Enforcement not legislation – PRS Hit Squads

Reply to the comment left by "Mark Alexander" at "02/10/2013 - 19:11":

Haha oh go on then. Now is the time

Reply to the comment left by "Jay Jay" at "02/10/2013 - 19:13":

Haha yeah "Agency" is what we should call it.

The thing is that there isnt a one-size fits all model because different councils have different demographics and situations.

London Borough of Enfield for instance has a targetted scheme but it is based on an area thing, because they have whole streets that are affected at a particular time.

My borough doesnt have that. South East London in the late 1800s was quite well to do so there are loads of large properties which give rise to unauthorised conversions into multi lets that we find hard to pick up, so we get a pernicious problem with drugs, cannabis factories (10 a week shut down by EDF) drunks, mental health issues, illegal immigrants and overcrowding.....and thats just the staff haha

Boroughs like Ealing and Hillingdon suffer from beds in sheds, which I dont get much of, so they are utilising satellite technology to track them down.

The Cannabis farm connection gives me a great working relationship with EDF Revenue protection. They go to a shout and call me for info on property ownership, tenants names etc, which I can give them on the spot. When I get called to a dodgy looking place I call them and they are round within 10 minutes and usually discover all manner of stolen meters, hotwiring and theft of supply.

No two councils are the same and we all have unique problems, so a unified national approach would be difficult.

Reply to the comment left by "Ben Reeve-Lewis" at "02/10/2013 - 19:15":

Captions anybody?

I've surprised myself, I've been dying to share this since 2011.
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Reply to the comment left by "Ben Reeve-Lewis" at "02/10/2013 - 19:23":

I see it now.
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EDF shutting down drug factories? How so?

Why EDF and not other power companies?

Reply to the comment left by "Jay Jay" at "02/10/2013 - 19:40":

UK Power networks control electricity supply in the road, EDF do the road to the meters and the meters are run by the individual suppliers but EDF Often have contracts for a range of suppliers too.

Each meter has what is called an "NPAN" number that is uniquely designated to the meter and the property, if they dont match up then it is a stolen meter, which are freely available on the internet. In these situations landlords will typically charge rent inclusive of electricity bills, thus skimming off the excess, which is called "Theft of supply". I have one landlord I am working jointly on them with who has 52 properties in my borough alone. not a single electricity meter to be found. All hotwired straight to the street. No meter means no fuses to blow so the only thing that can take the overload is the house itself which is in constant danger of catching fire.

Trouble is he routinely houses illegal immigrants, 300 to our knowledge, so they darent complain for fear of being deported. It's a twisted business model that works.

EDF disconnect him and two days later, he has re-let using Gumtree. Estimated revenue theft for him is around £2 million so far.

Guess who is next on my list? haha

Cannabis farms have to be disconnected straight away because they are at constant risk of catching fire which many do. Two in my area in the past couple of months have burned to the ground. luckily nobody was killed and I went out with them the other week on one in a tower block. If it caught fire it's unthinkable. It isnt just a soft target £20 bag of skunk, it's downright dangerous and while I was with them at that one we got a call from the cops that they had found two more in adjascent tower blocks.

I sometimes get criticised in my writings for demonising landlords but that isnt my intention. I just write about this kind of crap I deal with every day. These criminals really are small in number but the havoc they wreak is out of all proportion.

Reply to the comment left by "Ben Reeve-Lewis" at "02/10/2013 - 20:21":

I think I may have offered some implied criticism of you in the past, I certainly have a different and more positive view now.

I have been a council and civil service employee in the past and guessed you were local government not from your profile, but style of writing.
That's not a criticism, just an observation that makes me smile in remembrance of past jobs.
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Like another poster this evening, your observations here seem based on London which is different market as I think you recognise and have said.
Still, from what you and others in London say, I think I would be heavily critical of the situation in London if I lived or worked there.
Indeed, Mr £2m cheater should do at least 10 years.
To me, using and abusing immigrants makes the offence racially aggravated.
Whether or not this last point is correct, this person is abusing fellow human beings and should be put away for a long time.

Oh, btw, I hope "that tool of the trade" pic Mark put up here today is erm, fully loaded and waiting to be used on the crooks!

Reply to the comment left by "Jay Jay" at "02/10/2013 - 21:13":

Haha, Mark took that picture of me when we first met on a visit to Norwich to exchange notes. He has been dying to use it ever since.

Yeah I vaguely remember us crossing swords in the past Jay Jay but I dont take adverse comments to heart. Forums are a weird way to communicate in a sense and I long ago figured out that umbridge could be taken where in a different environment, say around a pub table, it would have been seen as no more than a bit of light piss taking.

And I agree. The problem I have with the illegal immigrant stuff is it is always their own people who are taking advantage because they know the score. Nigerians take advantage of other Nigerians and Lithuanians do the same. They have a shared language and ex-pat culture in common which makes exchange of properties part of how they live.

On occasions when I do get a complainant from these ex-pat groups you find that they found the property through another church member or a workmate who knew somebody who knew somebody.

The other day I came across a nice landlord who needed to sell his property, He asked his tenant to leave. He liked her but she said she couldnt afford the relocation fees. She went back to him and said she had found someone who would let her move in if she paid him £900. The landlord helped her out with a £900 payment but it transpired that the property was offered up by a guy in her own Pakistani community who her 19 year old son had met at a cricket match. He showed them photos of the flat on his phone. They paid the £900 and guess what.? That was the last they saw of him.

I can only presume that things are done differently abroad.

You would not believe the amount of people I see who have lived in a property for two years, have never been given or asked for a receipt for rent or deposit and who dont even know their landlord's name.

This afternoon I made an appointment for a guy who has just been illegally evicted by his landlord. I'm so snowed with work the earliest I can see him is Friday afternoon. Before he rang off I asked for the name of his landlord (Often regular offenders give me an insight) He replied that it was "Fred"......that's it. How far am I going to get on that? And why did he think it was acceptable to pay thousands of pounds over the past year to a guy called Fred??????????

Sometimes people are their own worst enemies

Reply to the comment left by "Ben Reeve-Lewis" at "02/10/2013 - 21:32":

£900 disappearing and things being different abroad?
Maybe London is "abroad" lol.

The up front payment where no property exists and false (rather too nice to be true type) photos are used in other areas of the country too.

My guess is that in a home country they may not get up to this, but do it precisely because they know they are away from home / where they cant get away with it.
Not unlike students getting up to all sorts because they are away from home.
Just a guess.

Tenants taking / demanding money off Lls to move out should be criminal.
Just do it by the law or not at all I say.

Well yeah its a complex subject. People travelling here form abroad dont necessarily know the coup. I have seen adverts on nameless property websites for 2 bed flats in Bayswater for £800 a month when all Londoners know you couldnt even get an outside toilet in Bayswater for that.

On the other hand I think that many foreign tenants know that they are chancing their arm because they dont have recourse to public funds. Twas ever thus for immigrant communities, including probably my own ancestors who were French huguenots arriving in the east end to be ripped off by other French people who managed to get here 2 years before and establish links.

Maybe my 18th century counterparts grew tired of interviewing Huguenot tenants who had been ripped off by landlords they only knew as "Pierre" haha

The tenant I referred to didnt demand the money, she just mentioned it and her landlord who was a lovely bloke just tried to help her out. He made the mistake of trusting an idiot but this is what happens when landlords and tenants try to do it all on a casual basis.

Last Wednesday night I trained 50 of our local landlords on a presentation titled "The top 5 mistakes that landlords make that cost them money" (I jokingly said that number 1 was letting your home through the council haha) But number three was "Dont believe your tenant when they are in difficulty". Housing associations work on the basis that if a tenant is in 1 month's rent arrears, start proceedings. you can always pull them later on but pulling back on false promises doesnt make sense. it costs the landlord more in the long run and the tenant gets in more debt.

Strange advice coming from someone like me but dont cut the slack. Keep things formal and above board, dont do things on a wing an a prayer with a bloke at a cricket match or a landlord called Fred.

Reply to the comment left by "Ben Reeve-Lewis" at "02/10/2013 - 21:55":

£800! saw on a forum here this evening , (forgot where in London) limits on LHA of £250 and 400 pm. not sure of the details.

Whilst on the one hand I despise any implication of negative comment about non UK persons, I would just close up the borders 100% except for students and holiday makers then take all their biometrics and pics to make sure they leave.
Maybe then the moaning about them would stop. Be interesting to see what would result from that in PRS.

Yep, I'm learning that a casual basis does not work in the long term, little by little as I read this site. It might seem more relaxed at first, but stores up potential trouble.

Its nice to see some realism about tenants and the way it is on the ground.

Its odd how associations (does this refer to social LLs as the same thing?) can issue proceedings after one month. What is it for the PRS, two?