Ben Reeve Lewis Friday Newsround #68

[Ben Reeve Lewis fails to mention Shapps this week   …]

I was going to begin this piece by commenting on the great weather but it occurred to me that by the time it gets out we could well be back in monsoon season again, so I wont tempt fate.

I spent last weekend at Landlord Law Towers with Tessa, Graeme and Patrick.

I’m becoming quite enamoured of Norwich, it’s a human sized city without too many rough bits and house prices suggest Frazzles and I could buy a decent place and still have change left over, unlike my beloved London where our rent is like a gaping black hole in our income.

But when I arrived back mid afternoon on Sunday I was reminded what London does best.

We went to a free festival in Battersea Park, lying in the sun in the shadow of the park’s giant gold Buddha with a picnic, a glass of wine, surrounded by people from all over the world and watched Transglobal Underground – favourites of mine from the 1990s who have now got greyer and balder like the rest of us.

Downsizing with a difference

What impressed me about Norwich properties was the size of them, which is why I was rather shocked to read on 24 Dash this week that a German had designed the world’s smallest house….Why????

Van bo De Metzel said

“I want to have my own square metre … that no one other than I, myself, can decide what happens with this one square meter of mine in the world”

As a tenant constantly at the whims and mercies of a landlord I totally understand the sentiment but I think he is going a bit far to avoid the constant insecurity of living under an AST.

I’m not sure I would want to live somewhere where I couldn’t even bend down to put my socks on without my bum going out the back door, although I have observed several such properties being offered by London’s estate agents, they’re usually built by Barrats and Bovis and called ‘Starter homes’.

It is probably unique in being the only property that would be officially overcrowded in having just a single occupant, but on the bright-side, at least you would avoid being caught by bedroom tax.

Bedroom tax

Which is a subject that featured again in the news this week on Inside Housing which reports Lord Fraud, in an astonishing piece of twisted logic, claiming that bedroom tax will ease overcrowding.

His speech at the Local Government Association conference was full of the usual mealy-mouthed crap about the need to shave £430 million off of the benefits bill regardless of the personal tragedies it leaves in its wake.

I was reminded of a clip from a documentary I once saw on the Spanish Civil War, in which an old soldier from the International brigade told a story of surrounding a town only to have the German’s march out with all the villagers in front of them as a human shield.

Nobody wanted to start shooting but eventually they felt they had no choice but to open fire. Most of the villagers were killed and he looked sad at this point but then perked up and said with excitement “But we got the bloody Germans as well”.

I cant help feeling that in 20 years time on a documentary about benefit cuts of the early 21st century Lord Fraud will be saying something similar.

Not everything thats popular is good

In answer to his comments crossbench peer Victor Adebowale, although acknowledging the cuts had a certain measure of popular support said:

“Just because something is popular doesn’t mean it is right.”

And putting his finger firmly on the button he added

“The thing that worries me about the current position is that we are confusing the reaction of the public, which is always anti-welfare during times of recession, with true, creative, vision-led leadership.”

Spot on Victor.

Have you ever seen him speak? He once did a presentation at the Lewisham Council staff AGM, back when he was head of homeless charity Centrepoint and delivered one of the most incisive and funny conference speeches I have ever witnessed. Despite his African name he has an accent that wouldn’t be out of place in ‘Last of the summer wine’.

We need more people like him in housing. He would in fact make a fantastic housing minister. Unlike the one we have been lumbered with he actually has a feel for it.

Landlord inspections

Last Friday, at the request of a Landlord Law Blog reader, I got involved in a bizarre forum chat over on Money Saving Expert where Marlie Panda was seeking advice about her agents who were threatening to visit the property that afternoon to show prospective purchaser around and if she denied access, as she was proposing to do, they were going to get a locksmith to remove her front door.

This is standard TRO type stuff. I get several complaints like this every week but for young Marlie she was terrified and needed help. I only intended to set the record straight regarding her legal rights but the thread ran all day and I ended up trying to defuse well intentioned advice that could have really ruined her case.

Everyone was taking the emotional view and telling her to block the door and lay down in front of the bulldozer (metaphorically speaking) and not for the first time I despaired of people getting enraged in the face of a legal situation.

A landlords quandry

Which is why I read with interest an article by Mark Alexander on Property 118 about a problem he is in with his tenants  who let visitors stay while they were away, and who subsequently went on to flood the property causing damage. The tenants are refusing to pay for the repairs , saying it is the landlord’s responsibility.

Mark’s quandary is over the fact that in other ways they are good tenants and pay their rent, so does he get arsey about it or just put it down to experience and do the repairs?. What to do?

I’m delighted to hear he is doing the latter. I know Mark personally and he is a pragmatic business-like guy. A typical portfolio landlord where nothing is taken personally.

As a TRO, 99% of the complaints made to me are about small amateur landlords who max themselves out and cant afford the mortgage on the usually buy to let property, if the tenant misses even 1 month’s rent. Disrepair issues also blow up because when the boiler explodes they don’t have any back-up cash to help them out.

I wish I could bottle Mark’s attitude and sell it to amateur landlords, my job would be a lot easier and the lives of those small amateur landlords would be a lot more stress free.

Small landlords suffering most

On that very subject, 24 dash reported findings from a report conducted by BDRC Continental that small landlords suffer the most with arrears and void periods (times when the property doesn’t have tenants in it).  BDRC’s Mark Long said:

“It is a tough time to be a private landlord if you have only one property in your portfolio”.

In one year 1 in 10 landlords have void periods averaging 69 days. That’s roughly 2 months with no rental income and if you don’t have cash reserves you are going to suffer.

We do need more private landlords to ease the housing crisis but too many maxed-out amateurs becomes counter productive and actually worsens the housing problem, creating more instability for tenants.

Maybe people new to renting should have to show they have £5,000 in reserve before they start. This would protect them and their tenants. Failing that, a pragmatic mindset like Mark’s would help. Like the ladies in the picture to the side.

Nuns on a shed

I took this from my office window last week of 2 tiny Philippino nuns from 2 doors down tarring the roof of a shed in their full regalia.

Aren’t they allowed to wear boiler suits whilst tarring? And why is the one on the left glowing?

Maybe I’ve misjudged the scene and they are doing up a shed to rent out for the Olympics.

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.