Tent thread

john539

mynameisdave wrote: »

Does hte Number 10 site not have petitions anymore?

Everyone's got petition websites ! :rotfl:

They're everywhere.

Pr1madonna

The blog is unbearably poignant; I think you can reply anonymously and I for one am sufficiently moved by the girl's plight to want to send a message of support.

I have thought about leaving them alone and it occurred to me that everybody's left them alone and now they are just that, alone. She and her mother have been turned into untouchables by SB and now we have the evidence of the fallout I cannot just do nothing any longer. You lot can make your own decisions but I'm getting in touch if only to try and give the girl a verbal hug and let her know she is not alone.

By the sound of it they also need to know they do have some options; knowledge is empowerment, they are helpless victims of circumstance at the moment and we can actually get proactive and help them take the first step to turning this around. Weighing it up, from where they appear to be now, there is nothing to lose and a whole load to gain and I cannot imagine that either she or her mother will say "I don't need your support and I wish you hadn't told me I had legal redress".

tbs624

googler wrote: »

I liked this quote from a contributor to Tessa's blog (with my emphasis in bold);

"Also in a recession it’s recognised that homeowners can fall behind with mortgage payments yet all that’s possible is done to keep them in their homes. There’s even a Private Member’s Bill from George Eustice, MP for Camborne and Redruth to “rebalance the law, making it harder for banks to enforce their security and throw people out of their homes.” Contrast that to the press reaction in the Suzy Butler case and the support she claims to have from Mike Weatherley, MP for Hove and Portslade for her wanting to rebalance the law to speed up the eviction process for tenants. One could be forgiven for thinking tenants don’t qualify as people these days."

See further back in this thread

tbs624

red40 wrote: »

So on the 2-9-2010 the key objectives were:-

Now on the 9-9-2010, he objectives seemed to have changed slighty, in fact the first objectives seemed to have gone out of the window:-

We the undersigned wish to


(i) highlight the difficulties experienced by responsible landlords when faced with unscrupulous tenants,


(ii) seek changes to the law to speed up the eviction process when a clear case of either non-payment of rent or anti-social behaviour exists, and


(iii) seek changes to the law to improve a landlord’s rights of access to their own property in the case of, again, non-payment of rent or anti-social behaviour.

http://www.petitionbuzz.com/petitions/landlordrights

My red highlighting

She now has the Southern LL Association/Mike Stimpson on side apparently.

The wording of the petition will have been changed after they realised that other residential LLs would absolutely not back any petition that called for a special status only for those LLs who let out their own home, and intend to return to it.

Note too that they have changed the title of the petition

Currently:
Rebalancing the law for Landlords with Unscrupulous Tenants


Suzy B still clearly sees herself as a "responsible LL" - see red highlight in (i) above.

Yes, Suzy (aka Violet Elizabeth) , is *responsible* - not in the way she thinks she is , but for her own difficulties.

I don't condone Ts who persistently fail to pay their rent, but it's one of the possibilities when you let out a property so you need a contingency fund in place. It's called having a business plan and its necessary, whether you are playing at being a LL or earning your living by doing so.

Suzy/VE failed apparently to properly check her tenant out, failed to understand that under an AST a T can claim a minimum of 6 months occupancy, failed to understand that you didn't need a half-baked "contract extension", failed to realise that a statutory periodic arises automatically after the expiry of a fixed term, failed to understand that a T has exclusive occupancy of a property let under an AST, failed to understand the correct Notice/Court procedure.

"Rebalance" the law, you say? Let's not pick and choose - we can look across the whole gamut of LL & T law.


Until a court says otherwise, a LL is still obliged to view their own obligations under the law as valid, even when a T is not paying the rent ( despite the fact that many tenancy agreements have a clause which implies that the Ts right to quiet enjoyment only applies whilst they are actually paying their rent)

just as

a T is still obliged to meet their own obligations even when a LL fails to maintain a property.

Lets look at some examples of where the law favours the LL:

LLs can keep an early served s21 notice dangling over a Ts head during the course of a Stat Periodic

LLs can use a s21 to evict Ts who bring repairs issues to the attention of the local TRO/EHO

LLs are able to get away with late registration of their Ts deposit............

Suzy, having failed to understand the existing laws, brought LLs into disrepute by her actions in publicly harassing her T out of the property in the full glare of the media. For her to try to present herself as a "responsible LL" turns the stomach.

Then there are the side effects of the campaign - her MP gets to raise his profile, Mr Shamplina's company will have had a good return on the "free advice" he offered, Jezza's semi-dormant company will have its profile raised.........

pinksleepybear

Pr1madonna wrote: »

The blog is unbearably poignant; I think you can reply anonymously and I for one am sufficiently moved by the girl's plight to want to send a message of support.

I have thought about leaving them alone and it occurred to me that everybody's left them alone and now they are just that, alone. She and her mother have been turned into untouchables by SB and now we have the evidence of the fallout I cannot just do nothing any longer. You lot can make your own decisions but I'm getting in touch if only to try and give the girl a verbal hug and let her know she is not alone.

By the sound of it they also need to know they do have some options; knowledge is empowerment, they are helpless victims of circumstance at the moment and we can actually get proactive and help them take the first step to turning this around. Weighing it up, from where they appear to be now, there is nothing to lose and a whole load to gain and I cannot imagine that either she or her mother will say "I don't need your support and I wish you hadn't told me I had legal redress".

I have sent her a mail via her blog with links to the nearly legal post and also to this thread, in a "if you're interested in persuing this, have a look" sort of way.

Edited to add:
I think that unless she posts here, we should not contact her again. I think they've been harassed enough by Suzy, I don't want to add to it. If we don't hear from her, maybe we should delete the link to her blog and the post copied from it too, it's so personal that I feel bad for invading her privacy...

tbs624

Such a shame - this morning the reincarnated petition had been visited by M Mouse et al and the only real names out of around 30 appeared to be Jezza's & one other. The "big finger of delete" has since been in , and Suzy herself has signed.

dopester

tbs624 wrote: »

My red highlighting

She now has the Southern LL Association/Mike Stimpson on side apparently.

The wording of the petition will have been changed after they realised that other residential LLs would absolutely not back any petition that called for a special status only for those LLs who let out their own home, and intend to return to it.

Note too that they have changed the title of the petition

Currently:
Rebalancing the law for Landlords with Unscrupulous Tenants

What a crock. So Suzy "Believe me I've thought about it from all sides" & (repeatedly on this) "Shocked by the lack of protection and fairness when a private homeowner faces when renting out their primary home" Butler is now seeing her campaign having to shift.

She really thought private landlords (1+ properties) would champion another landlord renting out a property with a host of special privileges to evict tenants super quick or gain super fast entry on demand, whist being able to cream off full market rent (circa £1,200 a month).

SB said she wants to "expose the law" on their facebook campaign site - as if the law, risks and rules of being a landlord has ever been deliberately hidden from her.

So another bucket of fail for Suzy Butler and her campaign for primary home landlords, ... not having to properly check on tenant's credentials, being able to ignore 6 months ASTs, fast eviction, easy access, £15 a day late fees, telling the media if the tenant locks you out or is late with rent, labelling them squatters.

If there was any fairness in this world, from my view, Suzy Butler would be in court facing a record claim for damages.

BTW - very good post PSB. I won't be making any contact, because for me that is her own private space/blog, she's young.. hammered by all this experience of her mother being labelled a squatter, pressured to get out of house quick, nation told of debt they supposedly owe (which is seemingly heavily built up by £15 a day late rent fees).

I couldn't trust myself not to overload in any message, for what her and her mum have been through... and that wouldn't be right. Also apart from the nearlylegal blog... I wouldn't know where to start if they/mother were to go about making a claim. They've also been hammered, and I'm not surprised if they have little appetite seeking justice. Can imagine headlines in the Argus/GMTV. "Squatter Sues Homeowner" and the angry replies from the public. My heart goes out to her though. Sounds like you made contact in a very friendly, balanced and polite way, for someone of her age group.

tbs624

dopester wrote: »

BTW - very good post PSB. I won't be making any contact, because for me that is her own private space/blog, she's young.. hammered by all this experience of her mother being labelled a squatter, pressured to get out of house quick, nation told of debt they supposedly owe (which is seemingly heavily built up by £15 a day late rent fees).

I couldn't trust myself not to overload in any message, for what her and her mum have been through... and that wouldn't be right. Also apart from the nearlylegal blog... I wouldn't know where to start if they/mother were to go about making a claim. They've also been hammered, and I'm not surprised if they have little appetite seeking justice. Can imagine headlines in the Argus/GMTV. "Squatter Sues Homeowner" and the angry replies from the public. My heart goes out to her though. Sounds like you made contact in a very friendly, balanced and polite way, for someone of her age group.

Publicly calling up the daughter's blog on here makes me uneasy too. The trouble is that for many teenagers, these blogs are simply used as a diary without thought that their contents will be picked up and detrimentally linked with other items.

Thanks to Suzy B's publicity stunts , the mother/T became the target of online vitriolic abuse from some of the far right websites. It would be appalling if posts on here direct those same morons to the daughter's online space.

Yes, they can probably find it themselves but I would prefer that this thread did not help them out: I think that Pr1madonna's suggestions of contacting a minor were misguided attempts at amateur "social work" and that discussions over the blog were probably best kept to PM.

dopester

tbs624 wrote: »

Publicly calling up the daughter's blog on here makes me uneasy too. The trouble is that for many teenagers, these blogs are simply used as a diary without thought that their contents will be picked up and detrimentally linked with other items.

Thanks to Suzy B's publicity stunts , the mother/T became the target of online vitriolic abuse from some of the far right websites. It would be appalling if posts on here direct those same morons to the daughter's online space.

Yes, they can probably find it themselves but I would prefer that this thread did not help them out: I think that Pr1madonna's suggestions of contacting a minor were misguided attempts at amateur "social work" and that discussions over the blog were probably best kept to PM.

It's a difficult balance. A new member posted the details (thanks) and struggled themselves on whether to or not.

pinksleepybear called it just about right imo. One simple short message to let her know there are a lot of people sympathetic to what the tenants endured, that it has been reviewed by legal minds (link to nearlylegal).

It would be appalling if her blog was posted on by extremist elements but they really would be scum if they did. To what end? The 17 year old tenant's daughter is entirely innocent. In full time education and had nothing to do with the situation - except for experiencing the consequences of the landlords actions (all that her Mum has been accused of being by the press, and debt owing, according to the landlord).

tbs624

dopester wrote: »

It would be appalling if her blog was posted on by extremist elements but they really would be scum if they did. To what end? The 17 year old tenant's daughter is entirely innocent.

In full time education and had nothing to do with the situation - except for experiencing the consequences of the landlords actions (all that her Mum has been accused of being by the press, and debt owing, according to the landlord).

You and I can understand that's the case for the daughter but the extremists *are* scum and that's the problem: they operate on a different level.