Ben Reeve Lewis Friday Newsround #280

[Ben Reeve Lewis is not well…)

Cough Cyncope!  That’s what I’ve had this week.

I was trafficked off to Kings College Hospital yesterday for a blood tests and an ECG, prompted by a paramedic cousin and a wife for whom the word nagging takes on a spiritual significance because I have had a lung infection for three months only picked up on Tuesday which has left me passing out whenever I cough.

Its an odd thing and if its any presage of dying, actually quite nice.

One minute you are sitting there eating your Spag Bol and the next being shaken awake, having had no idea that you just passed out.

If that is death….bring it on.

Woody Allen once said that he isn’t afraid of death, he just doesn’t want to be there when it happens. That’s cough Cyncope folks, sign up while you can.

Anyway, wrestling with the grim reaper aside what has been happening in renting land?

No longer paved with gold?

Well this thing in What Mortgage piqued my interest.  The news that landlords are turning their backs on London, the Golden Goose, and looking to the more affordable suburbs for a sustainable business model .

Only 5% of the NLAs landlord saying they will be investing more in the capital, the lowest of all regional growth.  Chair of the NLA Carolyn Uphill (What happened to Richard Lambert?) said:

“It looks like central London is simply becoming too expensive for most people, regardless of whether you want to buy, invest or rent.”

Fair enough but what surprised me about Carolyn’s comments were when she said:

“For many tenants the practical solution of moving out of the city to more affordable suburbs with good transport links is becoming increasingly appealing.”

Good transport links? Where does she live?  Has she not been aware of the ongoing Southern Rail fiasco or the tube madness?

I got a single bus back from Croydon to where I live the other day, a distance of 7 miles and it took me 2 hours 40 minutes.  If it hadn’t been for iPlayer and some headphones I would have thrown myself under said bus.

Licensing to come to Nottingham

Some readers will have read about mine and Frazzy’s intention to move to Nottingham in 2017. A place we have had numerous recce’s to, and now know our West Bridgefords from our Papplewicks and keen to become part of the community. I am even learning to say “Alright mee dook” so I fit in.

So I was interested to see that Nottingham City Council are looking at going down the selective licensing scheme route.
In my quest to do less this year, being involved in a licensing scheme 12 hours a week might just fit me biscuit if anyone in the council there is looking for a landlord tenant law adviser/advocate willing to commit from 8am to 11am three days a week.

What you lack in quantity you’ll get in quality.  Consultation on the scheme runs to the end of March and is proposing a licensing fee of £600 for 5 years.

I wrote last week that more and more councils are going down this route. In Nottingham’s case it is prompted by having received 4,500 complaints of dangerous wiring and cockroaches. All from the same house!

I jest but good luck Notts and if you need someone to help out……I’m cheap and available, as long as it doesn’t interfere with more serious activities like my cooking and dog walking.   Good candidate, knowledgeable, been around a bit, gradually losing sympathy for landlords or tenants, liable to pass out when coughing.  Not much of a CV is it?

Arizona squatter law

Landlords and the police have long struggled with the concept of what a squatter is. The police tending to think they have to have dreadlocks and dogs on a piece of string and landlords thinking missing a weeks rent creates a squat.

But I was intrigued to read of this Arizona grandmother who had been paying rent but evicted within 15 minutes for being a squatter.  Of course US law doesn’t automatically translate to UK law and in a day’s time when the ultimate psychopath becomes president I doubt there will be any comparisons left at all.

The article sets out Arizona’s squatting law, ushered in back in July 2015:

Arizona law 33-1378, which came into force in July 2015, says that landlords or tenants can order any guest of the tenant off the property, provided they aren’t named on a written lease.   If the guest refuses to leave, police can be called in to eject them.

Tenants, meanwhile, are afforded 5-30 days’ notice, depending on the nature of the breach of contract.

The law, created to combat squatters, allows landlords to avoid a long and costly eviction process – but can be used on anyone not on the lease.

It’s a shame that this law wasn’t in force in the 1880s when the army arrived on Geronimo’s same land without legal protection or a name on a lease.

Lets look at that in the light of UK law.

• If your name is on the lease you are entitled to due process before being evicted.
• If your name isn’t on the lease then this doesn’t mean you have no rights as a tenant, further issues are relevant.

Frazzy has an old mate who is the recently retired police chief of an Arizona town. Judging by his Facebook posts he probably thinks that Arizona Law 33-1378 is for wimps, pinkos, blacks and Hispanics and should be strengthened to reflect more justice.

He has even posted a photo of his 10 year old girl posing with an assault rifle, nice! And an indication of what we can expect once Trump gets his fat orange hands on the reigns of power.

Disrepair penalties

Finally and back to the UK, I read of Woking landlord Alan Fowler ordered to pay £8,432 for failing to carry out repairs including no smoke alarms, a faulty extractor fan, leaking boiler causing mould growth, cracked toilet tiles and a leaking bog.

Lest people think the council simply pounced like an opportunist hawk at a children’s hamster competition the council gave Mr Fowler ample chance to get the works done over a 6 month period, despite being served with an improvement notice, leaving them with no choice but to crank it up a notch, so I cant see how he can complain.

What made me smile this week.

I’ve been watching Taboo on BBC 1. A bit daft but oddly compelling and dark.

I’m a late comer to the charms of Tom Hardy, having only caught up with him on Peaky Blinders and at Xmas, The Revenant but for me he has become one of the actors you could watch read the phone book, or even Arizona law 33-1378 if it comes to it.

See ya next week