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The story of how the sale of our court buildings created massive profits for property developers while causing chaos for court services

September 26, 2019 by Ben Reeve-Lewis

Ben Reeve LewisFirst things first

I am going to begin this piece with both an apology and a credit, to recently retired judge Nic Madge and his new article printed in the latest edition of Legal Action magazine for September 2019.

I’m not plagiarising, the problem is, Legal Action magazine is a subscription-only publication and whilst Safer Renting have a subscription I know that people outside of law firms or advisory services don’t get a peek, and I think Nic’s article needs wider promoting as it is tremendously important.

Court Closures

I have written on this blog before about the dreadful effects of court closures on housing cases. The constant doubling up of courts and the chaos it is causing to not only judges and litigants but also the administration of cases.

In the just the past few weeks we have had two cases where the defence bundle was delivered in person to the relevant court, only to find on the day of the hearing that there was no record of a defence having been filed.

The application of one litigant attempting to have the possession order set aside on the basis that he didn’t attend the hearing, was rejected because the court records showed that he had attended, an error they later corrected but not before much damage was done and the family made homeless.

Also, a solicitor friend told me yesterday that in calling the court for information on a case they had represented in two hearings was told the courts had no record of the firm’s involvement in the case.

So what is really behind the sell-offs of court buildings?

What is causing this madness? This is what Nic’s article tells us and what people need to know.

As many people will have read, the government’s stated intentions are to modernise the court system, rely more on IT to reduce the need for stressful face to face hearings and cut down the need for litigants to travel to the court.

To achieve this end, Nic’s piece informs us that between 2010 and 2017 the Ministry of Justice has sold off £223 million in court real estate and that in London alone £175 million has been raised by selling the buildings off, many of which have become hotels.

  • 250-year-old Bow Street Magistrates sold to Qatari investment firm BTC, with planning permission to convert into a 100 room hotel.
  • Both Old Street and Tower Bridge courts already converted into luxury hotels.
  • Bloomsbury and Central London County court have been demolished and are to be replaced with 73 homes, selling @£15 million a pop with no affordable housing in sight.

Fact and figures

Nic also delves deeper and reveals that whilst Bow Street was sold in 2008 for £17 million it was sold on again in 2016, without any further work having been carried out, for £75 million. Nice profit for doing SFA, while the local community went without a court service.

Developers Barratt’s making £160 million in clear profit from the redevelopment of Horseferry Road magistrates court to build flats starting @ £700,000 each, whilst Bellway, who bought Hammersmith Magistrates court for £43 million have plans to build a 25 storey hotel.

In order to facilitate all these sales, between January 2018 and January 2019, Her Majesties Court Service and the Ministry of Justice paid £75 million to consultants and in comments made by the Association of Her Majesty’s District Judges in evidence given to the Civil Justice Committee, they said:-

“More than half of the budget of £1.1 billion has already been spent for limited tangible benefit. Court closures and huge reductions in staff numbers with more to come have led to a stark deterioration in the service with no immediate sign of the promised technology being delivered”.

Is profit really more important than people?

So the sell-off of court buildings is yet another example of a country in thrall to developers, money and property as investment, where their interest in profits is more important than the lives of the people of this country.

Nic ends his piece with a quote made by former Court of Appeal Judge Sir Henry Brooke and it seems appropriate for me to do the same:-

“The villains of the piece are our politicians who believe that once the justice system has been scraped to the bone, no harm can be done to people’s lives by giving the well scraped bone another scrape or two”.

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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.

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Comments

  1. Alan Lodge says

    September 26, 2019 at 7:36 PM

    This is so true. In my area in the Midlands the 7/8 courts that were here 10 years ago have been reduced to 3, and those that are working are normally half-closed because of lack of Judges, or staff, or repairs (not too bad on this at present).

    It means a long trek if you don’t live in Coventry/Nuneaton/Leamington for all parties and their advisers.

    And you can’t phone the court and sort out problems, or check if things have arrived. The staff, who used to be very good, have lost hope and mainly left, being occasionally replaced with school-leavers.

    The Judges are in despair, but at least they can look forward to a pension.

    Justice isn’t a commodity: it is a right and any half-decent state ought to provide it.
    We get it easy compared with London I’m sure. But it makes me ashamed to be a lawyer, after 40 + years.
    CoventryMan

  2. Ben Reeve-Lewis says

    September 26, 2019 at 9:17 PM

    No need to be ashamed Alan. Court closures have nothing to do with lawyers. Its government backed sell-offs. A ruling elite in thrall to property values and a Tory elite doing their usual thing of greasing the palms of Eton educated, campaign contributor, ex-school chums and their dodgy foreign based property developer/drug dealer friends who they party with on yachts in Marbella and Miami

    LASPO put paid to access to justice for the ordinary person in 2012, selling of court real estate before promised court IT technology is just stage two in the master plan

    • Peter Jackson says

      September 27, 2019 at 3:38 PM

      You mentioned in the article Bow Street being sold in 2008. That was not the Tories. It was the Labour elite and their dodgy chums.

      • Tessa Shepperson says

        September 27, 2019 at 4:28 PM

        True. I think the sell-off has accelerated under the Tories though.

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.

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