[Ben Reeve Lewis is about to become famous. Well go on Channel 4 news anyway …]
I’ve had an odd, bits and bobs kind of week. Finally finished months of work to launch my website and services (more on this next week).
Took my missus Frazzy and her mates off to a Salsa and jive evening in Hammersmith, or ‘Amma-smif’, to give it its correct pronunciation, had dinner with my mate Lee in Terroir by Charing Cross station where I ate a whole crab to myself for some bizarre reason and what else?????…….oh yeah, nearly forgot. I have been filmed for TV for the first time!!!!
Channel 4 News are doing a short follow up piece on rogue landlords and spoke to me as a front line worker talking about the problem as a follow up to the Dispatches programme of a few weeks back.
The camera woman, Libby, told me that the first 2 rules of appearing on TV is never wear stripes and never wear a white shirt, and there was me in my John McCrirrick style boating blazer and a gleaming white shirt.
Thank you very much for the fashion tips my wife Frazzy. My career over before it starts.
All family and friends had recording buttons ready to go last night at 7pm and then this afternoon I got an email saying it is now going out next week. But there you go……when you have been in TV as long as I have etc etc
Bit of a dead week on the housing news front I’m afraid. No earth shattering developments or shocking announcements. Grant Shapps doesn’t seem to be saying much lately and shadow housing minister Alison Seabeck saying even less. No surprises there then. Why do we never hear much about her? I didn’t even know her name until I went looking for it the other week. [She has a website here – Ed]
Housing is in a state of crisis and getting deeper in it by the day, Shapps and Pickles have been described as the Laurel and Hardy of housing and yet where is labour’s voice in all this?
Normally an opposition party jumps at the chance to rub the government’s nose in it and lets face it, in housing there is plenty of ‘It’ to rub noses in at the moment.
So while ministers fail to make great pronouncements I will have to continue my bits and bobs week and look at bits and bobs of housing news.
Inside Housing ran an interesting article on using village green regulations to block planning permission.
Apparently legislation was brought in back in 1965 that allowed communities to register their village green but hardly anyone bothered, until very recently where applications of 200 a year are now seen. The reason being they can use their registration to block planning permission being applied for by social landlords.
A nice example of Camo’s big society – people power, the community manning the barricades, albeit armed with cucumber sandwiches instead of Molotov Cocktails and more than a smattering of tweed in place of Donkey jackets and berets.
Didn’t the Kinks have a song called ‘Village preservation society’?
I read of landlord Mohammed Javaid being fined £40,000 including costs for renting out dangerous properties to tenants.
With live electrical wires sticking out of the walls and water running through light fittings. Hats off to Chester environmental health officers for that one.
Of more interest to me however was that the article is headed “Landlord lived in luxury while he rented out death traps” and then goes on to describe his house as being worth £350,000. Now excuse me but these days, £350,000 is not a luxury house. Round my way, all it would get you would be a 2 bed flat.
Now that the stars of Harry Potter have grown too old for their roles they have to think what to do with all the money they have made. Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson have invested their money in property development.
What if they become rogue landlords? You wouldn’t want him coming around to your house at midnight armed with a wand and telling you to get out would you?
Not so much rogue landlord as ‘Magical landlord’. Forget injunctions. I would need a book of spells.
According to property website Upad the average rent in the UK is now £700 a month.
I wish that were true, it would knock £475 off of my rent for a start.
Now my previous landlord, who returned early from foreign climes to sell his property and to make a killing and forced us to move before we were expecting it, and costing us a fortune into the bargain, might do well to heed a report from “This is money”
Which provides a reality check for prospective sellers that house prices are falling at the fastest rate since October 2009. Even in the traditionally buoyant London market. Everyday Frazzy and I drive to work past his ‘For Sale’ sign and laugh. And why do people use the word ‘Buoyant’? Language is a funny thing.
My interest has been piqued lately by what I have discovered as the BMV market. Below Market Value investment. Apparently leads are sold that allow people to contact unfortunate borrowers facing mortgage repossession and offer to buy their home at a discount and leave them in their home as a tenant.
In the language of the business these people are termed ‘Motivated sellers’. Are you facing mortgage repossessions? Are you motivated as a result?……….yeah right!
In the coming weeks a TV crew is going to be following me around making a documentary about my work defending people from mortgage repossession to go out next year………I will be making waves!!!!
Ben Reeve Lewis
Follow Ben Reeve Lewis on Twitter for more demented ramblings
Crab picture by cobdogblog, Laurel and Hardy picture from Wikipedia commons
I’ve heard of this BMV or “sale and rent back” affair. Usually they target people facing repossession who are unlikely to be able to pay in any event, for instance, a woman who didn’t work who’s highly paid husband’s just died or quit her for his secretary. I’ve also assisted on a number of cases about that sort of thing.
They buy it for the outstanding mortgage and arrears balance and rent it to you at something you can afford (with Housing Benefit if you’re not working or low paid). Usually they handwave it saying you’ll have cast iron security of tenure but nothing’s ever put in writing or it’s deliberately obfuscated. Then they flog it on for market value with a tenant, and the person they flog it to usually then tries to get the tenant out under s. 21 to sell with vacant possession.
The Court has the power to set aside a transaction including a sale of land but only when certain circumstances apply. Usually for this sort of caper it’s either misrepresentation (because had the owner been told the company would really only grant an AST rather than a more secure tenancy as was intimated) or unconscionable bargain (the owner was taken advantage of in such a way that no person in their right mind would have entered into such a deal.)
A while back in my old job we had one such case and we hammered the company when we found his Linkedin profile in which he bragged about his pressure sales techniques. Whoops!
Oddly enough, this is one of the areas in housing where there’s been no comment on whether it’ll still be in scope…
That is what has recently shocked even ‘seen it all’ me!!!!
I have even come acros 1 company (there may be more) who sells leads to BMV investors of borrower’s name address and contact details including the date of their possession hearing so they can ring these ‘Motivated sellers’ and offer to take away all the bad feelings.
I know from my work defending mortgage repossession cases that 9 out of 10 people dont have to lose their homes, they are just pressured by the lnders and their solicitors into believeing they havent got a prayer, that’s when they are at their most vulnerable but mostly repossession isnt a done deal if you know how to argue it properly, so the dont need to sell at below market value and become a tenant.
I think in the last 2 years I have dealt with about 180 mortgage repo cases, some literally 24 hours away from the lock change and yet I have only had about 5 of them actually lose their homes.
I have become so angry at the sharp practices of mortgage lenders that I have launched my own website to help people fight mortgage repossessions, sharing the tricks of the trade that the lenders use to mislead people and tactics for getting around them
http://www.homesavingexpert.co.uk
Ben, firstly congratulations on being talent spotted! If anyone has a PHD in rogue landlords and practices, it’s you and I hope they give you sufficient air time – unlike when I was interviewed for 15 minutes about my campaign to prevent our post office closure, only to have half a sentence aired. So much ranting left on the cutting room floor….. Secondly, whilst there’s been lots of negative vibes on the BMV market dominated by the antics of slippery agents looking for a bite in the form of desperate homeowners, I’ve done a couple such deals. One was a lucky heiress who just wanted to return to the US with the proceeds from her uncle’s house – she’d never even met him! The trouble is that wherever there’s market demand, there are immoral people ready to take advantage of desperate situations. Well done on the website and supporting those people in need of defence against the faceless banks!
Hey HML. Always great to hear from you. This whole BMV thing is a new discovery for me. I have loads of BMV investors folowing me on Twitter. I was initially flattered but then got worried when I saw the ugly side of BMV, preying on vulnerable people in financial difficulty.
So are there other ways of doing BMV? How does it all work? Most of my Twitter peeps seem to sell themselves as ‘Ethical investors’ so I may be missing something obvious.
How are you crazy, eccentric tenants doing?
Thanks for your support. Faceless banks indeed. my aim is to make them anything but faceless. I have client wose secured loan is £125 a month. She got into arrears and got an agreement to pay them £25 a month on top; so £150 a month all told. Trouble is, all the while she is in arrears they charge a litigation fee of £115 a month, so she is geting nowhere fast. So much money can be made in proprty that it attracts some dreadful human beings, thats what worries me about BMV but I am open to persuasion
Well, I deal with a company in the north who specialise in finding homeowners eager to sell quickly. The agents promise a 2 week completion time once they’ve done a complete survey of the house. I’m assured that there’s no pressure applied to the seller and they are more often than not in a position where they’ve owned the house for decades and just want to move on (so can afford to take a discounted price), product of divorce and, rarely, debt. They are not sold the benefit of renting their home back as far as I know. Once completed, the agents refurbish the house and make it a rule that their staff have to paint at least one house during their employment status to understand how the refurb process works. Probably enough of an incentive to keep them at their desks!! Tenants are then found via advertising and interviewed in their current homes and I believe the service to be second to none. The agents do 6 monthly inspections and rent reviews and have advised me not to increase the rents – this keeps the tenants loyal. We get a property typically 20% below market value and the tenant gets a good home (often LHA claimants) which is affordable.
My HMO tenants? Apart from a drunk who keeps texting me on a Saturday night to tell me how lovely I am and a rather dubious young man who insists he’s not housing 2 equally dubious young ladies in his room – all is well. Maintenance budget is still the GDP of Lithuania but I’ve just discovered someone who sells very good second hand kitchens. I hope to go into winter without ANY external leaks this year!
Ethical? Really? A landlord may want to do a good job, have loyal tenants but the bottom line outways the ethical content, I’m sure. If we were ethical, we’d ALL be solving the homeless crisis and keeping rents very low. I’m having kittens just telling my tenants that after 4 years of no rent increase, I’m going to have to put them up due to the forthcoming utility bill rises.
As usual HMOL you always make me laugh coz I know what a decent soul you are and would love you for my landlady.
I dont think it is unethical to want to increase the rent, nor to want to make a profit from your endeavours. My all time hero Mahatma Ghandi said it wasnt unethical to be a landlord, he said that greed is the problem and I agree with that.I also dont think it makes good business.
I read this week that since rents have started going through the roof over the past year, rent arrears have risen by 13% and so have evcitions. That doesnt help anyone and indicates that high rents just may not be supportable and landlords will lose out as much as tenants.
I am in the throes of a very interesting off site email conversation with a property investor about the ethics of it all which I find quite illuminating. Suffice to say she is educating me in the idea that you can be a property investor and have morals too. I would want to know more about your northern company before I could nod appreciatively though. Remember I usually deal with some right old scumbags so it makes me more than a bit cynical.
Your HMO tenants? They sound to be as entertaining as ever – especially your guy who is entertaining 2 ladies. Reminds me of that song from ‘Cabaret’? “Diddly-de-de-do, 2 ladies” and of the cushion I just bought Frazzy as a present, with a picture of a woman in a bikini surrounded by diamonds, cars and dollar signs and the slogan “No money – No ladies”. Now there’s a bottom line for you!!!!!
Hi Ben
I’ve noticed those BMV twitter stalkers too. Have you noticed they are usually female pictures with a female name followed by a number. I’m sure I’ve seen the pictures a few times on different names. They don’t tweet much just collect followers.
Back to BMV rent backs. I’m sure if you look into this, that it is no longer allowed to happen. I believe anyone involved in this now has to be FSA registered. There were people who sold and rented back and then finished up losing their ‘secure home’. Having said that I know of some where the landlords do fully intend to let the tenant continue to live in their home as long as they want.
I know, its a weird one isnt it? Smily faces, usually women or couples. Dont know what to make of it. Almost seems like a branding formula.
Been chatting to someone on the edge of this. Seems genuine and nice. My concerns still not completely allayed though