[Ben Reeve
Lewis is feeling pretty chipper having just spotted his first spring flowers of the year. How long will it last…?]
I spent the first 2 days of this week working on 5 cases in court.
Four mortgage repossessions to defend and getting an emergency injunction for an illegally evicted grandmother with severe health problems and her 10 year old Grandson who lives with her.
Not an inspiring start but this morning the sun was up and I walked into work (about 4 miles).
Much as I love snow (in my view we didn’t get enough in London this year) I was buoyed this morning by the sight of some crocuses and a snowdrop or two. The first signs of spring on the way maybe.
This put me in a more light-hearted mood for compiling my weekly newsround, searching out different stories from the usual doom and gloom that is housing in the UK at the moment.
Making the world a better place
Keeping the ball of optimism spinning in the air my eyes this week alighted on a fantastic campaign reported on digi Magazine “Newstart – the magazine for making better places”.
The ‘Love your streets’ campaign aims to change communities by involving people in clear up days, litter campaigns and even random acts of kindness in the community. Founder of Street Angels, Paul Blakey said
“This year we are encouraging people to do one nice thing for others every day of 2012. I see week in and week out the difference people who care can make within the wider community – we need more of it!”
Way to go Paul.
Happy, but not newsworthy
I like stories like this and Paul is right, we need more of them. Back in the summer it was rioters that caught all the headlines but there were more people who hit the streets with brooms after the event than bricks on the actual night. However a bandana on the face and a brick in the hand sells more papers than smiling people waving brooms.
My local community in Peckham, normally considered a right rough-arsed area, rallied around to champion the community and distance themselves from the rioters.
TV presenter Danny Wallace has for a decade now led the fantastic ‘Join Me’ group who have followers all over the globe doing nice things on Happy Mondays and Good Fridays.
The maddest story
The award for maddest story of the week goes to Susie Thompson, Director of Fabrick Housing Group, a Middlesbrough based social landlord with 14,500 properties on their books who appeared in Newcastle Crown Court facing charges with 5 others of conspiring to supply class A drugs.
How bizarre. A job like hers will probably be pulling in around £100,000 a year, who needs to work on the side with an income like that? Most people I work with just do a couple of nights behind a bar for that little bit of extra cash, not waiting offshore on a fog bound yacht for a drop from a Columbian freighter.
I’ll never look at one of my managers the same way again.
Chopping up red tape
The government have for some time been banging on about cutting red tape. In this I am actually on the government’s side.
I am one of the people who has to administer that bloody red tape and it is one of the chief reasons why TROs like me don’t get to prosecute landlords, because by the time we have disentangled ourselves form said red tape the perpetrator of heinous housing crimes and their victims have long since moved on.
In councils we have to hold meetings to decide when to hold the next meeting which usually can’t be held for 3 months because nobody’s diary has a matching window and then once at the next meeting, the first item on the agenda is usually explanations for why the action points from the previous meeting haven’t been actioned because, being so short staffed nobody managed to do it.
Inside Housing reported at the tail end of last week that leader of the often contentious Hammersmith & Fulham council, Stephen Greenhalgh and housing Solicitor Simon Randall have been appointed by government as ‘Sector Champions’ to cut red tape in housing.
Neither Mr Greenhalgh nor Mr Randal have many supporters on the left-side of things so it is not a popular appointment for many but when Mr Randall states,
‘There is enormous scope for reducing red tape which could both increase and speed up the supply of private rented and social housing without in any way compromising on quality, security or sustainability.’
You have to get behind him, at least provisionally. I have no idea how they are going to achieve it, although I can think of many people in my council whose absence would speed things up a bit, but lets see what they do. (you know it must be the crocuses and snowdrops getting to me. Have you ever known me more generous in my support?)
300 steps to planning
Maybe the first thing the 2 ‘Champions’ would be advised to look at is the situation going on in Stoke City Council, which is worthy of Jim Hacker and Sir Humphrey, as reported on Andrew Lainton’s ‘Decisions, Decisions, Decisions’ blog this week where Vanguard Consulting found no less than 300 separate steps involved in the council’s planning application procedures.
Vanguard reckon that only 6 of those steps are actually of any use to the applicants. Expect more stories like this to come to light as Randall & Greenhalgh (sounds like a TV series) get stuck in.
News to keep you cheerful
I would also like to introduce readers to my new favourite website ‘News-thump’ I’ll leave you to discover it for yourself but this week they ran an interesting story on Ian Duncan-Smith justifying benefit cuts. IDS is reported as saying;
“People can point to unemployment being at its highest level since 1994, but if we reduce the overall cost of the welfare system then that means we can add another couple million to the number of unemployed at no extra cost. It’s the best deal for taxpayers.”
Adding for good measure;
“Let’s just push this through Parliament, and then we can all start to look forward to the Diamond Jubilee and the Olympics,”
Yes, of course it’s a spoof news magazine and a damned funny one too. It will keep your pecker up in a largely gloomy climate.
The Germans are coming
Lets hope Henicke starts reading it when he gets here. He posted on Landlord Law Blog on Wednesday saying he is moving from Germany to the UK to rent. Germany is held by many to be a renting ‘Wunderland’ so hearing that someone is choosing to move from there to here is akin to watching someone running ‘in-to’ a burning building.
Good luck mate. Read Newsthump, it will cheer you up once you realise what it means to be a British tenant, with crippling rents, no security of tenure and constantly having to move.
There, I knew I wouldn’t be able to stay optimistic for the whole piece.
Ben Reeve Lewis
Ben’s runs Home Saving Expert, where he shares his secrets on defending people’s homes from mortgage repossession Visit his blog and get some help and advice on mortgage difficulties, catch up with him on Twitter and check out his free report “An Encouraging note on Dealing with your Mortgage Lender” and have it sent right to your inbox.
Germany is odd for renting: it’s sort of a communal activity, with film evenings and (obligatory) shared meals. But…it’s the three month notice thing that causes trouble. Who lives that far in advance? But I encountered a Housing Association who wouldn’t repair damp and mould. Sound familiar?
Yeah but I would swap the permanent insecurity of British renting for having to give 3 momth’s notice Penny.
Our landlord just came back to us with 6 week’s left on our tenancy, saying they are happy to renew and it wasnt until we heard, that Frazzy and I realised how on edge we had been since xmas, getting ready for the awful round of viewing new properties, dealing with insincere agents until they have your sign up money when they their smiles disapper and they treat you like dirt. Not to mention the stress over deposits being transferred, having to move and go without internet for 2 weeks while the service provider sorts themlseves out