Landlord hits back at Council after Guardian article

Reply to the comment left by Dr Rosalind Beck at 22/09/2017 - 13:35
police tried that on landlord in croydon--he argued back and they gave up--the police are often a disgrace

Reply to the comment left by terry sullivan at 23/09/2017 - 07:48
Yes, luckily they were fine with me. They saw straight away that it was nothing to do with me and that I was the victim - as well as all the addicts who would have been off their faces on skunk and spoiling their lives because of the gang (run by a Chinese man with a Londoner as a front, incidentally - down in Cardiff!). On the other hand, after the event - involving CSI and 4 fire engines, the police never contacted me again. I don't think they did anything at all to try and find the culprits. On another occasion, the police had been told by neighbours about one of our tenants cultivating weed and they did nothing. We only found out when he did a runner leaving the house a state and costing us thousands. It only takes about 3 months to cultivate a crop so they can sometimes fit in two before you know about it. I commented on the case of the 35 on FB and someone said the landlord should have visited more often - even when it happened within about a month. They're on automatic default to blame the landlord for everything - even other (sanctimonious) landlords do this - as though everything they do is perfect and so they assume bad luck will not befall them. Uh, bad luck doesn't work that way.

As we have to give 24 hours notice, and have no right of access, except in an emergency, I'm not sure what we're supposed to do. I have had a tenant who would cancel my appointments to visit at a moment's notice and there was nothing I could do. Serve a S21 due to some vague suspicion? Councils and Shelter would love that.

Reply to the comment left by Annie Landlord at 23/09/2017 - 08:47
Absolutely. In my case the tenant said they had added an extra lock for security as he had expensive computers in there - he had said he ran a computer company relocating to Cardiff - and he was in China for a month, so the inspection would have to wait. As you say, should we have broken into the house and possibly then been imprisoned and fined an enormous amount and lost our business because of a burgeoning suspicion something wasn't right? We were starting to think that a sub-letting scam might be going on - had no idea about the cannabis.
The fire then broke out a few days after that and whoever was looking after the plants did a runner.

And there are suggestions that tenants should be allowed to sublet legally? I think that it could easily lead to this situation. It's probably happening more than we know already. Tenants can get as greedy as us dreadful landlords!

Reply to the comment left by steve p at 22/09/2017 - 11:53And this illegal sublet situation is very, very common. Landlords should be very careful particularly if letting a larger property and especially if property seems larger than household should need. Tenants will normally only pay for the living space they need. Most tenants paying extra rent for a spare room will be expecting to make a return on it in some way, either by using it for their business or renting it to a lodger or even subletting. The only exception is the high end market where tenant is wealthy.
Once the tenants are in, regular inspections should be carried out and keep contact with neighbours open.
If despite all this, a landlord should find themeless with an illegal sublet situation on their hands, they should immediately take any action they can to evict the tenants, then let environmental health and the licensing department at the council know they did not authorise this and are doing their best to remedy the situation.
However, having said this, it can sometimes be hard to convince everyone at the council - yesterday I encountered a landlord who had a illegal sublet, evicted the tenants and subtenants, contacted council making it clear he had no intention of running a large HMO, but was finding it difficult to convince one particular council official in the licensing department his property didn't require a licence.

On my tenancy agreements there is a list, on the front page, of all those permitted to reside in the property. Each individual person is required to sign against their name. Additionally I require that the tenancy is in the name of all the adult persons residing in the property, all being jointly a severally liable for the rent etc.
Every page of the AST has to be signed by every tenant together with a thumbprint so that they cannot claim the signatures are forged and all have to sign that they have received a rent book, all the statutory documentation and witnessed the smoke alarm test. All sign a separate document asserting that they have no involvement with drugs or excessive alcohol.
One copy for the tenant and one for the landlord, some 40 plus signatures.
Even with all this the tenants still manage to 'do me over' - and the law aids them.

I think it is time we set up a fund through Property 118's website to take some of these cases to court. Brent Council and newspapers, like the Guardian, hold all the aces when it comes to propagating lies without much fear of any comeback. If the law was to be used to bring the truth to the general public after some swingeing fines on these organisations, then we might get some justice for the PRS.

There is a rogue landlord (or landlords) in this story: the TENANT(S) who sublet. He/they is/are also a landlord. They are in breach of God knows how many rules but because they don't own the house the Council gives them an easy ride.
It is disgraceful (and I hope it will be expensive) for the Grauniad to attack the owner of the property when anyone other than a leftie lunatic can see what has been going on. The paper might have interviewed the owner and reported that there had been illegal subletting. They might also have commented on how difficult it will be for the owner to get the subtenants evicted and how any minor mistake in the court procedure will delay him for weeks or months. Instead they smear Dr Hathi by talk of unscrupulous property owners.
Mr Greenfield, the journalist might have said: "I asked some of the occupants who they paid rent to but they became defensive. When I persisted, they threatened me with violence so I left" but I suspect the hack knew that was the answer he would get so did not bother to carry out even the most basic of journalistic enquiries. Unless the occupants are paying rent to Dr Hathi, he is not their landlord. What part of "illegal subletting" does the Guardian not understand?