'Persuaded’ To Leave

They’re back. The firm. The management. You know – the men who help ‘persuade tenants to leave.’ I was reminded of this sinister phrase by the excellent Digs – a tenant rights group based in London. They sent me details of a firm who offer to help owners be rid of bothersome tenants. Some troublesome occupants do not vacate immediately when issued notice to quit by power of thought alone. Some stay, and must be ‘persuaded’ to leave.

Now, let’s not pretend that all tenants are angels. Let’s also accept that some rentiers are saints. Meanwhile at the far end of the rentier spectrum are the pond-life who refuse to use proper lawful method of serving notice.

So let’s explore that ‘persuasion.’ It doesn’t mean a nice lady from the days of Jane Austen in a pretty frock comes for tea for and a chat about the day you’re due to quit the property, soothed from your home by healing flute music and free money. Nor does it mean being served proper notice, timely notice of a court date and the chance to appear and counter claim. No. ‘Persuasion’ means random thugs, often former bouncers, showing up at random times to hammer on your door, then threatening to kick said door down.

This is done by firms of so-called ‘eviction specialists’ and their own ‘legal experts’ who are anything but. These self-appointed ‘experts’ are rarely qualified solicitors, let alone proper barristers. They send pseudo-legal, incoherent letters, badly phrased, unlawful demands with no backing in law, under a thick layer of intimidation or simple threats. Then they add thousands to any outstanding rent, supposedly to cover those ‘legal’ fees.

But this can be really nasty. I’ve tales of tenants being visited late at night by boorish, inarticulate thugs who bellow threats through the front door letter-box, or loudly hurl abuse from the street below. These supposed bailiffs have, I am informed, tried to evict tenants on the wrong day (ie by before the courts say they must, when the owner finds it convenient, or even when no notice has been issued.)

The group using their services the most are new buy-to-let owners. Few have any formal training, and many are oblivious to the need for a series of properly drafted official documents, even if the tenant is in arrears. These are the type of person who find me here by googling ‘Why can’t I just throw tenant scum out onto the streets.’ (Yes – that happens.)

The worst case I’ve heard involved a disturbed landlord, in collusion with his letting agents, ‘visiting’ a tenant, issuing threats but never proper notice, then employing ‘bailiffs’ to come round and try to kick open the door, until the police were called and, unusually, the neighbours intervened.

Now such behaviour is admittedly, unusual and rare, but just imagine the reverse. Picture what would happen if a the benighted tenant of a bad landlord visited them repeatedly at their home, late at night, terrorising their family, hammering on the door, demanding they were removed from a register of landlords, issuing violent threats.

The police would arrive fast, the tenant would be swiftly arrested, then convicted. Simple and without an eyebrow raised.

http://hackneyrenters.org/

http://rentergirl.blogspot.co.uk/2011/09/bully-boy-bailiffs.html

Just Who Lives In A Place Like This?

Seeking that elusive silver lining, a journalist recently requested my help in finding people likely to benefit from the mortgage/buy-to-let/credit-crunch fiasco. I explained that his search for goodness in this economic ill-wind is endearing, but likely to be scuppered by factors largely ignored by the media.

Outsiders might imagine that the residents of Dovecot Towers live in rented property as we predicted the housing crisis, and are cannily biding our time, waiting for prices to spiral downwards so we can emerge from the rubble as smug, billionaire property barons.

The reality is different. Most inhabitants of urban newbuilds are not aspiring landlords, and many of us are starting to accept that we will never own a home. Lower house prices are tantalising, but most of us avoid the property treadmill for reasons other than cost. It’s just that, we’re poor, and we’d need a deposit so huge and distant, it exists in space.

Dovecot Towers is populated by a surprising mix of people. There’s a sizeable amount of Divorced Dads, who will never afford a place with room for when the kids come to stay. The rest are mostly students who move at least once a year: life is uncertain (or crazy, wild and free if you’re a glass-half-full-type). Inevitably, short-termism discourages or prevents students from owning property, although parents might invest. The remaining tenants are trainees on entry level wages or just low paid, like shop workers, and impoverished ‘creatives’.

But still we are decreed capable of affording inflated rents on newbuilds, which were originally set at cheeky levels. Because our pay is so low, we will never be accepted onto the mortgage chain, although we must pay these silly rents. As my fellow blogger Alice, on the excellent ukbubble (see links below) explains, there is a limit on how much income should be eaten up by housing costs. Current prices for both owning and renting have almost reached an economically feasible ceiling.

Property prices plummet, but tenants seldom benefit as we don’t earn enough. Our problem isn’t house prices, but job insecurity, short term contracts and especially, low pay (whenever I hear politicians boasting proudly about keeping a lid on wages, I could scream.) And yet, we are supposed to aim for home ownership, despite tenuous employment, empty bank accounts and unattainable deposit rates.

There’s a brief moratorium on handing out mortgages to people unlikely to repay them, but give it a few years and the wastrels of Dovecot Towers will be actively recruited by bankers again. A few may benefit: some couples - a tiny minority - are slumming it hereabouts to save money, feet hovering on the first rung of that stairway to property heaven, waiting to pounce on a bargain.

For everyone else, the problem is wider and more complicated than house prices or low wages; it’s a reluctance, or inability to incur debt. We can’t get loans, so prudence is forced upon us. Renting isn’t a crime (well, not officially) so we’ll stay put and let those newly risk-averse bankers speculate when the boom/bust circle turns.