Fergus Wilson Panorama documentary – now available on iPlayer

Reply to the comment left by Richard Peeters at 20/03/2019 - 13:19
I don't disagree with you there!

Reply to the comment left by Rob Thomas at 20/03/2019 - 12:17"Would you spend nearly £30,000 in legal fees pursuing someone for £1,200?"
Unless you've seen the claim form, you don't know what the £30K was for.
As a landlord, I would certainly spend whatever necessary to defend myself. The financial implications of a conviction would cost me a lot more than that.

Reply to the comment left by Old Mrs Landlord at 20/03/2019 - 12:55
I’ve written a separate article about the whole ‘no fault’ wording on S.21, see:

https://www.property118.com/emotive-meaningless-words-no-fault-referring-s-21-notices/

I rented a 3 bed house through a lettings agent in Harlow, to a single parent with two young children,
just 3 weeks before Christmas , the agent phoned me tos ay he is going to serve a S21 notice to her because she has not paid her rent, my reply was hold on why has she not paid the rent, what is the reason or explanation from her, the agent said she has ignored all his letters and reminders and won't answer the phone.
I then told my agent that I don't like the idea of giving a bad news to a tenant 3 weeks before Christmas, I asked him to not serve the notice just yet, let them have a nice Christmas, and we will see it into the new year, but the agent said he has already posted the notice.
I replied fair enough, I have her number on the copy of my tenancy agreement and I will try and contact her and find out why she has stopped paying rent. I phoned her and she answered her phone promptly, and she explain to me her situation with her housing benefit, which she said is going to be sorted out in January and she promised to catch up and start paying regularly again.
I said that is find as long as you commit to it, I will tell the agent to cancel the notice and for her to continue living there.
However, like Mr Ferguson , he said when you see a problem coming, take action straight away, if you don't the problem will come back later, so he is quite right, I gave my tenant a chance , but she abused it, she did not pay regular rent, her cheques bouncing, and by now the agents had also abandoned me, so I was on my own, and then I served her a S21 Notice and had to hire a solicitor to do that, by the time any court hearings came I was down by 6 months of rental income.
Indeed, you have to balance the situation a bit, firstly it is wrong to evict anyone just before a festival time, unless their behaviour was causing a threat to property or other people, yes indeed stress to children should be taken into consideration, but tenants should also bear in mind we do not provide free shelter, we are running a rental business, if tenants bought their own property on a mortgage, how far will they go without paying repayments before they are taken to court for an eviction and repossession.
Tenants should also not expect miracles, we home owners get same problems like heating packing up, and we book engineers who may not come straight away, nothing in this world is instant , if you are sick, you still have to make an appointment with your GP, you can't walk straight into a GP surgery and expect to be seen, in an emergency you would need to go to a local A&E, same way if there was a housing emergency you would need to go and see your local Authority to house you if you are threatened with homelessness.
Landlords raeley like to evict good tenants unless there was a good reason, such as selling up due to retirement or upon death of the landlord, or if a partner pulls out, so tenants should not take rented houses for granted, my local 99p shop sold cheap affordable things, particularly pet food, cheaper than even some of the largest major chain of stores, but it is too sad if they did not make enough profit and had to0 close down and now I will have to go further away and pay more to feed my cats and dogs, why is housing any different, tenants should know a rented house is a rented house it is not a permanent home, it is not forever, landlords circumstances can change suddenly.
More importantly if some bad tenants start to wreck a property they know they will get evicted, if you cannot respect pother people's property, why should anyone care for your plight when you don't give a damn. Let us be fair. You cannot expect to rent a house and convert it into a all week private disco and playing loud music, having wild parties every weekend with large gatherings, smoke from BBQ, in which case I suggest you get your own house.

Reply to the comment left by Mike at 23/03/2019 - 12:33Giving a Section 21 Notice is not 'evicting someone' - its a Notice saying that in 2 Months time, the Landlord will consider the next step, which is a 3 month court process.
A Sec 21 served before Xmas is not going to see the tenant in court until at least April !
Sometimes a Sec 21 notices has been known to 'focus a tenants mind' and its a necessary business step.
Of all the Landlords I've assisted with Possession, virtually all have left the process a lot longer than they could have taken action. [ This costs Landlords Money ! ]
Many of them out of mis-placed ( in my view ) compassion which has not been deserved or played out as being warranted.
Consulting advice as early as possible can often save part if not all the cost of an eviction. - as Possession Friend explains to their clients. - we can't act before we're approached.

Reply to the comment left by Chris Daniel at 23/03/2019 - 12:41
yes Chris, indeed I full understand the mechanism of evicting tenants using both section 21 and 8, what I mean was I did not consider giving tenants a bad news just before Christmas, let them celebrate their xmas without undue anxiety lurching over their minds and not enjoy their Christmas with their or her family and children.

Of course one of the biggest impact of someone who owns hundreds of houses or even thousands like MR Ferguson is that when he decides to retire, it can have a bigger impact than a landlord with one or two properties, the program fails to tell its viewers that there may be a handful of very rich tenants with hundreds of properties, where tenants could suffer more as more people are being evicted in a short space of time and they all might not be able to find an alternative property, perhaps the Government can bring different laws that effect tenants when their landlord ios mega rich and owns hundreds of properties, a different law for those who own less than say 20 properties. By that I mean they would be forced to sell their assets with the tenants in place, so any buyer will have to agree to buy with the tenants in, possibly at a slightly reduced price, the new owners could check the history of the tenants before agreeing to buy and negotiate a price with sitting tenants.

Reply to the comment left by Mike at 23/03/2019 - 21:59
So effectively an assured tenancy. Which tenants can currently negotiate and pay for now. The reason they don't is because any landlord in their right mind would want at least double the AST rent for such a one sided agreement.
Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

As for not sending a section 21 before Christmas, if you hadn't undermined your letting agent, then possibly your tenants wouldn't have blown the rent money on Christmas presents and would still have a decent home. That's not being a good landlord, that's being an amateur.

Reply to the comment left by Monty Bodkin at 20/03/2019 - 15:03
The programme did not suggest the £30K legal expenses were for fighting the council. It said it was for trying to recoup the £1,200 from the tenants. FW is going after the tenants for this money (he didn't dispute this) - if it had been spent fighting the council he wouldn't be able to go after the tenants to get it back.

As I said before, keep supporting these kinds of actions and just wait and see the amount of new regulation we have to face, because programmes like this can be very influential as MPs will see them and feel action must be taken. If Rackman was alive today would you be defending him?

Reply to the comment left by Rob Thomas at 25/03/2019 - 10:29
"If Rackman was alive today would you be defending him?"

Assuming you mean Peter Rachman, then no I wouldn't defend him as he was a slum landlord.
I fail to see the connection.