Landlord intimidation – now is the time for action

Landlord intimidation – now is the time for action

14:55 PM, 7th July 2014, About 10 years ago 64

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I am aware that a lot of landlords on this site have faced some of the same problems with councils that I have had to endure over the last several months. Such as giving tenants legal advice (they are not allowed to do this) and lots of other problems that they try to intimidate me with making up the rules as they go along.

I Googled “how to take the councils to court” the results where shocking not just for landlords, but for tenants too. I have therefore decided that enough is enough, I emailed my MP yet again to no avail, he said he would take it to government ombudsman. I laugh because he made this suggestion to me a few months back and the reply I got was a nameless guy on the end of the phone laughing and saying” MPs are bl##dy idiots they make the bl##dy laws” quote un quote.

So I am now in the middle of yet another dispute with another council and have come to the conclusion that the only way forward is to allow them to take me to court!!!

This is the only way that I can think of to get it into public arena and whilst I could do without the grief they will I suspect be really upsetting some poor judge for waste of court time and money.

I am now asking for as many of you as possible to back me on this. Just send me your stories etc, I have already emailed my MP and one of the chief executives telling them that this is my plan and it is now up to my MP to finally pick a side and move forward, so please ANY help or stories please comment below. I am a GOOD landlord which many many tenants will attest to. My tenants live in much nicer houses than I do simply because I realise that it is them that is keeping the roof over my head, but the good are being targeted and the bad just let go.

Sharoncourt


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John Daley

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11:52 AM, 17th July 2014, About 10 years ago

Hi Steve,

Thanks for the knowlegeable reply. I take it the fine / cost / CCJ only arise if the tenant is in arrears ?

Regrettably I think the LA's are following this path because they simply don't have anywhere to put the people who are being evicted and are willing to adopt any tactic to delay the day when the family shows up at the door actually homeless.

I agree that this needs sorting out but the Government is unlikely to be behind a policy change at this point of the Parliament cycle or create an accelerated procedure for fear they are accused of supporting retaliatory eviction.

The other factor is welfare reform, universal credit is likely to cause substantial disruption in payments for rent and the whole thing is toxic enough already without there being evidence to support the fact that Govermnment policy is creating substantial new arrears problems.

If a tenant arrives in court with a credible story about rent arrears directly caused by benefit delays will the judge grant the order ? If they do will they then delay the bailifs order to allow time for the claims to be sorted out. This might be a real problem.

Steve Gracey

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10:21 AM, 22nd July 2014, About 10 years ago

Hi John,

Re Court costs / fines / ccj: If anyone ends up in any court for any reason whether they are prosecuting or defending and has no defence to present to the judge / no chance in hell of winning then the costs will be awarded against them. If they don't / can't pay they get a CCJ. Of course some Landlords won't bother because they are so relieved to get them out and so fed up with tedious form filling and the chance of getting an award of 50p per week.

Councils taking this action only increase their own problem as they turn one more Landlord away from ever working with them again. And one more tenant also destined never to get an acceptable reference for the prs ever again. I guess it's a vicious circle but its them that need to break into it.

Regards

chris wright

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13:16 PM, 22nd July 2014, About 10 years ago

Reply to the comment left by "Steve Gracey" at "22/07/2014 - 10:21":

The awful truth to this is that council's can use discretion under the homelessness legislation and designate someone as "homeless at home" they could then treat their situation as an application for homelessness and meet all the tests without an eviction and re-house them without putting the LL to all the stress & cost.

We can but only wonder as to why they don't use this approach more often, i have seen it in action first hand - everyone was happy a real win-win.

Industry Observer

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9:26 AM, 3rd August 2014, About 10 years ago

Sharon

What makes you think Councils can't give tenants "legal advice" when they have a legal obligation to do so?

Laudable rant but save your breath, time, emotion and effort complete waste of time

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