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How do we find slum properties?

July 20, 2017 by Ben Reeve-Lewis

Ben on a chairBen Reeve Lewis gives away some tricks of the enforcement officers trade

As a companion piece to my previous one on the benefits of landlord licensing for enforcement teams, I thought I would share some tricks of the trade.

I didn’t mind giving secrets away because the sorts of rogue landlord we deal with don’t read blogs like this.

Evidence is key

As you would expect, trying to find overcrowded and dangerous properties run by crooks is a difficult business, for the most part. You have to actually get inside to find the evidence and you really need to have the people in situ. Three mattresses on the floor of one room is only proof that there are 3 mattresses on the floor, in terms of sound evidence.

Early Morning raids

This is why so many visits are done early in the morning before people go about their day.

In the early months of Lewisham’s rogue landlord enforcement initiative, we relied on what we used to call the “DCT”, short for “Dirty Curtain Test” which relied on spotting dirty curtains, old duvets, bits of cardboard covering up windows.
We would simply knock on the door, flash our badges and ask if we could come in and look around. 99% of the time the occupants were only too happy.

Cannabis farms and booby traps ….. all in a day’s work

Personal safety was an issue here. Several times we fell across cannabis farms, some of which were booby trapped and on one occasion after coming away from one property we were grabbed by police surveillance who were watching the house which contained guns, drugs and gangsters that we were oblivious of.
The DCT is still effective and continues to be a major identification tool used by enforcement officers but its best to call your contacts in the Met to get an all clear first.

No central database

Intelligence gathering is hampered by the fact that there isn’t a single piece of software that everyone uses to collate information.

Whether it be planning enforcement, environmental health, Tenancy Relations, Building control etc, everyone has different data to record and consequently different systems to record it with. Only by pulling together all of it can you get a full picture.  But the software doesn’t talk to each other to allow a central person to pull out the info that might tell you that a property is overcrowded or dangerous.

Inspector Clouseau tactics

So the work is, getting a first clue that there may be a problem, through a method such as the DCT and then grabbing everyone involved to see if they know anything about the property or have spotted any signs that things don’t look 100% Kosher.

I’ve picked up properties simply by sitting on the top deck of the bus going home and spotting bunk beds behind net curtains or the tell tale sign of stud walling running down the middle of a window where the room has been sub-divided. One tenant having half the window and his neighbour having the other half.

Then it’s a case of talking to other teams to find out if anyone has been to the property but not mentioned it to any other teams.

Seriously overcrowded wheelie-bins are another good indicator and some council refuse crews are trained to report this to housing teams along with requests for more bins that come into their offices.

All the clues start to add up…..

Complaints from neighbours are another common source of intel gathering. Not just noisy parties reported to the Anti-Social Behaviour teams but more often than not, concerned folk reporting that numerous people are seen coming and going from a property in a normal residential street.

Another helpful tool is talking to builders when you see works being carried out. They can be quite loose lipped about who has asked them to do the work and why. You know you have a candidate when you spot 4 new toilet bowls in the front garden. The conversion ain’t gonna be no family home! And most London boroughs don’t grant planning permission to turn family homes into smaller units.

So much housing stock in London is large Victorian buildings that once converted are like rabbit warrens when you get inside, carved up with stud walling in astonishingly creative patterns where you sometimes can’t even tell which part of the building you are standing in.

Often comically sticking your head out of a window and shouting for a colleague who sticks his head out of another one while you try to figure out where you are.

Most tenants are happy to assist

For the most part gaining entry is done by just knocking on the door and chatting to the occupiers. When you explain that you are there for their safety they are mostly happy to allow access. I leave the technical officers running up and down stairs measuring things while I sit in the kitchen with the tenants hearing their tales of harassment and threats of eviction, which I then take on and start dealing with landlord or agent on that front.

I leave the technical officers running up and down stairs measuring things while I sit in the kitchen with the tenants hearing their tales of harassment and threats of eviction, which I then take on and start dealing with landlord or agent on that front.

However, sometimes you can’t get in……

Either because nobody is there when you visit or the occupants just don’t let you.

You can’t force entry without a magistrates court warrant and to get one of those you have to persuade the judge that you have enough reason to believe that urgent entry is necessary, for which you’re intel must be good. Back to the previous problem of compiling it from different sources.

Armed with a warrant you attend with police and a locksmith and if necessary you get in that way.

It doesn’t always go smoothly though…..

One day I was invited out by the Police to raid a cannabis farm in a rented property under a warrant granted on evidence from a neighbour that gave sufficient proof to allow a magistrate to grant one.

The police had one of those metal battering rams you see on TV. The door wouldn’t budge. We all had a go at it until we were tired out.

After literally half an hour of battering away the whole door and frame collapsed in and we trudged over the wreckage into the house.

Nothing…..

……not a single plant. It was just someone’s home.

Thankfully it was the Met’s warrant, not mine. I slunk off back to the office, leaving the attending Police to deal with the ridicule from the street urchins who had gathered outside to watch the show.

It can be an inexact science sometimes.

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About Ben Reeve-Lewis

Ben is a founder Member of Safer Renting, an independent tenants rights advice and advocacy service working in partnership with the property licensing and enforcement teams from a number of London boroughs.

« Tenancy Agreements 33 days of tips – day 28 – Students
Tessa Shepperson Newsround #19 »

Comments

  1. John says

    July 21, 2017 at 7:35 AM

    All very interesting, but even now Local Authorities are so incompetent that you still have computer systems that don’t talk to each other, no joined up thinking of any sort, why was this not sorted out years ago?? Please don’t say it’s lack of funds, LA’s have plenty of money and plenty of staff, it’s just sheer incompetence, and you want the decent landlords, via licensing, to fund your burgeoning empires, do me a favour. Please tell me what benefits decent landlords get from licensing, apart from a crappy piece of A4 paper sent by the LA. Inspector Clouseau indeed, I couldn’t have put it better myself,

  2. Tessa Shepperson says

    July 21, 2017 at 8:40 AM

    Please note that this post is not about licensing and we will not publish licensing related comments here unless they specifically relate to the contents of this post.

    If you want to comment on licensing, we do have a post specifically on this here https://landlordlawblog.co.uk/2017/07/10/licensing-landlords-really-good/ where we will be happy to publish relevant licensing related comments.

  3. hbWelcome says

    July 21, 2017 at 9:41 AM

    “No central database
    Intelligence gathering is hampered by the fact that there isn’t a single piece of software that everyone uses to collate information.
    Whether it be planning enforcement, environmental health, Tenancy Relations, Building control etc, everyone has different data”

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empire-building

    In business, empire-building is demonstrated when individuals or small groups attempt to gain control over key projects and initiatives to maximize job security and promotability.
    ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
    In an organization, empire-building can also be demonstrated when an individual or small group eagerly and proactively suggests and pursues functions, activities or projects that are of questionable value

  4. Ben Reeve-Lewis says

    July 21, 2017 at 6:02 PM

    John, i dont have to write here. I do so because I have always understood the sympathy gap between landlords and tenants, one that I often feel is only matched in the vitriol towards letting agents, which seems to be the only point where landlord and tenants agree and I try to write things that try to bridge that gap whenever I can and promote some form of understanding

    I’m not anti landlord or even pro tenant, After 27 years I have a somewhat rare and balanced view for someone in my kind of job. I deal with very extreme situations. In my writings I try to get that across to landlord law blog readers because I am fully aware I operate in a weird end of the business that regular readers dont encounter or understandably dont feel themselves involved with or representative of.

    My pieces as written here are aimed at illuminating landlords and tenants about the bottom end of renting that is usually only open to police, Fire Brigades or enforcement officers like me. Often landlords are getting ripped off by scams as much as tenants I know it is not representative of most people’s experience and yet whenever I post here I just get trolled and treated with insults and disrespect.

    I have a new ethos. I shall continue to write on these matters for Tessa but I will not read any comments or respond.

    A wise man once said to me, “Dont waste time trying to smarten up a chump”, that is my new mantra.

    The usual suspects can continue the haw-hawing

  5. Landlord Chump says

    July 22, 2017 at 9:55 AM

    Ben,

    Stating the bleedin’ obvious but promoting anti-good landlord policies on a blog aimed at good landlords is inevitably going to be challenged.

    At the risk of sounding sycophantic, this blog is moderated impeccably fairly, claims of trolling and insults sound like you’ve lost the argument.

  6. Tessa Shepperson says

    July 22, 2017 at 10:40 AM

    Yes, calm down Ben. People who agree with you (and there will be many) won’t post any comments as you have said it for them.

    So inevitably the main people commenting will be those who disagree.

The Enforcement Officer's story

Ben Reeve Lewis

Ben Reeve LewisBen Reeve Lewis has worked for Local Authorities for over 20 years.

First as a Tenancy Relations Officer and now as a freelance Enforcement Officer.

He is a regular writer for the Landlord Law Blog and has also appeared on TV - for example in the first series of Channel Five's Nightmare Tenants, Slum Landlords.

In these posts, he talks about his work trying to help poor tenants in London and track down the criminal landlords who exploit them.

As well as giving his views - based on his experience as a practising enforcement officer - of government policy and practice.

The business models of criminal landlords explained

This is a short series explaining how criminal landlords operate.

  • How tenants are a crop for criminal landlords to harvest
  • Why the real rogue landlords are all about the money
  • Aliases and fake companies in the rogue landlord world
  • How Criminal landlords use dodgy contracts and misdirection
  • The Criminal business model of ‘Rent to Rent’
  • Accommodation models for Criminal Landlords
  • Tackling the problem

An interview with Ben Reeve Lewis (on 18/5/18)

Some recent Posts

(The most recent posts are at the top)
  • Court closures scandal
  • The Shocking truth about criminal letting agents today
  • Property Guardians Revisited
  • Common sense, law and the reality of renting
  • How Rent Repayment Orders work
  • Considering Housing MOTs
  • The New Rugg Report
  • Guardian lettings - is the end in sight>
  • Lessons to be learned from Nottingham Letting Agent Prosecution
  • Signatures and the Companies Act
  • Considering the New HMO Regulations
  • Select Committee Report
  • Tenant or renter
  • Police colluding with landlors in illegal evictions
  • European Renting
  • Fitness for Habitation bill
  • Tenants bins
  • Interim and Final Management Orders
  • Implied Surrender
  • Intentional Homelessness
  • The state of our County Courts
  • What homelessness units say to tenants and why
  • The emerging trend of Meter Tampering
  • Fire Safety in Micro Units
  • The Club Member Scam
  • How do we find slum properties?
  • The startling story of tenants who dare not ask for rent receipts
  • Does licensing landlords really do any good?
  • What do you really know about Rogue Landlords?
  • The Growing Problem of Cannabis Farms in Rented Properties
  • Protecting tenants whose Landlords face mortgage repossession proceedings
  • A warning to new landlords taking over existing tenancies


>> Click here for more posts by Ben.

Disclaimer

The purpose of this blog is to provide information, comment and discussion.

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