[Ben Reeve Lewis has been to Manchester…]
Last week Frazzy and I were in Manchester for a travel conference (her stock in trade) attended by travel people and their partners.
I like Manchester. It’s how a city should be, cosmopolitan, big buildings, friendly people and cheaper than London.
But then everywhere is cheaper than London.
The Big Scoop
The only downside of an otherwise fun weekend of motivational speakers and entertainment was Saturday night’s big scoop, Gary Barlow.
I find his appeal incomprehensible and can’t understand how someone so bland and boring managed to eke out such a lucrative career.
Every year at these annual shindigs we wait with bated breath for the headline act. Last year it was Simply Red, not too bad when its free.
This year, MC Vernon Kay whipped up the anticipation and when the name was announced I felt all the air go out of my balloon.
Still…..I used the time wisely sitting alone at the table among the empty wine bottles and found a few new features on my phone that I didn’t know about, while Frazzy ran off and waved her knickers at Mr Bore-low.
I am equally unimpressed by this week’s housing news which is a touch Barlow-esque in its pedestrian nature.
‘Tories worse than Labour’ shock
Perhaps the only highlight being an article in Property Industry Eye which reported on property professionals being offended by comments from upmarket company ‘Property Vision’ who said:
“The only thing worse than a Labour government is a Conservative government”
Commenting that the Tories have done nothing to help investors or landlords in terms of taxation and Stamp Duty.
Reminds me of a quote Churchill once said:
“Democracy is the worst system of governance imaginable…..apart from all the other ones”
The new repossession stats
The latest quarterly figures for repossessions is out from the MoJ showing a 1% increase with actual numbers of 11,267 people being repossessed by bailiffs warrant in the third quarter of 2015.
These figures include mortgages as well and shows that on the landlord side, which includes social landlords, repos have actually dropped 5% on the same quarter last year but don’t lose sight of the fact that overall repos have risen and 11,262 human being have lost their homes. Percentages can be misleading that way.
The report quotes the English Housing Survey:
“The fall in the number of mortgage possession actions since 2008 coincides with lower interest rates, a proactive approach from lenders in managing consumers in financial difficulties and other interventions from the government, such as the Mortgage Rescue Scheme.
Other factors that may have contributed to the rapid fall in the number of mortgage possession claims and orders since 2008 include the introduction of the Mortgage PreAction Protocol”.
I’ve read this before and always thought it was complete BS.
The caring mortgage lender …
In 5 years I defended well over 200 mortgage repossession cases in the county court and nearly always won because the mortgage lenders most certainly did not take a proactive approach to borrower’s financial difficulties and brought this to the attention of the judge.
Lest not forget that mortgage lenders were so fast and loose with repossession that government introduced a pre action protocol to curb their enthusiasm.
The Mortgage Pre-Action Protocol was routinely ignored, which is why the courts had to then go on to introduce a form (N123 for anyone who is interested) to force the lenders to show what they had done before going for possession.
The lenders also routinely ignored these forms as well until their absence was brought to the attention of a judge and you knew, when it was the first thing the lender’s lawyer thrust into your hand outside the court that half of it was going to be a work of fiction anyway, so you sought an adjournment to allow time to examine it in detail, which judges were happy to grant because they knew it was a pack of lies as well.
If you are a borrower in difficulty don’t for a single minute think you can trust your bank and their big name lawyers, they break the law exactly like landlord Big Ron and his baseball bat.
Its also pointless citing this quote in a 2015 report, given the Mortgage Rescue Scheme died in 2013.
Rogue landlords and beds in sheds combo
Government and the media do love a good tagline, ‘Rogue landlords’ and ‘Beds in sheds’ being two of the most popular and the government’s press office team must have been overjoyed to get both in one headline announcing that government are making £5 million available to enable councils to get on the case more effectively with publication of the press release “New funding to crack down on rogue landlords and tackle beds in sheds”
Whilst certainly a blight, beds in sheds aren’t that widespread in most areas, they tend to be regional in nature.
In Lewisham I may have seen only 5 in as many years, but it’s a cracking rhyming tagline isn’t it? I’m surprised Gary Barlow hasn’t lifted it to use in a song.
£5 million is to spread among 65 councils. (whips calculator out) which means an average of £72,923 each.
5 mill always sounds a lot, I would certainly be ecstatic if I tapped out a balance at the cash machine and it read “Available balance £5,000,000” but in council terms the figure is laughable. Some bigger councils will get more than £72k but that means others will get even less.
Brandon Lewis says:
“Council-led efforts mean more than 3,000 landlords have faced enforcement action and even prosecution in the last 2 years – today’s £5 million funding, combined with the extra powers we’re bringing forward, will help them go even further.”
I have criticised the new powers proposed in the Housing Bill 2015, not because of the aim of them, they are good and welcome but although councils will be able to keep all penalties without sending most back to government you have to get out there to bring them in first and this, as with all legal work, costs money.
Still………better than chewing a brick as we say in South London.
TPO expels agents
I see two letting agents were expelled from the Property Ombudsman Scheme this week. CityWest and A S Moon and Partners were chucked out for two years for failing to return money to complainants.
One potential buyer paid £2,500 to CityWest for what he understood was a deposit only to be told that it was a fee for talking to mortgage lenders. Whilst A S Moon were done by the TPO for not managing a letting adequately and returning a deposit to the tenant when there was damage in the property.
The TPO ordered both companies to pay money out but they didn’t, hence the expulsion. The announcement reads:
“Agents must comply with any award and/or direction made by The Ombudsman against them and pay the Complainant the amount of any such award within the required period for payment. Cases of non-compliance are taken very seriously and are dealt with by the Disciplinary and Standards Committee (DSC) of the TPO Council.”
Consider your bum well and truly slapped.
What made me smile this week
Gary Barlow saying “Thank you and goodnight”
See ya next week
Very entertaining post Ben, loved it.
I think: Only when the respective ombudsman can stop expelled agents from trading thereafter will we find they stop doing the two fingered salute.
On that subject, this was interesting bit.ly/1j4SZeB
This tenant took out a 3rd part debt order on the agent who kept her money. So there are certainly ways to take it further. This agent used multiple corporate identities to avoid paying up though! Cos they’re scum really.
Glad you found it entertaining. I was distinctly uninspired this week so thought it was a plodder.
The agents are going to have to register somewhere else to keep trading as you cant do it if you arent a member of a redress scheme without the council fining you.
It would be nice if there was an extra high tariff with schemes where new members have joined because they have been expelled elsewhere, or in this case a refusal to take them on until they have complied with the reason for expulsion and paid out disgruntled tenants and landlords.
And yes there are other routes but people often fight shy of legal action because it seems intimidating
As an addendum to my piece about the government making £5 million available for councils to tackle rogue landlords I have just spoken to a mate in enforcement who is putting together a bid for some of it.
She said the government have put a strange caveat on granting the money, in that however much they are succesful in obtaining the money has to be spent within 3 months.
WTF?
You have to wonder if they are really serious about this. It means you wont be able to use the money to employ extra staff, unless its only on a three month contract