[Ben Reeve Lewis has been suffering with hayfever …...]
Sod’s law.
I spend 2 months working up a 36 person multi-agency raid with police and come the day we get virtually nothing when we knock on the doors, despite being offered what the police described as a ‘Chinese sex dungeon’, which was firmly locked behind a steel door.
Then the next day I get struck down with hayfever from hell, take a day off nursing a nose and eyes that would double as Niagara Falls for a film special effects unit and in comes a rogue landlord I’ve been trying to get in for 4 months who finally turns up for a chat while I’m at home with a wet flannel on my face.
Would you Adam and Eve it? You can never take your eye off the ball in the rogue landlord game.
Ben and the Tories
Regular readers will know that I am one of the nation’s undecided voters.
I’m genuinely perplexed and given my day job in housing obviously what plans the parties have for the crisis is likely to be a vote winner for me.
The only thing I do know for certain is I ain’t voting Tory. Sorry Tory readers, it’s not gonna happen chez Reeve-Lewis, never has, never will. I see nothing in my future reflected in that way forward.
My dad stood as a Conservative councillor for Bermondsey in the 1950s. His proudest possession, a letter from Ted Heath, thanking him for his contribution. My dad was a steel erector and I fail to see what his party offered families like ours or that of our neighbours, or his dad for that matter, a Smithfield Market porter.
As Alf Garnett said of working class Conservatives:
“My father voted Tory. My Grandfather borrowed a pair of boots and walked 15 miles to vote Tory”
A comment which just about sums it up for me.So I thought I would have a trawl around the different manifestos and see what they are offering up in brief.
What the parties are offering
The Greens are pledging 500,000 new homes by 2020 and are looking at plans to make home buying more affordable but nothing I could find on beefing up powers to tackle rogue landlords.
Ben’s rating 5/10 could try harder.
Labour are at least mentioning unaffordable rents in some areas of the country, earning Millipede an encouraging smile and one raised, anticipatory eye brow and a second eye brow for dealing with letting agent fees for tenants.
I even sit up in my chair at the mention of the lack security offered by ASTs but then flump back in my chair with his simplistic 3 year fixed term idea.
Is that really workable? It will take more than that and as a single unrelated idea will impact in a variety of other unpleasant ways. Not much use without a complete overhaul of renting law, offering more security for those that want it whilst making it easier and quicker for landlords to get rid of nightmare tenants.
Ben’s rating 7/10 this boy shows promise but his work is erratic.
UKIP plan to protect the greenbelt…sigh….change planning laws to make it easier to build on brownfield sites….yawn, go on…exempt stamp duty for first time buyers and introduce local council powers to overturn planning for brownfield site-builds following a referendum.
Ben’s rating 2/10 see me!
The Lib Dems promise to introduce a ‘rent to buy’ scheme whereby renters can buy without needing a deposit. Hardly a new or radical idea but astonishingly, on their party home page housing doesn’t get a single mention apart from where it sits as a topic connected to everything else.
Ben’s rating nil point. Clegg, get out of my class.
The Monster Raving Loony Party didn’t have any housing policies at all, so no surprises there.
The furore over Cameron’s plan to extend the right to buy is still causing outrage though. [Whats the Conservatives rating Ben? – Ed]
A lone voice of reason
This week, legal angles aside I was drawn to a simple, lone voice of reason. That of Mr Nick Atkin, boss of the ever excellent and creative Halton Housing Trust. A common sense look at what it would mean regardless of the legislative or moralistic take on it.
What Nick offers pragmatically is:
“The extension of this policy will only serve to reduce the overall supply of affordable rented homes in England. We have a programme to build 800 new homes in Halton. Which seems impressive until you consider that these additional homes will then only go towards filling the gap left by the extension of RTB.”
And Nick points to a shadow world of undercover investors when he highlights: .
“One of the more subtle issues of RTB is a misplaced assumption that the current occupier is purchasing the property. This is no longer the case “
There are always cash ready people looking to find cash strapped people in order to capitalise on their desperation and part them from their possessions.
Look at the government warnings to over 55s as soon as the pension relaxing scheme came in a few weeks back.
Houses for thin people
London’s housing market shows even more signs of desperation supplied this week by Rat & Mouse with an Islington estate agents offering a house for £749,000.
No surprises for Islington’s well heeled set until you look at the floor plans and see it is only 8 feet wide, albeit with three floors and a garden.
Even the carriage of a tube train is wider than that.
Can you imagine inviting friends around for dinner? All sitting facing the same wall with their plates balanced on their laps, passing the salt through 30 hands to the other end of the dining room.
Think what £790,000 would get you outside the M25.
Much as I’ve always said I refuse to move I am coming around to the idea as the city of my birth becomes more of a hilarious joke by the week. Housing wise it’s a mad house, pun intended.
What made me smile this week
A poster stuck up on a Cambridge lamppost reading:
“Katy Hopkins on Ed Milliband: ‘I will leave the country if this man becomes PM’ – Labour will get rid of Unpaid internships lasting over 4 weeks, exploitative zero hours contracts, the bedroom tax AND KATIE HOPKINS”.
See ya next week
“whilst making it easier and quicker for landlords to get rid of nightmare tenants.”
Glad to read this, Ben.
I think that is the reason to explain why landlords won’t consider longer tenancies. If they knew a non-paying tenant could be evicted quickly, and in a guaranteed way, I am sure many would be happy to consider longer tenancies even in the current AST framework.
At law, I think it would take very little, perhaps a simple amendment related to section 8 of the HA 1988.
The real issue is with the courts and enforcement delays.
In my view, start or proceedings to actual eviction should always fit within a month.
Certainly, eviction should take place without further notice within a week of a possession order’s effective date.
Yes I do think that any resistance to longer tenancies from the landlord community is strongly influenced by knowing how difficult and lengthy it is to get tenants out but I dont agree that addressing the problem is a small task at all, it would require a major overhaul on so many levels.
If you look at it bluntly for most of the 17 (no 18 now) grounds available for eviction section 8 proceedings are basically an accusation made against another person and so the legal machinery has to be in place to allow the accused to answer, refute and counterclaim as with any area of law, not just housing.
If a council serves certain notices on a landlord, say for property conversion without planning permission, the law states that the accused has 3 months to respond and even if they lose the appeal then the planning department must give the person reasonable time to rectify the breach.
S21 proceedings are ‘No fault’ applications so apart from the 2 month notice delays are pretty much down to the court.
Also think about what council homelessness units would have to do to deal with faster evictions.
Its a complex web this housing law malarkey
There is no need to overcomplicate either!
If the landlord seeks possession because the tenant hasn’t paid rent or has trashed the place, it does not require months to assert that.
It is often worthwhile, if you’ve got a tenant who is flagrantly not paying anything and wilfully and persistently refusing to pay, enforcing via the High Court. They cost a lot more but they are a lot faster and the increased fees are often less than the rent you’d lose out on waiting 6-8 weeks for the county court bailiff to attend.
You do need to convince a Judge to allow a transfer up for enforcement but good reasons I’ve found to work include the fact that the delay in instructing County Court bailiffs would derail a sale of property and thus cost you in interest, and the continued failure to pay any rent is causing you a significant prejudice and putting you at risk of repossession.
Dont agree Romain I’m afraid. I’ve defended hundreds of possession claims in county court and even in rent arrears cases it isnt a simple a matter as you make out.
Firstly landlords can often get the figures massively wrong. I remember dealing with a case where the landlord was accusing the tenant of owing him £3,000 but when the judge went over the figures submitted in support of the landlord’s claim and untangled the mess it turned out the landlord actually owed the tenant £300 in an overpayment.
Also rent arrears can be the result of housing benefit problems despite the tenant doing everything they could to sort the mess which the council then admits to and pays up.
And dont forget that the law allows a tenant to counterclaim for things like disrepair or harassment, so a landlord can sue for say £4,000 arrears but the tenant successfully counterclaims for living without a ceiling for 2 years.
It is I’m afraid impossible not to overcomplicate the massed variety of human stories that the courts have to deal with. Take a look at the current edition of the ‘Housing law casebook’, weighing in at whopping 1,118 pages of housing cases that have been through the courts and these are only the more salient ones.
Problems with housing benefits are not relevant: Either the rent has been paid or it hasn’t.
Regarding errors of calculations, as said this is a matter of minutes or hours to clear up based on the documents provided (as your example shows), not days, weeks, or worse.
Lastly, and that’s an important point: Any tenant claiming disrepair must have written documents to support it.
There must have been a history of notification from the tenant to the landlord, inadequate response, etc.
Any tenant who, out of the blue, claims disrepair in court to defend against arrears should be ignored unless he has very significant and detailed evidence.
Of course, there are real problem cases, but in those cases there should be a significant paper trail to prove it.
The majority of standard cases do not require extensive inquiry.
In any case, without compressing the court review, which is not the major source of delay, it should be possible to cut the time required in half.
““whilst making it easier and quicker for landlords to get rid of nightmare tenants.”
So it seems that you think that this is actually not possible…
Hello Ben,
If landlords get the arrears figures wrong, it gets thrown out, no one would reasonably disagree with that.
Landlords not being able to evict because the council has (possibly) messed up for more than 4 months is not reasonable and only leads to landlords not taking on HB and ever more ‘No DSS’ adverts.
Disrepair and harassment are a lot more difficult but that’s why judges get paid fortunes, to make difficult decisions.
When there is (often/usually?) ground 10 & 11 (discretionary arrears), they should be granting possession for that, using their judgement. If there is disrepair, they should be asking why haven’t the tenants used the disrepair protocol. They should be looking at bank statements to see if the rent has been set aside. They should be looking for a shred of evidence of harassment and its likelihood (and erring very heavily in the tenants favour with the benefit of the doubt).
But they don’t.
So landlords react accordingly.
And though I’m clearly writing this from a landlords POV, it doesn’t affect me now as all my tenants are perfect(ish!) as I just don’t take on risky tenants anymore.
Good tenants pay the price for bad tenants, that can’t be right.
p.s
I didn’t want to mention it at the time of your TV stardom, but now you’ve mentioned him, you do sound remarkably like Alf Garnett- to me as a non-Londoner.
Although authoritative and eloquent (apart from the ‘Monopoly’ sketch nonsense), with your musical leanings, I was half expecting you to break out a Chas n Dave number.
No offence intended.
Ben,
A few points:-
In my experience the housing problem is mainly the SE of England, particularly London, the reasons for this need to be addressed.
It’s not just how many houses are built (supply) but the need for houses (demand) that needs to be balanced.
The HB Welcome comment sums it up for me-
“Landlords not being able to evict because the council has (possibly) messed up for more than 4 months is not reasonable and only leads to landlords not taking on HB and ever more ‘No DSS’ adverts.”
I used the local council to find LHA tenants for years, I accepted lower rents in return for no agents fees and people who generally stayed long term, only moving because they became entitled to bigger properties. However one person to whom I gave the benefit of the doubt cost me £6,000 and a lot of lost sleep – so never again.
A lot of the S21 and other housing problems could be solved by making renting a property subject to local planning permission.
To all posters, I dont want to get away from my original point in cases which we could all raise back and forward as it takes us nowehere. i include my “Ah yes buts” in there as well haha
My originating point was that streamlining evictions even in cases like rent arrears and damage isnt as easy as it sounds because when possession is being sought using S8 under most of the grounds it is in essence an allegation made by one person against another person and under our legal system and that of most countries, the other person is allowed to defend themselves and even make counter allegations.
So streamlining the eviction procedure can impact upon a basic legal principle across the board not just addressing a landlord/tenant issue.
Dave what is your planning permission idea?
And HBW….how dare you. I was putting on my posh voice for the cameras and the Monopoly thing was the producer’s idea and curiously every single person that I know who watched it said “What was all that Monopoly thing about?” including those of us on the London Eye playing it haha
Ben,
If planning permission was required for change of use of a property from rented to owner occupied it would help address all these problems:-
1) Properties would need to be in good repair before permission to let was granted.
2) New build properties being snapped up by BTL investors at the expense of owner occupiers.
3) S21 notices being served because short term investors want vacant possession to sell. Change of use would not be considered if an S21 had been used in the last year.
4) Most retaliatory evictions, if permission to let needed to be renewed after use of S21.
5) “Good tenant” insecurity – why would a LL evict a good tenant if the only option was another ,possibly worse, tenant?
6) A temporary change of use option would allow people to let their own homes while working away, but tenants would know this.
I am not usually in favour of state intervention but while the housing ponzi scheme persists the innocent need some protection, that said I would bring back the workhouse for tenants and landlords who abuse the system.
Re S8 – I agree justice needs to be done but it also needs to be quick and the workhouse for anyone who takes the Mick.
Well Dave I really like the workhouse idea. Gets my vote :)
A lot of what you suggest there could work well as a sort of housing MOT. I dont think there is any point in burdening planning teams who are stretched to breaking point but how about creating a self employed opportunity for rented property MOT regulators?
Remember when EPCs were brought in a loads of people trained in the new inspector’s certificates as a source of income. I know it didnt work out well for many but it doesnt mean the idea in principle is a bad one.
A self financing market led solution to poor property conditions that takes much of the regulation away from local authorities who dont have the staff left any more to have any impact or keep on top of what is going on out there.
On point 5 though you are missing a vital fact, rogue landlords do evict good tenants regularly. Remember this is where I ply my trade. Its just about the money for them and they’ll take the risk on an unknown tenant as long as they can pay and extra £100 a month, they dont see it as a service industry which is what being a landlord really is.
I know that sounds crazy to decent landlords and I have trouble getting the good ones to understand not only how bad the rogues can be but also how big the problem is in many areas.