Rogue landlords and licensing

Generali

Herzlos wrote: »

I don't think you need anywhere near 100 properties to be in a position to brush off a £1000 fine. 6 properties renting at £500/month means it probably won't hurt...

The quote I was responding to spoke about hundreds of properties very specifically.

chucknorris

Herzlos wrote: »

I don't think you need anywhere near 100 properties to be in a position to brush off a £1000 fine. 6 properties renting at £500/month means it probably won't hurt for long.



Only if the decline in rent is worth making changes to avoid. We had a dodgy landlord who had about 50 properties, and told us that ours had paid for itself years previously. So he just lets them run down and sells them off to someone who wants a do-er-upper. Sure he could have gotten more rent for longer if he maintained it but it just wasn't worth his time.

First I would say that I don't aspire to be a dodgy landlord. In my experience, if you allow problems to mount up, then you spend more time discussing problems with tenants, and then you still have to do the repair (or not). Also my outgoing tenants usually show the prospective tenants around the property, the advantage of this is that they get to know about me and the property before they move in, from people who's opinion they will value (the existing tenants). This wouldn't work very well if they pointed out a list of items that needed repairing, it would also mean that I would have to show (or organise) the tenants around myself to avoid that happening, so more work and/or expense.

Graham_Devon

chucknorris wrote: »

First I would say that I don't aspire to be a dodgy landlord. In my experience, if you allow problems to mount up, then you spend more time discussing problems with tenants, and then you still have to do the repair (or not). Also my outgoing tenants usually show the prospective tenants around the property, the advantage of this is that they get to know about me and the property before they move in, from people who's opinion they will value (the existing tenants). This wouldn't work very well if they pointed out a list of items that needed repairing, it would also mean that I would have to show (or organise) the tenants around myself to avoid that happening, so more work and/or expense.

It seems in the context of the issues discussed, these are much lower end rentals. Often multiple occupation (and therein lies another problem). They are not neccesarily allowed to be rented as such - but we all know it goes on. We all know about the large number of homes in London rented out to illegal immigrants. It happens.

One of the properties on TV that was shown had a massive hole in the kitchen roof, which in itself was a flat roof - kitchen was sort of bolted on to the house.

Of course, that led to all manner of problems.

The house itself was in poor condition overall, rotting windows etc. There were 7 individuals living within it. One couple with a small child and, another couple and 2 single people. They all shared the kitchen "amenities".

The problem was that the landlord had already been fined. The fine was paid, but the problem was still a problem. It's simply cheaper to pay the fine than deal with the problem. To fix the actual problem the cost would have run into 10's of thousands, with a whole renovation having to take place. The fine was less than a thousand as the income was so low.

The sort of person renting out such a house to multiple occupants is not the sort of person who is going to worry about the state of his properties or likely to care about hassles from the tenant.

These are the sorts of issues the authorities are struggling with. a fine is OK, but it's just that. It doesn't actually solve the issue. It also takes months of investigation and evidence to get to that stage, so the costs of serving the fine far outweigh the fine.

As this landlord knows of the issues, they would like to see the power of a jail sentence. They believe this would deter this sort of behaviour.

Herzlos

Yeah, we were definitely around the bottom end unofficial HMO (we were told he'd rent it to one of us and that we could sublet it), and the rates were probably about 2/3rds of the rest of the area. You could have 2 of (nice, big, cheap) but not all 3.

From his point of view his only involvement with the property was when he'd come round for the rent, usually within a week of it being due, he was just that unconcerned about it.

Generali wrote: »

The quote I was responding to spoke about hundreds of properties very specifically.

Oh I know, there must be some 100+ property landlords out there, but I was just pointing out that the threshold for it being cheaper to pay the fine than fix the problem is an awful lot lower than that.

Mistermeaner

Graham_Devon wrote: »

It seems in the context of the issues discussed, these are much lower end rentals. Often multiple occupation (and therein lies another problem). They are not neccesarily allowed to be rented as such - but we all know it goes on. We all know about the large number of homes in London rented out to illegal immigrants. It happens.

One of the properties on TV that was shown had a massive hole in the kitchen roof, which in itself was a flat roof - kitchen was sort of bolted on to the house.

Of course, that led to all manner of problems.

The house itself was in poor condition overall, rotting windows etc. There were 7 individuals living within it. One couple with a small child and, another couple and 2 single people. They all shared the kitchen "amenities".

The problem was that the landlord had already been fined. The fine was paid, but the problem was still a problem. It's simply cheaper to pay the fine than deal with the problem. To fix the actual problem the cost would have run into 10's of thousands, with a whole renovation having to take place. The fine was less than a thousand as the income was so low.

The sort of person renting out such a house to multiple occupants is not the sort of person who is going to worry about the state of his properties or likely to care about hassles from the tenant.

These are the sorts of issues the authorities are struggling with. a fine is OK, but it's just that. It doesn't actually solve the issue. It also takes months of investigation and evidence to get to that stage, so the costs of serving the fine far outweigh the fine.

As this landlord knows of the issues, they would like to see the power of a jail sentence. They believe this would deter this sort of behaviour.

Then the tennants move out. Or were they prisoners? That's a different crime

kinger101

Graham_Devon wrote: »

It seems in the context of the issues discussed, these are much lower end rentals. Often multiple occupation (and therein lies another problem). They are not neccesarily allowed to be rented as such - but we all know it goes on. We all know about the large number of homes in London rented out to illegal immigrants. It happens.

One of the properties on TV that was shown had a massive hole in the kitchen roof, which in itself was a flat roof - kitchen was sort of bolted on to the house.

Of course, that led to all manner of problems.

The house itself was in poor condition overall, rotting windows etc. There were 7 individuals living within it. One couple with a small child and, another couple and 2 single people. They all shared the kitchen "amenities".

The problem was that the landlord had already been fined. The fine was paid, but the problem was still a problem. It's simply cheaper to pay the fine than deal with the problem. To fix the actual problem the cost would have run into 10's of thousands, with a whole renovation having to take place. The fine was less than a thousand as the income was so low.

The sort of person renting out such a house to multiple occupants is not the sort of person who is going to worry about the state of his properties or likely to care about hassles from the tenant.

These are the sorts of issues the authorities are struggling with. a fine is OK, but it's just that. It doesn't actually solve the issue. It also takes months of investigation and evidence to get to that stage, so the costs of serving the fine far outweigh the fine.

As this landlord knows of the issues, they would like to see the power of a jail sentence. They believe this would deter this sort of behaviour.

Alternatively, the local authority could have just issued a prohibition order meaning it could not be rented until it was brought up to a habitable standard. Or have issued an improvement notice. It can they carry out the work itself if the landlord fails to do so, and bill them for the work.

Aren't you even a little bit suspicious that what is actually happening here is local authorities are attempting to push their responsibilities onto the CPS? As someone else has already posted, it is possible to achieve results when they acknowledge and embrace their responsibility (Newham Council) rather than pass the buck.

cells

michaels wrote: »

All true if your property is nice in the first place and the market supports nice properties but I suspect there is also a market for as cheap as possible rentals where the tenants probably bend the rules with mates living in lounges etc as well as landlords taking the pee and little money for cosmetic improvements as the ladlord may not have the liquid funds or may even decide that fixing up a place for tenants who tend to trash it anyway is not vfm. not every area is ripe for gentrification.

Exactly what I was thinking. Poor quality rentals fetch less rent. If you improve their quality by force they stop being poor quality low price rentals and become market price rentals.

Although its nice to aspire to all rentals being of a very high standard what will the tenants who could only afford the lower quality lower priced rentals do?

And as I keep repeating there are lots of social and owner homes are are in terrible conditions yet we only hear of the evil landlords allowing tenants to keep living in their own mess.