HMOLandlady

This is shocking behaviour and totally irresponsible of your HA. I suggest you begin with your MP then follow up the complaint and hopefully you've given the HA a copy of the police report of the incident as well as your own record. By the way, which area of the country are you based in? Do you have a Housing Trust nearby?... Read More

Hi Mart. Whilst this situation isn't great, you are effectively being bullied by your neighbour. Most bullies bark ALOT and are experts in threatening behaviour normally based on their own unhappiness. The problem here is that you're the one who has left. My suggestion would be to find the confidence to return to the property, preferably with a friend or two who can act as witnesses and record any anti-social behaviour. Bullies are not particularly clever, and usually rely on the loudness of their bark to intimidate their victim and gain pleasure when they can see it working. The more you show you're frightened the more this will fuel his attack. I've dealt with many threats but none of them have ever become a physical assault - I stood my ground and let the other person shout it all out until they ran out of energy. Your Housing Association or the Police should recommend mediation and at least this allows you to remain in the property. If the neighbour breaches his tenancy agreement or the peace via anti-social behaviour for which you have evidence, then the HA and Police will be able to act. Alternatively, you could look for other accommodation but please don't stay frightened hiding out on a friend's sofa.... Read More

Here's my response:

Dear Mr Barwell

I’m picking up on some of the comments regarding last night’s Newsnight discussion.

Private landlords have been vilified throughout the centuries, probably with good reason in the past. However, the majority of modern landlords aren’t greedy and run decent businesses housing people. Over the last two decades they have plugged the gap of providing housing for recipients of state support/DSS/LHA in light of the unavailability of council housing. In the last ten year’s of being a landlord I have learnt that some people are either unwilling or unable to run a home of their own either due to a lack of education, support or not wanting to take on such a responsibility.

This wonderful world is made up of people who differ from each other in so many ways but every one has an overriding desire - to have a roof over their head that they can afford. Whether it’s the Government, charities or private landlords which are facilitating this need to be achieved, doesn’t matter; the point is we are all working towards the same goal. The recent tax legislation has caused mortgaged private landlords to become annexed from this group prompting much needed houses to be withdrawn from the rental market.

It hasn’t escaped many of us that the real plan appears to bring rental houses under the umbrella of large corporations - many of these are involved in property and are major contributors to the Conservative party. I can understand why this is a market which is attractive to large companies if they are given the land and resources to build houses purely for rental. If this is the case, I can see no need to bully landlords out of the PRS. Wouldn’t we all be better finding a cohesive approach to housing the nation rather than picking fights for the media to feed from? Build the houses, protect the vulnerable and work towards this basic goal of providing homes.

Yours sincerely... Read More

Absolutely. It's quite possible to feed everyone and keep a roof over one's head on that amount providing she budgets - I did it with 3 children and developed a love for camping! As I said, this is a matter of choice otherwise she may want to see if there are any council houses for her. If you choose eviction, the council will insist her rent payments are up to date before they help her and may even ask you to gain a Court Possession Order before they'll act. Very stressful for the family and landlord but I do know tenants who have persevered through this process and been given a tenancy for a decent council place at the end. Call it a Survival Test.............. Read More

Hi Tony

I've just had the same scenario due to the Benefit Cap - HB taken from £115 pw to £25 pw. In this instance my tenant believes she's entitled to demand that I reduce the rent in accordance with the new rate. If you look at your tenants' income it's likely she's getting Income Support and Child Tax Credit which may be around £1500 a month. You can reduce the rent or your tenant can reduce her expenditure - I suggest you have a chat with her to find out how you can both progress forward.

Serena... Read More

Would it not be easier to put utility controls in place instead? Without metering every room, it's very time consuming to calculate usage, etc. and if your bill is higher than expected, are your tenants going to cough up the extra charges?

Having just looked at my usage; 4 bed HMOs use almost the same gas and electric as a 6 bed HMO. It all depends on the insulation of the building, the siting of the thermostat, location of the radiators and if your tenants have access to the boiler.

If you can explain to your tenants (and me) the definition of "fair usage" then I'm sure there's a clause out there and you can try to get the money off each tenant if it's breached. My view is: the room product is an all inclusive, value for money accommodation option chosen by tenants because it fits their budget and they don't want to organise their own bills. A landlord cannot control tenants' behaviour but they can mitigate it. However, if they set up a marijuana farm in the loft, you may have a point.... Read More

Hi Stuart. Have you spoken directly to the tenant to find out what happened and why he felt the need to behave in this way? Once you have the stories from both parties, you need to take the decision on how urgent this matter is. If it was a falling out over something minor, it might be forgotten in time and a friendly warning should be issued. If this is a regular occurrence, you may want to consider negotiating him out of the property as quickly as possible through giving him back his deposit and/or an extra amount to smooth the path. It just depends how much it's worth to you for an easy life to get the room back and relet again to someone who doesn't think it's OK to abuse housemates.

Not a great situation, but if it's well handled it'll all blow over and you'll be armed with experience to deal with it again. P.S. One guy in an HMO punched another tenant last week and dislocated his shoulder - both drunk so we've relocated the perpetrator as the circumstances showed blame on both sides... Read More

Dear Judith

Thank you for bringing this to everyone's attention. I had heard a little about the consultation paper but hadn't researched it enough - I will now! I agree with you and Richard - applying a "one size fits all" approach isn't helping the market. I have happily housed Housing Benefit and working tenants in HMOs for 10 years now. 80% of the housing benefit tenants are great, but if they want to move on (voluntarily or through eviction) the only way they can receive council assistance is via the Possession Order route and l they have now been told to stay until the bailiffs turn up. All they want is a reasonably priced room which is clean, safe, free from anti-social behaviour by a landlord and fellow tenants. If the minimum room size, etc is imposed the larger rooms will be beyond their budgets and requirements.

I appreciate national minimum standards should be put in place, but surely the efforts to police the regulations should be concentrated on landlords who subscribe to the business model of overcrowding and slashing costs by turning off the heating and wiring the electrics into the street lamps?... Read More

If it were me, I would advise the tenants that the tenancy agreement is for the room and not the whole property. This means they can do what they like in their room within the terms of the agreement and the shared areas are communal. Therefore, there should be no personalisation of any shared facilities. On a less contentious note, I have a tenant who insists on decorating the hallway and kitchen every Christmas to resemble Santas Grotto and every year I ask him to remove it on the grounds of taste and damage to the walls. Tenants should be mindful of your ability to continually sell the rooms.

On another note, I have a tenant with a copious collection of sexual torture items in her room and I've had to ask her to keep her door closed for fear of terrifying the other housemates!... Read More

From what I remember, the private address is only used for correspondence between the landlord and the council for the purposes of a licence and doesn't appear on the end certificate. I use a virtual address on all my ASTs as I live too close to the HMOs, but communicate with the council via my home address. Perhaps ask to see a sample certificate?... Read More

I recommend locking away the boiler and it's controls, installing a tamper proof thermostat upstairs (usually the warmest part of the house), draught proofing all doors and windows, put thermostats on radiators and insulating lofts and walls.

I'm trialling card meters in rooms at the moment which seems to be working well, not least that the tenants are remembering to turn off their equipment after use. I'm amazed, though, at the lack of finding anything plugged into the kitchen or hall sockets, but maybe that will come in time!

Growing weed is actually quite hard to do - you need lots of space, noisy fans and evidence of compost being littered through the house. You'd also fall through the front door with the smell. I budget on £100 pm each for gas and electric for a terraced house, electric showers and heating set 6-10am then 4pm-11pm.

Hope this helps... Read More

From my experience, I understand that the LHA is paid for up to four months whilst a tenant is in prison. It is up to him to get the prison welfare officer to contact the council and for you to ask for direct payments so at least you're getting some money in.

Any S21 notice or any other official documentation must be sent to the tenant via the Prison Governor and he/she is technically responsible for the prisoner. It isn't really abandonment as I guess he left most of his stuff there unless, of course, he turned up to sentencing with his suitcase.

Are there any of his next of kin you can enlist to help? I contacted the tenant's parents who acted as liaison between him and me and I took him back after his term. He became a reformed character and vowed never to end up back there!... Read More

Interesting point, however, I bet there aren't many HMO tenants using the court route so I guess it's down to the individual landlord to decide whether or not to risk it. Word of warning to anyone thinking of this though - the reason I came into contact with a council solicitor was due to my illegal eviction. I found the tenant naked and near dead from a cocktail of drugs and his room had been emptied. Whilst he was in hospital his friend cleared his remaining paltry belongings, I presumed he wasn't coming back as he was in ICU and the next thing I knew I had a phone call from "Ben of the South" threatening to haul my arse through court to make an example of landlords.... Read More

I've been intrigued by this issue for a while. Just before Christmas I met with an old tenant who had set up a room letting agency which is doing well. He put his success down to using licence agreements and, when I challenged him on their validity, he said his solicitor had advised that they were legal providing the landlord was supplying at least 2 key utilities - in their case it's a regular cleaner and internet.

I bought my first HMO with licence agreements in place but was told by the council solicitor that the tenant still had a right to an AST. I agree that licences would be far preferable, especially in terms of anti-social behaviour, but don't feel I can risk it until a case has been tried and tested in court,... Read More

Hi Jess. I am also based in Eastbourne so if you email me at hmolandlady@hotmail.co.uk and I may be able to help... Read More

Hi. My response would be to also check her out at her current address. I recently purchased a run down property from a lady with 2 children and 2 grandchildren and the place was just awful. They'd done no maintenance, all of them smoked (except the kids of course!) and were selling to go into rented accommodation.

As we were chatting she revealed that she was paying her new landlord 12 months rent UPFRONT for a new build ! We could only guess how the place was going to look at the end of that term.

On the plus side, I took on a single mum tenant with sketchy income following her harrowing divorce and she's just brilliant but we did go to her house to give it the "once over" and meet the children. 2 years on and the rent is paid on time and the house is kept beautifully.... Read More

Thanks for all the advice, everyone. I'll look into the thumb turns which mean you have to lock them from the outside. It's a constant learning curve.......!... Read More

Thanks Carl. You'll know my ex husband then - he was a regular guest with you last year and I think your children go to same school as two of mine!... Read More

It's a good point - many people do ask me if I live at the property. I put it down to the fact that they have all the time in the world and it's part of the job. I've just had another not turn up today for a second viewing even though she insisted she wanted the room on the first viewing. People are funny creatures and we'll never get everyone to be reliable.... Read More

Hi All. Thanks for your advice. Spare Room: I tried it a couple of times but found I was attracting people out of the area who couldn't view the room for a few days, etc. I think it comes down to knowing one's market place - my market is transient, low skilled workers (if I'm lucky) and housing benefit. If I didn't ask them to fill in a reference form, it would be drug dealers, alcoholics and fair weather homeless. Our town is small, house prices relatively cheap for the South East and there isn't any industry so I would be surprised to find a professional young person earning in excess of £12k a year wanting a room. After this salary level, they would be sharing a flat with a friend or be building on their career in a city or large town.

And it's not just me; fellow HMO landlords here dream of the "This Life" type tenants (it was a TV series in the '90s about young solicitors in a house share) but we're all ending up with the same profile. That is why (and I stress this in my book) it's important to know your market. Use the Spare Room portal to see what other landlords are advertising, go to landlord meetings and talk to fellow HMO landlords, etc. The unfortunate reality is: if a single person has their life together, a good job, great friends, doesn't drink or take drugs to excess and is mentally sorted then they are more likely to want their own front door and will strive to this end.

I can see professionally tenanted HMOs being popular in cities such as London where rental prices are extortionate, but I have to take what I can get. And today, I am welcoming a 51 year old carpenter into an HMO as he lost most of what he owned in his first divorce and then lived rent free for years with his partner who has now thrown him out. He's chosen a life of unreliable self employment and frequent trips to Holland but swears he's not drug running. We'll see.... Read More