[Ben Reeve Lewis has had a busy week…)
Its been a busy week, I’ve spent most of it practicing my ‘X’ for the 23rd June.
Should we stay or should we go?
Will I vote stay in or Brexit? No question…Brexit! Even if Boris Johnson being interviewed on TV outside of his Islington house about his support for the out campaign couldn’t actually remember what it was called.
I could do without Cameron on the Andrew Marr Show accusing ‘exiters’ as joining hands with Nigel Farrage and George Galloway though.
Farrage was best summed up by Russell Brand on Question Time a while back when he called him a “Pound shop Enoch Powell”, while George Galloway is simply one of the most loathsome human beings ever to walk the planet.
Cameron was right when he said that leaving the EU was a leap into the dark but so was joining in the first place. What’s your point mate?
People have their own reasons for choosing either way. Personally, I have read countless articles in support of both positions and the only rationale for all the views is that it is about what is good for business, the completely fallacious corollary being that what is good for business is good for the ordinary people of this nation.
Pah!
A housing news straw
This week’s clutching at housing news straws award goes to Estate agent today, who in a misplaced quest to find something to write about told us of a Norwich estate agent who drove his car repeatedly over the ex-husband of his girlfriend.
I’m sure even the most estate agent phobic among us wouldn’t put his poor driving skills down to him being an estate agent.
Estate agents regularly top people’s lists of untrustworthy tradesmen and true there is often little sympathy out there but even I would argue that promoting a broom cupboard as a home-office space doesn’t equate with the ability to commit attempted murder.
Jihadi John used to be a student but we don’t suspect all students of being likely candidates for beheading someone.
Wearing a traffic cone on the head yes, but not a suicide vest.
No due process for illegal immigrants
The impact assessment of the Immigration bill has been published This piles on new stuff about the right to rent, relating to what happens to a landlord if the Secretary of State taps them on the shoulder and says conspiratorially “Ere……you’ve got immigrants in your ‘ouse”.
Clause 14 allows the landlord to serve notice and that alone has “The effect of a high court order”. Now THAT will be fun.
Have a look at this:-
“Subsection (7) of new section 33D defines an occupier as a tenant, a person who is named in the tenancy agreement, or any other person who the landlord knows is occupying the premises.
Subsections (1) and (2) of new section 33E make provisions for landlords (in England) to evict in other circumstances where an occupant is a disqualified person.
Subsection (1) provides that there shall be an implied term of any residential tenancy agreement that allows for the termination of the agreement where an adult occupant is disqualified from renting.
Subsections (3) and (4) set out the position of tenancies that are statutory, protected or assured tenancies within the meanings of the Rent Act 1977 or Housing Act 1988”
So, no due process for Johnny Foreigner when that one comes in. Get ready for numerous confusing arguments about illegal eviction.
Of course, the wise landlord will simply avoid letting to people from abroad at all, which is EXACTLY the point of this law and as I say repeatedly, nothing whatsoever to do with housing and everything to do with Al Murray’s Pub Landlord.
Turning old news into good news
The ever useless press offices of local authorities are this week trotting out old news as evidence of their council’s ‘Hot on the money’ initiatives by linking Tower Hamlets Council with an attack on retaliatory eviction which when read, merely trumpet’s last October’s amendment to the Deregulation Act in an attempt to make it look like the council have something up their sleeves that nobody else has.
“Enforcing this legislation means we can extend more protection to people living in some of the worst accommodation in the borough.”
Says Mayor of Tower Hamlets John Biggs, completely disregarding the fact that as a tool in the rogue landlord armoury the retaliatory eviction regulations have less teeth than Albert Steptoe.
There are only three works notices that can be served that have any bearing on retaliatory eviction and I predict that in enforcement land we are likely to see maybe a couple of cases a year at best.
Much ado about nowt as the Bard sort of said.
Deposit protection at the bottom end
On a more serious note I read a piece in the Solicitors Journal which highlights the problem of landlords who still aren’t protecting tenants deposits 9 years after the regulations came in. Get this:
“The Centre for Economics and Business Research estimated that more than half a billion pounds of renters’ money was at risk due to one in six landlords failing to use deposit protection schemes”.
Ask any housing adviser who sees many people each week and they will be able to tell you how few tenants at the bottom end of renting have their deposits secured.
I’m starting to notice a particularly bemused facial expression when you ask people about it which is so consistent it really should have a name in the body language lexicon.
In fact I’m surprised that the figure being bandied about is only 1 in 6 but then I’ve always plied my trade in the gutter of housing, you’re bound to get a distorted view.
It’s not just that these scamming, scheming buggers deliberately ignore protection regulations but that so many cash-strapped renters also know so little about it. The blind leading the blind as it were.
Don’t get me wrong, I do get it when editor in chief of money.co.uk Hannah Maundrell says:
“’Renters must take control and ask landlords which protection scheme their money will be stashed in before signing on the dotted line. Existing tenants must ask for proof their money is protected if their landlord hasn’t given them the correct written documentation.”
But the fact is that at the desperate end of renting in high demand areas so many tenants are so glad that someone will actually rent to them at all that little things like deposit protection, repairs and possession orders are just icing on the cake if they fall across it, as opposed to being basic tenant’s rights.
What made me smile this week
Getting tickets to see the new Coen Brothers flick ‘Hail Caeser’ and discovering new (to me) soul/jazz/hip-hop singer Brian Deady, fresh to me iTunes list and never off play recommended to me by my mate Kate who lives in Galway and is seeing him on Saturday night. Damn
See ya next wee
sam says
Call me cynical or stupid or both, but my rational for leaving the EU is simple: If The Lib Dem leader (forget his name lol) Tony Blair, Cameron and big business think its good It almost certainly is not.
Tessa Shepperson says
On the other hand, a lot of workers / consumers rights have come in due to EEC directives etc, which we might not have if we voted for Brexit. Indeed I have heard that the Human Rights Act could be for the chop if we go.
I think it is for these reasons that Jeremy Corbyn is for staying in.
I haven’t made my mind up yet ;)
alan armstrong says
With regards to tenancy deposit, it strikes me as a shame that a person whose circumstances and maybe lack of knowledge and understanding leads to them being housed in the poorest conditions and having managed to scrape together an extortionate amount of deposit which they have had to pay to an unscrupulous landlord who doesn’t lodge it with a scheme; THEN has to take the landlord to court themselves to fight their own corner because the law doesn’t seem to allow a 3rd party, such as the council, to fight for them – the opposite of rent repayment orders which I seem to remember the Council can apply for on behalf of tenants.
Ben Reeve-Lewis says
The scariest thing on the horizon that few are talking about is the Trans-atlantic Trade Investment Partnership TTiP. That makes the EU argument a side show where laws are introduced that sweep away nationhood in favour of corporate interest, whereby corporations can sue governments (us the tax payers) for introducing laws that restrain their business.
Tobacco giants Phillip Morris relocated the headquarters to Hong Kong just so they would be in the trading zone to sue Australia for banning tobacco advertising to support the health of their nation. A law introduced by their elected members of government.
The EU operates as a big, corporate boys club, it doesnt represent the interests of the people. It is undemocratic and bureacratically rigid and it has lost it’s way from the initial good idea. Whilst certain workers rights came from the EU things like zero hours contracts also came via that route and Britain was head and shoulders above any other countries in workers rights long before we joined.
Economic migration has seen wages tumble in many sectors as employers realise they can pay less to Eastern Europeans than to British nationals. A prime example of what is good for business NOT being good for ordinary people.
@Alan Yes you’re right councils can do RROs and the scope for using RROs is (if it makes it through the Bill stage) is to be increased under the Housing Bill to include more things they can be used for but still not deposit protection. The easiest way for councils to penalise landlords who dont protect deposits would be to make it part of the planned increased powers for councils to be able to levy Penalty CHarge Notices, a sort of parking ticket approach. Currently standing at a £5,000 fine but with stated plans to raise it to £30,000.
THAT would be an incentive
Colin Lunt says
The ridiculous thing about the Right to Rent provisions is that if the Border Agency has identified where people are living, who do not have the correct permission to rent property, surely the simple thing would be send in Border Agency staff to detain them.
The method they have adopted allows the person 28 days to find somewhere else to live and therefore disappear which presumably defeats the purpose of the regulations.
Ben Reeve-Lewis says
I agree Colin. It looks stupid and plain daft if looked at in the light of it being housing law but as I said above, that isn’t the intention of it. It is merely a deterrent to renting to foreigners, government don’t care if it is workable.
I have gone out on many a UKBA raid. Their intelligence is often woefully out of date and with cuts in their staffing and resources they are often reluctant to tackle anything that they feel isn’t going anywhere.
Also, not generally known I found a lot of their boots on the ground trimmed down at the moment to deal with migrant crisis.