Tent thread

StudentMoneySaver

Jowo wrote: »

It's not known if the tenant is taking any action. She certainly had an appointment with the local council housing dept before she left Suzy's property ,but it's not known why - if Carmen was just checking her rights, seeking them to prosecute the landlord or seeing if they would rehouse her, for example.

She has good grounds to seek compensation but as there are allegations that she owes substantial rent arrears with a second landlord, perhaps she prefers to keep her head down.

She could take action against Suzy Butler and use the enormous compensation cheque to pay off the (alleged) unpaid rent with the previous Landlord.

She could also send Suzy Butler Birthday and Christmas cards to her prison cell.

john539

mynameisdave wrote: »

Give them your email, and member name, and if they don't like your question they only need to crack a webmail account to have control of a lot of your life. Given the choice of giving my email address to people who have 'IT experts' in their midst and have shown a complete lack of knowledge (respect?) for the law I think I will pass on giving them my details and go out for the evening.

Don't you trust them !

An end to squatters rights what about homeowners rights? Hi guys yes we do, all your data is hosted in a secure hosted environment and is encrypted, If you are not comfortable using your own address why not create one for this event using any of the free internet mail providers such as google G mail or Yahoo
2 hours ago

Jowo_2

StudentMoneySaver wrote: »

She could take action against Suzy Butler and use the enormous compensation cheque to pay off the (alleged) unpaid rent with the previous Landlord.

She could also send Suzy Butler Birthday and Christmas cards to her prison cell.

heh, heh, heh - that's funny.

I guess what I meant is that if the tenant serves court papers on the landlord, they would have to provide their residential address which then opens them up to being served legal papers back by Suzy to take action against her alleged rent arrears, and it would also be very tempting for Suzy to notify the agent that informed her about the tenant's alleged arrears on a previous property. Of course, for all we know, there are no arrears, or if there are arrears but a repayment schedule is in place for them, for example.

Now, professional tenants (i.e. those who seek tenancies with no intention to pay) are often expert at concealing their new addresses, such as not registering on the electoral register, having their bills sent to a PO box and so forth, basically having nothing that can link them to their next address.

I'm not saying Suzy's tenant is a pro-tenant, just making an obeservation that many landlords cannot trace tenants that owe them money and some tenants are very adept at not being on the radar to evade tracing agencies.

Of course, amateur landlords will also fail to collect the type of information that is helpful to trace a tenant if they abscond without paying the rent, such as their employer, NI number, bank account number, date of birth, and don't verify their ID so end up with tenants using fake names. Again, that's just a general observation, not related to the tenant and landlord discussed on this thread.

PasturesNew

The tenant's probably not aware she has any rights. I've just replied to an email from somebody who has been in a rental 2 weeks and asked the LL to replace the broken cooker and he's told them to leave.... she had no idea he couldn't do that and was simply asking people (on a mailing list) if they had anywhere to rent.... after 2 weeks!

Maybe there should be a new Facebook group: Find Carmen. She's probably 110% oblivious to all this hoo-hah.

Jowo_2

She may be completely oblivious to this hoo-hah despite being web savvy, and her daughter's interest in photo journalism, but she did have an appointment with the local council so you'd have thought she was seeking to understand her rights or would be informed about them.

Suzy Butler appeared to have contacted the local council but one never knows if the left hand is speaking to the right. Certainly when my friend leased her property to the Brighton and Hove council for their tenants and got it back late, in a trashed condition, after their tenants had annoyed all the neighbours with their behaviour, we got the impression that their housing department was incompetent, chaotic and their housing officers were unprofessional. My friend had to employ a solicitor and escalate the failure to attend to repairs and deal with nuisance behaviour to the Housing Director just to get the property back 3 months after the lease had expired. Incidentally, the council had granted the tenancy to a convicted sex offender in an abusive relationship that had been released from prison.

I think Suzy Butler ought to be pleased that she wasn't dumb enough to lease her home to Brighton and Hove council under their private sector leasing scheme so she could enjoy the experience of the tenants painting the walls around the furniture instead of behind it (not that they should have painted it at all), smashing and damaging most of the fixtures and fittings, including windows, kitchen units, flooring.

Also, if the allegations about substantial arrears in the previous property are true, Carmen isn't a lady that rushes out of the property at the first rent arrears letter sent by a landlord...

Alice82

Brb wrote: »

Well I've rec/d a reply from ofcom (through post).

Ofcom reference: x-xxxxxxxxx

23 August 2010

Alistair Hall
Senior Associate
Broadcast Team

Direct Line given
Direct Email given

Dear Brb (obviously I used my real name)

GMTV, ITV1, 11 - 13 August

Thank you for contacting Ofcom. We've noted your objections to the labelling of a tenant as a "squatter" in recent coverage of a tenancy dispute in Brighton between a landlord, Suzy Butler, and her former tenant, Carmen Nobre.

Although we acknowledge your concerns that this was misleading and unfair to Ms Nobre, having assessed coverage of this story I can now advise that Ofcom has not upheld your complaint. Let me explain why.

Firstly, with regards to any complaints that this coverage was unfair to the tenant, while Ofcom can investigate complaints about the unfair portrayal of individuals in programmes, legislation in the area of fairness and privacy does not permit us to consider complaints from the general public on the behalf of participants in programmes. We can only entertain complaints of unfair treatment when they are brought to our attention by the parties directly affected in the programme in this case Ms Nobre or her official representative.

Aside from Ofcom investigating a fairness complaint from a directly affected party, we can entertain complaints relating to matters of due impartiality and due accuracy in news and current affair programmes. Rule 5.1 of the Ofcom Broadcasting Code directs "news, in whatever form, must be reported with due accuracy and presented with due impartiality".

On this occasion, while we acknowledge the legal definition of the term "squatter", we do not believe in this context that viewers would be materially misled, as Ms Nobre's status as a tenant was nevertheless made clear in the coverage on 11 August. We also note that subsequent reports did refer to Ms Nobre solely as a "tenant".

While we acknowledge the sensitivity of issues relating to tenancy rights, in this context the focus of the story was on the human interest element of Suzy Butler and her son living in a tent, and we not judge this individual case was presented in the vein of commenting on the wider issues of tenants' rights.

We're sorry you felt this treatment was misleading, but given the circumstances we do not judge this was in breach of the Code. While we haven't upheld your complaint on this occasion, thank you for taking the time to raise your concerns.

Yours sincerely

Signature

Alistair Hall

How can they say labelling a tenant as a squatter is not misleading? How can they assume every person who watched the first report watched the subsequent report?

I've had tenants 'phoning since the whole sorry affair started, thinking they're squatters because of GMTV/Radio 5. I obviously advise them otherwise but what about the ones who don't 'phone? I would put money on the fact more tenants now leave their home when they have a legal right to remain because they have been wrongly labelled as a squatter, with all its negative connotations

Loopgames

Response from GMTV

"
Good Afternoon ************,

Thank you for your email and for your feedback on our recent tenancy item and we regret that you feel the story did not show balance.

It was clear that the landlady – Ms Butler was extremely emotional on the 11th August when the story first featured and the time available to us in our breakfast “magazine” format meant we were unable to explore the topic further that day. However, in the interest of reporting the issue in a fair and balance manner we did ensure we had an expert on the sofa the following day in order to fully explain the legal process from both the landlord and the tenant’s perspective. We cannot agree with you that our behaviour towards Ms Nobre was harassment as our reporter and cameras were invited in to the house.

We have brought your comments and concerns to the attention of our Editors.

Regards
GMTV

Duty Office - Duty Officer - Press
Tel: 0870 243 4333 Mob:
E-mail: [EMAIL="Duty.Office@gm.tv"]Duty.Office@gm.tv[/EMAIL] Web: http://www.gm.tv

---

I can't believe they ignored the whole 'squatter issue'.

tbs624

Jowo wrote: »

.....when my friend leased her property to the Brighton and Hove council for......... Incidentally, the council had granted the tenancy to a convicted sex offender in an abusive relationship that had been released from prison.

Veering OT, I know, but even sex offender ex-cons have a basic right to a roof over their head Jowo and anyone leasing their property via the Council needs to understand that those responsible for social housing have very specific legal duties. Better that a sex-offender is housed, and his home address known to the local police & probation service, than that s/he is left wandering the streets.

Jowo wrote: »

....if the allegations about substantial arrears in the previous property are true, Carmen isn't a lady that rushes out of the property at the first rent arrears letter sent by a landlord...

No-one needs to rush out of a property at the first rent arrears letter and especially not when it's one such as that apparently cobbled together & given to Ms Nobre by Ms Butler.

As I said before, most people recognise that Ms Nobre was legally obliged to pay rent ( she was after all a T, not a squatter): I have seen no-one in any of this thread, or in the one that got deleted, condoning a T not paying their rent. Indeed on this board, we always remind Ts that unfortunately even when a LL is being a total !!!!!! over repairs, Ts are obliged to pay their rent in full and on time (except for when following the Izzet principle)

The point in all of this is that an amateur LL (with a property developer father, allegedly) failed to do her pre-tenancy homework , and then failed to deal with a non-paying T in the proper , legal manner and, accompanied by a police officer, invited the press into the Ts home to verbally abuse her.

I like to think that perhaps the police officer took Ms B off for a word in her ear about her own behaviour and the possibility of it being viewed as T harassment...........

RecoveringAlcoholic

Ms Butler was extremely emotional

"Tired and Emotional"?

Wee_Willy_Harris

I'll bet Carmen was far from delighted.