• Home
  • About
  • Clinic
  • Freebies
  • Training
    • Workshops and Online Training
    • Landlord Law Conference
  • Eco Landlords
  • Landlord Law

The Landlord Law Blog

From landlord and tenant lawyer Tessa Shepperson

  • Home
  • Posts
  • News & comment
  • Cases
  • Tenants
    • Penalties for breaching tenancy rules
    • 15 Places for tenant help
  • Clinic
  • Podcasts
    • Interview
    • Surgery
  • Series
    • Analysis
    • should law and justice be free
    • HMO Basics
    • Tenancy Agreements 33 days
    • Airbnb
    • Grounds for Eviction
    • The Deregulation Act Explained
    • Tips

Are criminal landlords threatening to break knees?

November 26, 2019 by Tessa Shepperson 5 Comments

Violent landlordsI see that as part of their manifesto, the Labour Party are threatening action and big fines against landlords who rent out sub-standard properties.

There are, of course, many landlords who rent out sub-standard properties and of course they need to be dealt with and eliminated.

But what is the best way to enforce against these people?

Bad landlords are often criminal landlords

One of the problems with the private rented sector is that because there has been so little enforcement over the years, it has attracted a large criminal element.

Most of the landlords whose properties are in the worst condition are not (as Ben is continually telling us) dozy amateur landlords but are owned (or maybe just managed) by criminals and criminal gangs.

Now if a local authority officer, Fred, comes across one of these landlords and threatens to take action against them, these criminals are not going to ‘come quietly’.

They are far more likely to take Fred on one side, point out that they know where he lives, and if he ever bothers them again they will not only break his knees but those of all of his family.

What is Fred to do? He is probably in a desperately underfunded department with few staff. He may not be well paid.

Will he feel confident enough of the support of his seniors to risk serious personal injury by proceeding against this particular landlord?

His department is probably flooded with work that they do not have time to deal with. I suspect he will just move on to another case.

Now I have no idea whether or not this does in fact happen but I would not be surprised to find it did.

One solution

Criminal landlords should not be dealt with by ordinary Council Officers. It’s not fair to expect them to deal with potentially violent offenders.

Ideally, there should be a separate organisation specialising in this work who suspected criminal landlords can be referred to. The organisation should either be a part of the police or should liaise with the police.

They should be given special powers to enter properties which are believed to be being used for criminal purposes and to close them down.

And finally

Criminals and ordinary well-meaning landlords who make an occasional mistake should not be dealt with in the same way. However, at the moment this is what happens.

This approach though will only drive the good landlords away and do nothing to stop the bad landlords – who generally ignore rules and regulations.

Who then will house the people who cannot afford to buy their own property?

Print Friendly

Filed Under: News and comment

IMPORTANT: Please check the date of the post above - remember, if it is an old post, the law may have changed since it was written.

You should always get independent legal advice before taking any action.

Notes on comments:

For personal landlord and tenant related problems, please use our >> Blog Clinic.
Note that we do not publish all comments, please >> click here to read our terms of use and comments policy. Comments close after three months.

Keep up with the news on Landlord Law blog!

To get posts sent direct to your email in box click here

About Tessa Shepperson

Tessa is a specialist landlord & tenant lawyer and the creator of this site! She is a director of Landlord Law Services which now hosts Landlord Law and other services for landlords and property professionals.

« Tenant Fees in Wales: new rules for holding deposits
What is the best option for landlords whose tenants aren’t paying rent but who can’t afford solicitors? »

Comments

  1. alan armstrong says

    November 26, 2019 at 12:07 PM

    There are some Councils who work closely with the Police, an Officer from each organisation attending a property together so that the sort of thing you describe is less likely to occur, but also any other issues such as cannabis cultivation, illegal immigrants, utility meter tampering can be dealt with immediately and maybe more importantly, a power of arrest is available.,

    Reply
    • Tessa Shepperson says

      November 26, 2019 at 12:10 PM

      I am sure that some Councils deal with this very well. It is the other Councils which bother me …

      I suspect those are the areas more likely to be targeted by the criminals if they know enforcement is less likely there.

      Reply
  2. Ben Reeve-Lewis says

    November 26, 2019 at 1:17 PM

    Yep, you’ve got to be careful where you park your car on visits. I’ve received death threats and intimidation via Twitter and I know one TRO who was dangled by his ankles from a tower block balcony and an EHO who had to move her family hundreds of miles away under police protection.

    Reply
    • jon says

      November 26, 2019 at 2:31 PM

      I do know of a LA were some of the Community Safety Officers have made successful applications to the DVLA to have a block put on their car registration numbers being used to obtain their home address (criminals linked to car parking firms buying the info).

      Not sure how it works but could be useful for some officers.

      Reply
  3. Ben Reeve-Lewis says

    November 26, 2019 at 7:38 PM

    Yeah we’ve all got that Jon but a determined person can still track you, especially people like me who blog widely. We’re dealing with criminals, people traffickers, brothel keepers. The denizens of the rogue landlord market

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

“Interesting posts on residential landlord & tenant law and practice - in England & Wales UK”

Subscribe to the Landlord Law Blog by email

Never miss another post!

Choose whether you want to get
>> daily updates or just the
>> weekly roundups

You will also get a FREE Ebook!

Get Your Free Ebook:

Click to get your Free Ebook

>> Click Here for Your Free Copy

Featured Post

The end of Section 21 – a quick look at its history

The end of Section 21 – a quick look at its history

If you are new to the blog >> click here

Worried about Insurance?

Landlord Law Insurance Mini-Course

Some of our Other Services:

Disclaimer

The purpose of this blog is to provide information, comment and discussion.

Although Tessa, or guest bloggers, may from time to time, give helpful comments to readers' questions, these can only be based on the information given by the reader in his or her comment, which may not contain all material facts.

Any comments or suggestions provided by Tessa or any guest bloggers should not, therefore be relied upon as a substitute for legal advice from a qualified lawyer regarding any actual legal issue or dispute.

Nothing on this website should be construed as legal advice or perceived as creating a lawyer-client relationship (apart from the Fast Track block clinic service - so far as the questioners only are concerned).

Please also note that any opinion expressed by a guest blogger is his or hers alone, and does not necessarily reflect the views of Tessa Shepperson, or the other writers on this blog.

Cookies

You can find out more about our use of 'cookies' on this website here.

Associated sites

Landlord Law Services
Tenant Law
Eco Landlords
Your Law Store

Legal

Landlord Law Blog is © 2006 – 2019 Tessa Shepperson.

Note that Tessa is an introducer for Alan Boswell Insurance Brokers and will get a commission from sales made via links on this website.

© 2006–2019 Tessa Shepperson | Rainmaker Platform | Contact Page | Log in