Council-owned landlord evicts tenants to repay £18m council debt

There is an expression about a drinking session in a brewery.

Reply to the comment left by Reluctant Landlord at 09/02/2024 - 14:04
Ooh I've done all that. Fell on deaf ears.
Even reported myself for Category One trip hazard at the property as the Council now control her money to cut garden & weeds off path. Again nothing been done.

This should be held up as an example to show that making money from property requires sound management and is not a short cut to riches.
I assume they believed the left wing rhetoric when they set up a 'for profit' organization and just waited for the cash to roll in.

Reply to the comment left by Paul Essex at 09/02/2024 - 18:16
Like so many left wing councils who think they can be entrepreneurs.

Reply to the comment left by Mick Roberts at 09/02/2024 - 11:51
Hi I've been a landlord in Nottingham for 25 years. Always housing those who were struggling to find places. When the section 24 tax changes were coming in, (originally an anti-landlord idea from generation rent, I believe) I called the housing departments of Nottingham City and Gedling Borough to explain how I believed this would undermine the private rented sector, and lead to hundreds of families needing housing by the council. They didn't care about the tenants, they were just happy with any anti-landlord measures. Our local authorities are playing politics with people's lives, and continue to spout their propaganda.The saddest thing about this, is that the people of Nottingham will still vote for this incompetent bunch. I believe the housing crisis in Nottingham will get worse for tenants for some years yet. These council are allowing their hatred of landlords to drive policies which are actively hurting the tenants they claim to be helping.

Reply to the comment left by Matthew Jude at 09/02/2024 - 20:50
Yes, why would they jump for joy when Section 24 came in. They all worse off now.
Like on BBC1 news again thinking banning Section 21 is the answer. Come ask us & we'll tell u
Are u telling me I cannot get my house back if I'm not getting on with that tenant, if she's not paying, if I get old & had enough of Council & Govt legislation? If u telling me I cannot issue a notice that still takes a year to get my house back, then I'm sorry, I'm not giving u a house in the first place. And that's why we got supply dwindling.

Yes Council's aren't bothered are they. They all individual human beings (like us) that hide behind the Council & move department next year so don't care.

So the council will force 44 family units out, forcing the council to take those at high risk or who meet their emergency requirements into their own housing stock ( if available) or pay for hotels to house them, then keep the proceeds, but what about the rest of the £18m as 44 homes are not worth the £18m !! Will they force more tenants out? To me as a small landlord with no Qualifications it seems more practical to just take (legally of course) £18m of housing stock keeping everyone housed and giving the council some much needed income, and if all the other properties were bought with the Council's own, so called income, take legal Action to claim them all 😊

Reply to the comment left by Peter Lassman at 10/02/2024 - 09:28
The 'for profit' business will no doubt be providing much higher quality housing for those who can pay higher rents. But as you say, did they use the £18m to fund them?
Regardless, your answer is simple. Take the housing to the value of £18m, plus the tenants. The council will then have a higher rental income than those in social housing.

Meanwhile, prosecute the management and never let them near social housing again.

Disastrous council investments in commercial property (Woking etc), and here in rental property too. What next: fraud, inefficiency and incompetence in the numerous property development companies that have been set up by local authorities "to solve the housing crisis"?

See this article in The Guardian about Southwark Council closing play parks and then running into disabling cost overruns and financing problems on their for-profit developments, which are meant to be subsidising new social housing: https://amp.theguardian.com/environment/2024/feb/09/london-council-rips-out-playgrounds-then-runs-out-of-cash-southwark

There's a lot of this going on in housing associations too.

Part of me feels Schadenfreude - it's not so easy, is it Shelter and the other finger-waggers, when you actually try to make a profit out of housebuilding and renting yourselves? Your sanctimonious attacks on "evil, profiteering" private developers and landlords don't look so well-informed and righteous now, do they?

But part of me also feels sad and regretful: building new and renovating affordable social housing ought to be possible within mixed-tenure developments, and, yes, public investment to encourage more building and de-risk private projects is not automatically a bad idea. However what all these examples of malpractice and incompetence show is that councils should probably just stick to what they're familiar with: planning, building control, and other regulation. They can be co-investors and junior partners on the financing side, but really they should just leave the actual construction work and subsequent property management to the professionals, and learn to be a little more humble.

Reply to the comment left by AnthonyJames at 10/02/2024 - 15:16
If the prices they are charged for their social housing work are anything to go by, they will be paying way over the odds for new developments. Why? Because they are used to spending taxpayers' money without having to be profitable.