the first day of autumn. Officially my favourite time of year. How could anyone live in a country that didn’t have autumn?
Those fat, tiger-striped spiders on elaborate webs appearing near my rubbish bins, walking through the woods to the sound of acorns dropping through the foliage, sticking the heating on, cooking the first beef stew of the season and dusting off you’re your winter hat collection.
See ya next week
I live in a very studenty area and to be honest the most annoying thing since they’ve been back is the amount of junk mail shoved through our door. We must have had about a tree’s worth of takeaway menus. Oh and the amount of chuggers knocking on our door trying to persuade students to donate some of their loans. The students themselves are mostly fine!
Given the option I would take a tenant with a home owning guarantors over one without anyday. The legal system just makes it too hard to get money out of someone that decides (or can’t) pay up once you have got a CCJ.
A few shots below the belt there Ben!
The leases we’re talking about are generally short in duration, after which time the rights return to the freeholder. As the property will usually be returning to the landlord’s control in a relatively short period of time, it is only to be expected that the landlord will be more interested in the condition of that property when it is handed back (than say a 99 years lease) and therefore insist on certain contractual conditions and obligations. Of course, it wouldn’t be necessary if there were not lots of examples of tenants taking advantage of the situation.
If relatively short term tenants would like the rights to do anything they like to the property, perhaps they would like the statutory repairing obligations too and then we could get rid of the arbitrary 7 year rule?
Guarantors (often charities or Local Authorities) enable us to provide a roof over someone’s head who might otherwise have to stay in a crappy bedsit, half way house or refuge. If you have a problem with that then perhaps you’d like to lend them the money instead? We don’t charge extra for referencing guarantors.