How To Be Homeless.

Homelessness is rising. I mean actual rough sleeping – genuine, totally miserable, cold, damp, hopeless, abandoned, hiding in the night, freezing to death, homelessness.

Most people find it hard to believe that anyone could end up actually homeless, let alone literally roofless, but believe me it’s really easy. Here’s how:

(1) Find yourself in between jobs. Having budgeted well, and until that point, you managed to pay reasonable rent on a modest flat, discovering only when claiming housing benefit that this little place of yours is over the Local Housing Allowance ceiling set by those condems: right at the bottom of local rents. When you try and move, discover that as far as landlords and letting agents go, you are a pariah. Apply to the council as homeless but lack priority need (no children or severe disability) and have no local connection. Good luck.

(2) Relationship ends: one partner leaves, and pride, or confusion leads to sofa surfing. Hosts get bored of a lump on the settee, and politely ask you to leave, assuming you have somewhere else to go, but also judgementally deciding that the accompanying joblessness is somehow your fault, as is the homelessness.

(3) Be a claimant (and yes, most housing benefit claimants are in work.) Then have your rentier decide, abruptly to sell, but in between moving out and finding a new place, discover that nobody will house you without a guarantor. Only you don’t have a guarantor. And you’ve been a good tenant, so abide by the notice to quit. Except you have nowhere else to go. And no local connection, and are not considered to be in priority need (that is: vulnerable for reasons of health or age, or childless.)

(4) Lose your home due to a landlord going bankrupt. In any of these stated situations.

(5) Move away for employment/education, but find no work, or lose the job, and be staying in temporary accommodation: a hostel or cheap bed and breakfast, but run out of money.

(6) Be bullied out of a shared home. Then find you can’t get a reference from your previous resident landlord.

(7) Be the bottom of the list when desperate in a high demand area. Place your sealed bid, but discover that people have outbid you for the hovel you could just cover on minimum wage.

(8) Be thrown out by your parents, but not knowing how to access housing, support or the funds to find a safe new place.

(9) Be freelance. Even high earning freelancers are deemed undesirable by letting-agents.

(10) Be disabled, or mentally ill. Few private sector rentiers will touch you with a very long disinfected barge pole, no matter how much support you have, or how ‘well’ you now are.

See – it’s not hard. In fact, it’s all too easy. Homelessness doesn’t happen to other people, to strangers with ‘chaotic lives’ or the feckless and useless. The UK private renting sector is broken. And nobody has the will to fix it.

Still don’t believe me? All of those scenarios were sent by readers, and one (or more) also genuinely happened to me.

Shooting Tenants

Throughout the duration of my long, long (very long) renting experience I endured, variously landlords who have: threatened to hit me, refused to repair deathly gas water heaters, given notice by telepathy and then wondered why I hadn’t moved out, gone bankrupt, and it seems gone mad.

But so far, nobody has threatened to shoot me.

Like every right thinking citizen, I think that rogue landlords are bad and should be banned. (I know… I know… see recent post…)

But here is why tenants are scared, and why they feel powerless and vulnerable: there are a minority of landlords out there who are not just a but naughty. There are rentiers who do more than occasionally saunter in to homes unannounced, or who avoid repairs which not even the staunchest advocate of tenant rights would describe as vital. Some rentiers are violent thugs.

But threatening to shoot your tenants? Well that’s extra special horrible isn’t it? I mean, having someone let themselves into your house, using their own key, threaten to have you killed by thugs in their pay, and then bombarding the tenants with abusive phone calls:

“A millionaire landlord who threatened to have tenants shot has been banned from renting out property. Mark Fortune will be breaking the law if he takes on new tenants after licensing chiefs ousted him from a list of fit and proper landlords.”

Fortune’s behaviour makes me wonder if many rentiers secretly wish to copy him. But threatening to shoot people (and all threats of violence) are the handiwork of dodgy crooks who believe tenants should hand over the money while remaining barefoot, unlagged, unheated, draughty and grateful. Ask for repairs? Nah. Fat chance: just hand over the rent, the exits over there, do not pass go, do not collect your deposit on the way out (they’re keeping it for ‘damage.’)

‘The decision comes after Fortune was fined £650 for issuing a tenants of a property in Lonsdale Terrace after they confronted him over a £160 repair bill.'

At the dodgier end, many are gangsters (and I mean actual gangsters) as buy-to-let is rumoured to be a haven for money laundering. The criminal law can, should and usually is, being used against them, but it’s nice to ban them forever from the landlord register as well, isn’t it?.

A while back I received an email from a tenant advisor in (I think )Alabama, where landlords threatening to shoot their tenants was seemingly so commonplace that had published a specialist leaflet (do not fire back?).

I am also intrigued by particular sentence in the Edinburgh story:
It is the first time the city council has refused an application to be included on the register.
There’s the rub. ‘The first time.’ He's banned from the landlord register - big whoop, for sure, but will the council take similar action again? How many landlords understand that they can’t abuse, beat, and hurt their tenants? How many want to issue such threats with impunity?

The rebirth of buy to let will make this a whole lot worse. Meanwhile, Fortune, the gun-toting rentier, still owns those residencies. Perhaps he might just sell or assign them to one of his cronies, managing things from behind the scenes? Confiscation of property – it’s the only way.



http://www.scotsman.com/edinburgh-evening-news/latest-news/landlord-banned-for-threatening-to-shoot-tenants-1-2778349

Goldilocks Tenant

I’ve noticed growing numbers of an unsettling new phenomenon: increasing desperate, repeated pleas for homes, shared on social networking sites. A friend reposted this request:

3/4 bedroom house needed for a very well house trained lot.. We are a family of 5 and a dog who are currently living in a 2 bed house. You do the maths!!!! We have great references, we lived in our last house for 9 years and have been stuck in this temporary stop for 18 months and seem unable to get out of it through no fault of our own. We had a great house to move into next week but someone came along and bought it at the last minute. We are sleeping on a sofa bed which is so detrimental to our well being and we have had enough!! It seems like every other road in ????? has empty student housing at the moment. ???? Rd is a perfect example, 12 student houses to let but NOT to families!!!!! Please help, pass this on to people you know..... If you have a house, know of a house, someone with a house we would be great tenants. We ARE great tenants.... The deal: you, your friend, an acquaintance get a lovely family a new home and a warm fuzzy feeling of helping us back from the brink of total despair and stop us dealing with the white sharks in sharp suits also known as ESTATE AGENTS!!!! Oh and rent, yep rent. We pay rent, look after the house on a long term basis and you get peace of mind knowing that your house is in great, capable hands. We are self employed which somehow means we are untouchable in the land of estate agents without a £5/6000 deposit and a guarantor who earns over £32,000 a year...... The deal: let's talk... SOON!!

They sound great, don’t they? Lovely people, by the sound of it.

Except… Work these days is frequently low paid, casualised, part time and temporary. The unemployed are being directed into self-employment, no matter how unsuited their skills or capabilities. Before they let to the self-employed, rentiers request five years audited accounts, which ignores an economic crisis, where tenants might be recent graduates, or that modern work is precarious and transient, with portfolio careers, ‘flexibility’ and – newsflash – thinking on your feet to make money after redundancy.

What about people who know they are already way down on any owner’s wish-list: working claimants, given notice to leave through no fault of their own and now looking for a new place to live, scared as potential home-providers are claimant averse? What if they live in cities where students whose stay is finite are preferred over families who want to stay long term, perhaps indefinitely?

Prospective tenants must be like Goldilocks’ porridge: just right – precisely and exactly right, not too old, or too young, too rich (they’ll leave asap) or too poor. Childless but in secure families (go figure.) Working but not too many hours as this will disturb the neighbours. It's impossible.

Who will ever find a home these days? Who?

http://rentergirl.blogspot.co.uk/2009/07/robotenant.html



http://rentergirl.blogspot.co.uk/2008/11/with-reference-to-landlords.html

Nothing Like A Rogue

If everyone is strongly against an issue, problem, or situation, and people march on the streets and sign petitions etc, does that mean that everyone else is silently but actively in favour? I mean, unless you protest loudly, and keep repeating and emphasising your opposition to an issue, does this mean you support it?

No. But given the fuss being made about so-called ‘rogue landlords’ you’d think this was the case. Freedom from rogues… an end to rogues… down with rogues! All campaigning groups and political parties stress their strong opposition to rogues.

But how do you define rogue? The scum who rent out those notorious beds in sheds? The landlady who killed a tenant through allowing faulty wiring to go unchecked and unrepaired? The man who illegally evicted his tenant by hiring thugs to assault him and then threw him out on the street?

I think rogues are a distraction. Where they exist, there is enough relevant legislation to ensure they imprisoned or fined, but apparently little will to deploy it. Shelter are campaigning hard on rogues, and yes, rogues are really, really bad.

Never forget the worst part of renting: the low level misery. Should a landlord without a licence, or one who rents out property without permission from their mortgage provider, or who issues retaliatory eviction to a tenant who asks for a repair be considered rogue?

I recently contacted my local (Labour) MP, regarding the Commons debate on renting, and requested that he raise: short tenancies, retaliatory evictions, that rentiers need only give two months notice and tenants are out etc.etc etc… His reply was amazing.

He is in favour of: ‘regulating residential lettings and management agents; protecting tenants, landlords and the reputations of the many responsible agents; ending the confusing, inconsistent fees and charges regime, making fees easily understandable, upfront and comparable across agents; promoting longer term tenancies and predictable rents; and introducing a national register of landlords to help empower local authorities to improve standards and deal with rogue landlords.’

Rogue landlords kill people, but they could already be imprisoned. It’s a bit like the lighter sentences given for death by dangerous driving, which never make sense to me. Causing tenants to live in shed, killing them by rogue electrics, beating them up should be properly sanctioned. Which they are.

I get the impression that with renting, no politician actually get it, because they don’t do it. Renting for them all is a brief and tricky sojourn, in halls of residence or even ‘rooms ‘ at Oxbridge, and then in better homes while they save to buy, not a way of life forever. MP’s who rent do not suffer the enduring insecurity suffered by renters at the ‘affordable’ end of the market, where a request for essential repairs will see them shown the door.

Rogue landlords are vile, on this we can agree. But far worse for tenants is the short term insecurity, the never knowing how long you can stay, and accepting that if you press for repairs can be given notice on a carefree caprice.

Rogues are very, very bad, but there is a greater wrong.

Not Hot - Very Bothered.

Winter sets in. cross the land, in rented homes, condensation drips down the walls, and tenants spend their days wrapped in quilts and several layers of cheap fleeces blankets, woolly hats, and mittens as they watch plumes of frozen breath snake cross their lounge.

Many tenants face a choice: heat or eat. This all the more difficult as they cannot choose the one thing that could ease and enable economy. Unlike owner-occupiers, renters have their heating is decided for them, and no matter how much heat bleeds into the outside world, they are helpless.

Heating isn’t boring: it’s vital and problematic. Tenants often move in a hurry, and the idea of them making a leisurely selection between masses of flats is a myth. They have no choice about what heating they have, and despite flat hunting with a wish list they must accept what’s on offer.

In many flats, especially at the ‘affordable’ end of the market (a new euphemism for run down) white meter heating and storage heaters is the norm, which makes me all nostalgic. Storage heater, oh my storage heater….Wickedly expensive, but there is no coming home to a cold house. I miss storage heaters.

Gas heating is for families, not shared housing occupied unrelated tenants who use the rooms at different times of day, where heating one room by switching on the whole system can cause midwinter inter-tenant cage fighting.

There is no easy solution. Tenants are often barred specifically in the rental agreement from using portable gas heaters (which are seen as hazardous) and can’t rely on fan heaters (uneconomical) or portable oil radiators (the same.)

And once you’re in, you’re stuck. My friend is lumbered with storage heaters which her landlord seems unwillingly to replace, run from a pay-as-you-go meter, which always cost more. If being a rentier is to become more professional and homes made to suit the needs of tenants and no the pocket of the owner’s profit motive, then supplying energy efficient heating must be somehow obligatory.

Electric heating is ideal for HMO’s: permitting those at home to heat their own space. Which is also its curse (I once found a co-tenant toasting her toes mid-summer using a three bar electric ‘because it felt nice.’

I used to rage about the many defects of the Dovecot I once lived in, but at least it was insulated to the point of being hermetically sealed, and fitted with heating suitable for a one bed flat. Tenements and conversions have solid, not cavity walls, supplied with ancient boilers and no heat in the bathroom, which was often formerly a cupboard and so acts a Petri-dish for fungus.

There are schemes for efficient heating, but they all offer interest free loans, and what tenant would incur enormous debt to pay something that will enhance their landlord’s property, while landlords do not care about the tenant’s bills? Nobody pays for improvements and updates and so everybody loses: landlords when tenants cannot pay to heat a house sufficiently to eradicate condensation, and tenants who freeze. Lose-lose, then. In a freezing cold house.

http://rentergirl.blogspot.co.uk/2008/11/i-dreamed-i-dwelt-in-dovecot-towers.html

http://rentergirl.blogspot.co.uk/2008/08/i-know-jolly-policeman.html

Legends of the Landlords

New landlords have a complex system belief system, based, like all religious belief, on fear and superstition. No, they haven’t created new pantheon of skygods, and do not, unless I am mistaken, dance naked at midnight around graven images. They do, however, believe some really, really weird things.

Many fear the Great Squatter Devil. Newbie landlords have an irrational fear of squatters, and imagine that if they do not harass renters they can stay put forever, with no hope of eviction no matter what. It’s just plain wrong. Firstly, squatter’s rights were abolished by our Condem overlords, meaning that even empty properties cannot be occupied. But still landlords cling to the belief that hordes of frenzied, drug crazed, benefit ‘scrounging’ thugs are waiting to move in and stay for all eternity.

Some landlords imagine they enjoy an ancient entitlement of ‘Freedom To Roam’ (Into Your Home) The right to wander in at will or the cult of ‘It’s My House I Can Do What I Want’ sustains itself by repetition. Landlords feel that not wandering in at will is a rejection of their ownership, and a negation of their rights as owners, landlords and indeed human beings (I’ve heard the phrase: ‘It’s my civil right’ being used.) It’s also kindness. Wandering in our home at will makes us feel loved and cared for.

That they can do what ever they want. I think it’s the lack of training, but new landlords persistently imagine that the ‘But it’s my house I own it’ defence exists, and will stand up in court. I’ve experienced landlords who have, inter alia: moved their delinquent daughter into a spare room, collected choice pieces of furniture as ‘it’s too good for us,’ raised rent and given notice to quit using telepathy. Because they imagine they can, when they seriously can’t.

The religion of course concerns raising money. Tenants pay a tithe, or tribute, which must cover all the owners expenses – ie everything. And I mean everything. Landlords are forbidden in religious law from paying. If they pay they will go to a burning Hell for all eternity. When I was told, in a furnished flat, that I should pay for and install in the bathroom both a cabinet and heating, this was obviously the reason why. Same reason explains not paying for repairs – they might actually go to actual hell. And if they pay the fees letting agents fees charge them for running whata is their business, they might literally burn for all of actual eternity, so tenants should pay. You’d do the same. Wouldn’t you?

I realise that landlords must be careful, but the emerging philosophy of new buy to let rentiers is that they want the money, the pension, the equity, but they want none of the work, and none of the expense. In truth, they would prefer not to house actual human tenants at all.

Meanwhile tenants have started a new cult: it’s called standing up for themselves. And landlords could save time, money and their own nerves if they listened, learned and followed best practice. It’s your property, but it’s not your home. Let it go.

Criminal With A Key To Your Home

This much we know: prospective tenants undergo multiple, strenuous, onerous, innovative checks and are even obliged to pay for the ‘privilege.’ They provide personal and employer references, credit checks, bank statements: most letting agents and landlords request proof of ID, often kept on file contravening data protection. Soon renters will be obliged to submit DNA samples, and no - I’m not joking.

But you make it through. And there you are sitting safe at home when a burglar enters the lounge. He’s also got convictions for violence, with a talent for fraud. How the hell did he get in? Simple: he used a key.

One pragmatic suggestion currently in circulation would vastly improve conditions and security for renters. Several tenant rights groups have proposed that all landlords and letting agents should be required to undergo Criminal Record Bureau checks (CRB).

Before the crazier landlord trolls comment in a self-righteous froth that tenants should also be checked, hear me out: no matter what they do, tenants never hold a key to their landlord’s home.

The exception is when lodging, and the incoming bedroom tax bomb is detonating, and victims are advised to get lodgers. What if they are single women, perhaps with children? Who’s that living with them, now?

There are many tales, anecdotal, in the press and in law reports of landlords convicted of behaviour indicating they should not have ready access to a stranger’s house. For example, key-holders who have been convicted of rape… not a good sign of being trustworthy with that key, is it?

Cases like the landlord convicted after installing hidden cameras in his female tenants bedrooms, who could have emerged from prison and immediately reconvene his landlording – there’s nothing to stop him. The case below is especially nasty: the landlord was already on the sex offenders register, but raped his vulnerable, fifteen year old ‘tenant’ in return for her being allowed to keep a roof over her head.

One landlord I know let his HMO specifically to models (I sneaked under the wire somehow) and was found creeping into our rooms during the day to sniff our bed clothes. I also have a friend whose landlord offered to ‘go easy’ on her when she was in arrears if ‘she was nice to him.’ (I don’t think he meant baking him fairy cakes.)

And it’s not just the private sector: a housing association once sent round several workmen to renovate a block, and many female tenants, myself included, reported them for grotesquely inappropriate behaviour while working inside flats. No action was taken. It was, they said: ‘our word against theirs.’

All tenants are vulnerable. Sleaziness and intimidation are regular hazards for (especially, but not solely) female tenants. Would CRB checks prevent abuses? Not entirely.

But forcing prospective landlords, housing providers and letting agents to demonstrate a record free of violent crime and sexual offences would at least allow tenants to check their landlord isn’t just violent, abusive and dangerous, but all that whilst holding their front door key. If landlords are to become professional, this is essential. Then we can tackle the harassment.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-20936243