Wilsons not paying mortgages

LydiaJ

wymondham wrote: »

But isn't this what landlords do? After all they are in business so need to make money? Still don't see the problem I'm afraid as they can't be the only landlords around if people take such a dislike to them?

Have you ever rented a house? It's not quite like using the services of any other business. It may be different in Kent where people may be aware of the Wilsons and their notoriety - I don't know - but in general, your contact is with the letting agent, and you do not have any idea who your landlord is going to be, or any information about what they are like, until after you have paid your deposit, committed to the rent for 6 months, and moved in. That's why there have been various people in recent years calling for a change to give tenants access to references about landlords as well as the other way round.

Your landlord may be excellent, as mine were in both the houses I rented through letting agents. They want their money, of course, but in return they expect to provide a good service. So they get repairs done promptly, happily give permission for things you want to do (for example I wanted to put up extra coat hooks in the hall of one place) and when you leave if there is anything amiss they only charge you what is reasonable to put it right (for example in one place my kids had damaged a venetian blind so the cost of a new one was deducted from my deposit). Or they may be the sort of people like the Wilsons, who tried to charge an unfortunate tenant £3k for a whole new bathroom because of a cracked cistern lid, and have tried to wriggle out of paying tradespeople properly when they've got them in to do work on their houses.

There are plenty of LLs who post regularly on MSE whose business model involves treating tenants well in order to maintain a good business relationship with them. These people, I imagine, also believe in paying people fairly if they get them in to do work, and coughing up what is due to the council. Sadly, the Wilsons do not seem to have understood this idea. They seem to believe in getting as much money in with as little money going out as they can get away with, regardless of how many people they have to trample in the process - tenants, tradespeople, council, whoever.

So no, they're not just like all landlords.

stator

wymondham wrote: »

But isn't this what landlords do? After all they are in business so need to make money? Still don't see the problem I'm afraid as they can't be the only landlords around if people take such a dislike to them?

Not really. It's the BTL have-a-go landlords who don't really have the money to become a landlord but because they are so greedy they are going to try anyway. They don't have enough money to buy anything outright so they just take out a BTL mortgage. The point is that they are going for the cheap properties and pushing up house prices and pushing out FTB.

chucknorris

stator wrote: »

Not really. It's the BTL have-a-go landlords who don't really have the money to become a landlord but because they are so greedy they are going to try anyway. They don't have enough money to buy anything outright so they just take out a BTL mortgage. The point is that they are going for the cheap properties and pushing up house prices and pushing out FTB.

Mortgage debt isn't necessarily undesirable. The last house we bought was in 2008 (we have no interest in buying any more), at that particular time we could have bought 2 at the same price for cash, but I preferred to buy using a mortgage. We haven't got mortgages on all our properties though, 4 of them are mortgage free, including our home. The others only have a low average LTV ratio which could be paid off now, but I prefer to maintain some portfolio diversity with fixed pension and shares, and they also give a higher return than the average 0.5% over base mortgages cost anyway, so it wouldn't make any sense to pay the mortgages off.

wymondham

LydiaJ wrote: »

Have you ever rented a house? It's not quite like using the services of any other business. It may be different in Kent where people may be aware of the Wilsons and their notoriety - I don't know - but in general, your contact is with the letting agent, and you do not have any idea who your landlord is going to be, or any information about what they are like, until after you have paid your deposit, committed to the rent for 6 months, and moved in. That's why there have been various people in recent years calling for a change to give tenants access to references about landlords as well as the other way round.

Your landlord may be excellent, as mine were in both the houses I rented through letting agents. They want their money, of course, but in return they expect to provide a good service. So they get repairs done promptly, happily give permission for things you want to do (for example I wanted to put up extra coat hooks in the hall of one place) and when you leave if there is anything amiss they only charge you what is reasonable to put it right (for example in one place my kids had damaged a venetian blind so the cost of a new one was deducted from my deposit). Or they may be the sort of people like the Wilsons, who tried to charge an unfortunate tenant £3k for a whole new bathroom because of a cracked cistern lid, and have tried to wriggle out of paying tradespeople properly when they've got them in to do work on their houses.

There are plenty of LLs who post regularly on MSE whose business model involves treating tenants well in order to maintain a good business relationship with them. These people, I imagine, also believe in paying people fairly if they get them in to do work, and coughing up what is due to the council. Sadly, the Wilsons do not seem to have understood this idea. They seem to believe in getting as much money in with as little money going out as they can get away with, regardless of how many people they have to trample in the process - tenants, tradespeople, council, whoever.

So no, they're not just like all landlords.

Thanks for the detailed reply. I have rented in the past, and have always found out who the landlord was - doesn't everyone? You need to know what their policy is ie just abroad for x months and can appear anytime or if this is a business to find out how long you're likely to be there and what they are likely to be like to rent off.


I still don't see the problem. They supply houses for people to rent, people rent these houses knowing these have a bad reputation. People are not forced to rent off them (if they don't find out who their landlord is then they take the risk). They may be terrible landlords, but they would be failed landlords if people didn't rent off them...


I'm all for knocking people doing wrong, but if people use their services then that's their own risk....

chucknorris

LydiaJ wrote: »

Have you ever rented a house? It's not quite like using the services of any other business. It may be different in Kent where people may be aware of the Wilsons and their notoriety - I don't know - but in general, your contact is with the letting agent, and you do not have any idea who your landlord is going to be, or any information about what they are like, until after you have paid your deposit, committed to the rent for 6 months, and moved in.

We tend not to use agents, but we have occasionally done so in the past, when we were on holiday and also when the rental market was stagnating. Even then though, I insisted on meeting with the selected tenants, using our contract (with our details on it) and managing the property ourselves (using the agent only to help find the tenants).

Once when a tenant left owing rent, the agent for his next prospective rental contacted me for a landlord's reference, after giving him a chance to pay up and he refused, I told the agent why I wouldn't be providing a reference. The agent's solution to the problem, was to take this particular person's name off the contract leaving just his two friends named on the contract, so I don't have that much faith in agents. They certainly were not providing that a landlord with a good service, they only thought about getting their fee from both parties.

chewmylegoff

If you are renting through a LA you normally find out who the landlord is when you get a draft contract - after you have paid a holding deposit to the letting agent which you would lose if you backed out. You could I suppose do a check through the land registry to identify the owner but most times I have rented it tends to all progress too quickly to really do any due diligence on the landlord first.

given that the wilsons have reportedly hoovered up about 1,000 of the 2/3 bed properties in a relatively small area, you probably face a choice of either having them as your landlord or living in a different town.

wymondham

chewmylegoff wrote: »

given that the wilsons have reportedly hoovered up about 1,000 of the 2/3 bed properties in a relatively small area, you probably face a choice of either having them as your landlord or living in a different town.

Although not ideal, and I do see that, this is business and legal.

PasturesNew

lisyloo wrote: »

I haven't followed their other antics ...

PN - It sounds like because you haven't done so well yourself (for whatever reason) that you'd be happier if other people were paupers and it annoys you that some of us have done better.
Perhaps your serial bad luck was none of your making and you've been incredibly unlucky, but trying to do down successful people is not becoming.
It does make me wonder whether your jealousy and negativity is part of the reason you've not "got on" in life.
You don't see successful people on here slagging other people off for what they've earned legally and in a respected profession.

It's what everybody does: have a downer on the Wilsons. You should read up on them. They're thoroughly odious and disreputable.

Graham_Devon

lisyloo wrote: »

You don't see successful people on here slagging other people off for what they've earned legally and in a respected profession.

Really!? Where you been!?

mayonnaise

wymondham wrote: »

Why do people have such a downer on the Wilsons?

Envy.

Envy (from Latin invidia) is an emotion which "occurs when a person lacks another's superior quality, achievement, or possession and either desires it or wishes that the other lacked it".[1]

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