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
Sunday, 13 January 2013
Monday, 7 January 2013
An Extra Layer of Hell
Life for renters is hard and even The Daily Telegraph agrees (I know!) But what could possibly make life even worse for tenants? Permitting instant, summary eviction by saying ‘I Evict You’ three times aloud? Denying us food? Replacing furniture with a bed of nails in every room, to remind us about the precarious nature of our home, and indeed, life itself?
Almost. Renting is a growth industry. Consequently and inevitably satellite businesses are making themselves a fortune by charging for spurious services, skimming the cream, creating a false need and charging a fortune when exploiting it.
It’s not enough that the private rented sector is dominated by untrained and unregulated letting agents/landlords who cause constant low-level misery with impunity. No. Now tenants must endure a host of newfound untrained feral specialists, all keen to rake in dosh and claim their piece of the renting pie.
First: those self-proclaimed deposit protection specialists. Totally unnecessary, since there exists a perfectly good procedure for reclaiming deposits registered and saved with the various schemes, and all operate a dispute service. If that doesn’t work, there’s the always the small claims court. (FYI I don’t endorse these companies, despite what you might read - legal action beckons.)
Here’s a new one: specialist inventory checkers. My poor Landgirl suffered at their hands: the other superfluous layer ie the letting agency contracted inventory checkers to inspect the flat. They managed to miss inter alia: hair in plugholes, damage and the general filthy state of the place. Landlords and letting agents maintain an unfounded fear that a simple inventory signed and agreed by both parties like in the old days will lead to disputes. It won’t. And they charge a fortune for walking round the place with a list (and then ignoring the list.)
And we have newbuild buy-to-let furniture suppliers. Seemingly harmless, they source stock from IKEA (if tenants are lucky.) Landlords pay inflated prices, and tenants get shoddy, collapsible furniture and cupboards full of cheap chipped glassware. Not the worst example, but costly to both renter and rentier.
But the worst, the very worst and most sinister are so-called ‘Tenant Eviction Specialists,’ aka bully boys. Not lawyers, just thugs paid to scare tenants into leaving fast. One firm asked recently if they could do a guest post hereabouts. My reply was terse.
.
Also controversial are professional cleaners who come round when a tenant has vacated and supposedly scour, steam and polish the filthy flat until it shines (oh – the tenant usually gets the bill.) Landlords could just as well buy some mops, brooms and lung-dissolving oven cleaner and do it themselves.
Hellooo reference checkers! Come on down! They use ordinary websites to check individual references, with similar dubious results. They also operate ‘affordability checks,’ where a stony computer really does say ‘no.’
The problem is that many landlords do not appreciate that managing property is time-consuming, and rented flats can be brittle and they break. Instead of factoring this in to their business plan (and…landlords always have a business plan… right?) they fall prey to parasites. And it’s the tenant, always the tenant, who pays.
Almost. Renting is a growth industry. Consequently and inevitably satellite businesses are making themselves a fortune by charging for spurious services, skimming the cream, creating a false need and charging a fortune when exploiting it.
It’s not enough that the private rented sector is dominated by untrained and unregulated letting agents/landlords who cause constant low-level misery with impunity. No. Now tenants must endure a host of newfound untrained feral specialists, all keen to rake in dosh and claim their piece of the renting pie.
First: those self-proclaimed deposit protection specialists. Totally unnecessary, since there exists a perfectly good procedure for reclaiming deposits registered and saved with the various schemes, and all operate a dispute service. If that doesn’t work, there’s the always the small claims court. (FYI I don’t endorse these companies, despite what you might read - legal action beckons.)
Here’s a new one: specialist inventory checkers. My poor Landgirl suffered at their hands: the other superfluous layer ie the letting agency contracted inventory checkers to inspect the flat. They managed to miss inter alia: hair in plugholes, damage and the general filthy state of the place. Landlords and letting agents maintain an unfounded fear that a simple inventory signed and agreed by both parties like in the old days will lead to disputes. It won’t. And they charge a fortune for walking round the place with a list (and then ignoring the list.)
And we have newbuild buy-to-let furniture suppliers. Seemingly harmless, they source stock from IKEA (if tenants are lucky.) Landlords pay inflated prices, and tenants get shoddy, collapsible furniture and cupboards full of cheap chipped glassware. Not the worst example, but costly to both renter and rentier.
But the worst, the very worst and most sinister are so-called ‘Tenant Eviction Specialists,’ aka bully boys. Not lawyers, just thugs paid to scare tenants into leaving fast. One firm asked recently if they could do a guest post hereabouts. My reply was terse.
.
Also controversial are professional cleaners who come round when a tenant has vacated and supposedly scour, steam and polish the filthy flat until it shines (oh – the tenant usually gets the bill.) Landlords could just as well buy some mops, brooms and lung-dissolving oven cleaner and do it themselves.
Hellooo reference checkers! Come on down! They use ordinary websites to check individual references, with similar dubious results. They also operate ‘affordability checks,’ where a stony computer really does say ‘no.’
The problem is that many landlords do not appreciate that managing property is time-consuming, and rented flats can be brittle and they break. Instead of factoring this in to their business plan (and…landlords always have a business plan… right?) they fall prey to parasites. And it’s the tenant, always the tenant, who pays.
Monday, 31 December 2012
Hooray! Another Awards Ceremony!
It’s the season of award ceremonies. Soon, confused nominees and winners will grin and gaze upon mystifying shiny thingamyjigs before weeping. I want to belong. I’ve borrowed a lovely dress and tiara (I looked somewhat incongruous in Wetherspoons) and am nominating a few of my favourite things. Best pie (my friend Austin’s macaroni offering is a cert to win) best sarcastic remark, and finally, finest acrobatic drunken stumbling and just (just) about regaining one’s balance (which I will not win owing to a sloppy dismount.)
Okay. You got me. You know me too well. Dynamite inventor Alfred Nobel created and endowed a prize for peace, please let me explain the inaugural Rentergirl Awards for heroic letting-agent endeavours/shenanigans.
Selecting winners was difficult. Competition was fierce. The field was so comprehensively, inventively and shamelessly vile I was at times left gasping in awe. The winners needed much more than simply charge fees so creatively expressed and yet so baffling they flummox even Sir Stephen Hawking. No. That’s ordinary business. The winners all went that bit further.
First: the Scottish agent currently claiming to be ‘Licensed by ARLA.’ How reassuring. The office windows contain several posters of dentists, doctors and lawyers, all captioned: ‘You wouldn’t use an unlicensed Doctor.’ And they’re right. Pretend doctors might kill, or cut off the wrong leg, but if convicted could be imprisoned, and bad genuine doctors are banned from practising, because they must indeed be licensed.
Except… except… ARLA doesn’t licence letting agents (I checked.) There is a voluntary code of conduct, meaning errant letting agents face lingering frowns and being tutted at sternly from a distance. Nobody I know has heard of a letting agent being ‘struck off’ by their own trade body, rendering this ‘licensing’ utterly meaningless.
Now for a group award to all the agents who compel new tenants to sign up for and accept their agents designated energy supplier or even contents insurance (companies all ‘chosen’ after agents have accepted a backhander.) This is restrictive and contravenes consumer choice, but probably unenforceable. And yet still they try.
The prize in this category is no shiny-baubly-gewgah. Winners must watch those amusing and highly entertaining comparison website ads! For all of next year! And nothing else! You’re all welcome. Those are tears of gratitude and joy, aren’t they?
Next: a special prize to the letting agent who charged my friend for returning his own money. Respect!
Here’s what happened: he gave notice, and when settling up, the agent invoiced for the wrong amount. My busy friend (he was moving, remember) asked for a refund, but the agency came right back with small print. They would deduct a fee even if it was their mistake. Which it was. Un-effing-believable. The small claims court awaits.
Now to the letting agent who charged several different tenants for the same damage, apparently over a period of years. They passed off estimated costs (think of a number/double it) as actual costs paid to repair the vandalism (their words.)
Only they had met their match. Somebody knew the contractor concerned, who was suspicious at being asked to provide yet another estimate. The tenant contacted the agent and landlord (who had no idea this was going on.) The tenant has yet to tell me how this ended, so maybe it ended with rueful tears, forgive-us flowers and a heartfelt apology delivered by winged, rainbow coloured mini-ponies.
Now, I’d like to thank the following (sniff!) for helping the last few years *cracks up* with advice, comments *just openly sobbing now* and generally being brilliant *explosively blows nose*
So thanks to: Shelter Scotland for their excellent reclaim your fees campaign (and Shelter England), The Joseph Rowntree Foundation. Also Nearly Legal, Ben Reeves-Lewis and Jules Birch for wisdom, insight and humour in the face of what is going to be a very, very, very grim year.
http://nearlylegal.co.uk/blog/
http://www.landlordlawblog.co.uk/2012/12/21/ben-reeve-lewis-friday-newsround-78/
http://www.insidehousing.co.uk/home/blogs/10-things-about-2012-part-1/6525146.blog
http://www.shelter.org.uk/
http://scotland.shelter.org.uk/
http://www.jrf.org.uk/blog
Okay. You got me. You know me too well. Dynamite inventor Alfred Nobel created and endowed a prize for peace, please let me explain the inaugural Rentergirl Awards for heroic letting-agent endeavours/shenanigans.
Selecting winners was difficult. Competition was fierce. The field was so comprehensively, inventively and shamelessly vile I was at times left gasping in awe. The winners needed much more than simply charge fees so creatively expressed and yet so baffling they flummox even Sir Stephen Hawking. No. That’s ordinary business. The winners all went that bit further.
First: the Scottish agent currently claiming to be ‘Licensed by ARLA.’ How reassuring. The office windows contain several posters of dentists, doctors and lawyers, all captioned: ‘You wouldn’t use an unlicensed Doctor.’ And they’re right. Pretend doctors might kill, or cut off the wrong leg, but if convicted could be imprisoned, and bad genuine doctors are banned from practising, because they must indeed be licensed.
Except… except… ARLA doesn’t licence letting agents (I checked.) There is a voluntary code of conduct, meaning errant letting agents face lingering frowns and being tutted at sternly from a distance. Nobody I know has heard of a letting agent being ‘struck off’ by their own trade body, rendering this ‘licensing’ utterly meaningless.
Now for a group award to all the agents who compel new tenants to sign up for and accept their agents designated energy supplier or even contents insurance (companies all ‘chosen’ after agents have accepted a backhander.) This is restrictive and contravenes consumer choice, but probably unenforceable. And yet still they try.
The prize in this category is no shiny-baubly-gewgah. Winners must watch those amusing and highly entertaining comparison website ads! For all of next year! And nothing else! You’re all welcome. Those are tears of gratitude and joy, aren’t they?
Next: a special prize to the letting agent who charged my friend for returning his own money. Respect!
Here’s what happened: he gave notice, and when settling up, the agent invoiced for the wrong amount. My busy friend (he was moving, remember) asked for a refund, but the agency came right back with small print. They would deduct a fee even if it was their mistake. Which it was. Un-effing-believable. The small claims court awaits.
Now to the letting agent who charged several different tenants for the same damage, apparently over a period of years. They passed off estimated costs (think of a number/double it) as actual costs paid to repair the vandalism (their words.)
Only they had met their match. Somebody knew the contractor concerned, who was suspicious at being asked to provide yet another estimate. The tenant contacted the agent and landlord (who had no idea this was going on.) The tenant has yet to tell me how this ended, so maybe it ended with rueful tears, forgive-us flowers and a heartfelt apology delivered by winged, rainbow coloured mini-ponies.
Now, I’d like to thank the following (sniff!) for helping the last few years *cracks up* with advice, comments *just openly sobbing now* and generally being brilliant *explosively blows nose*
So thanks to: Shelter Scotland for their excellent reclaim your fees campaign (and Shelter England), The Joseph Rowntree Foundation. Also Nearly Legal, Ben Reeves-Lewis and Jules Birch for wisdom, insight and humour in the face of what is going to be a very, very, very grim year.
http://nearlylegal.co.uk/blog/
http://www.landlordlawblog.co.uk/2012/12/21/ben-reeve-lewis-friday-newsround-78/
http://www.insidehousing.co.uk/home/blogs/10-things-about-2012-part-1/6525146.blog
http://www.shelter.org.uk/
http://scotland.shelter.org.uk/
http://www.jrf.org.uk/blog
Sunday, 23 December 2012
The Tenants Are Revolting
2012 has been a very, very dark, difficult and oppressive year for tenants. Mercifully, through the gloom of rocketing rents, benefit cuts, bedroom tax, arrogant scamming agents and an increasingly blasé and entitled landlord class, one shard of light pierced the darkness. Tenants everywhere are getting organised, efficiently and loudly.
“What do we want?”
“Longer secure tenancies and no above inflation rent rises (or no rises at all) and also landlord referencing.”
No, it’s not a catchy slogan, but it is heartfelt, and certain heroes are fighting hard.
First up – here’s (ahem…) a massive shout out for Edinburgh Private Tenants Group. Heroes - total legends for protesting in a humorous way, and for getting money back from the bad guys (too many bad guys to mention here, before you ask.) They, along with Shelter Scotland (and me!) have been highlighting that despite Scottish letting agents having been banned since 1984, some still charge stupid, made-up fees. Agents beware: a group of loud protestors might arrive outside your office to highlight the illegality of trying to con £500 for a ‘check-out’ fee out of impoverished.
Blackpool has a tenant’s group, as does Leeds. Londoners are blessed with Hackney Renters and Housing for the 99%. Both did sterling work highlighting the many problems of London tenants who endure a new kind of hell. Even Mark Carney, new head of The Bank of England might be onside, since he requires £250k to find a decent home, what with rents rising.
Aaanyway: here’s a festive, heart-warming and inspiring festive tale about what can be achieved when tenants are united.
It was a snowy winter during World War 1. In the chaos, some profiteering, opportunistic landlords tried to increase rents. Initially, tenants agreed to pay the usual cost but no extras, and landlords retaliated by callously given them notice. The famously, wondrously, empowered women of Glasgow organised the fight back, surrounding courts or blocking roads to stop oncoming bailiffs. The bad guys lost. Tenants won a rent freeze lasting for the duration of the war and six months afterwards.
For 2013, I predict righteous and rising tenant anger finding eloquent - possibly dramatic - expression. Rent strikes are on the cards I think, with rents devouring up to two thirds of income. There is no justification for raising prices other than sheer greed. Rent strikes could be dangerous, and might cause problems for benefit claimants, but it’s one way of making the point. Careful now.
I hope more renters adopt the EPTAG method: targeting specific cowboy operations, organising boycotts of especially shameless letting agents and, less radically, contacting councils over rogue landlords (most tenants simply move on: another hidden misery.)
I wonder if, one day, when I write a blog post and the usual random idiot comments: ‘Stop complaining - renting isn’t all that bad’ that they might be telling the truth, as if all these actions, interventions protests etc are successful, renting might safe, secure, long-term and fair. Thanks to tenant groups this might no longer a dream, but a reality.
http://eptag.org.uk/
Glasgow Rents strikes. http://libcom.org/history/1915-the-glasgow-rent-strike
http://www.blackpool4me.com/Blackpool4Me/Community/YourArea/BlackpoolResidentsFederation/Blackpool+Private+Tenants+Forum.htm
http://www.leedstenants.org.uk/page/communities/support-tenants-and-residents-groups
http://hackneyrenters.org/
http://housingforthe99.wordpress.com/2012/06/24/renting_rip-off/
“What do we want?”
“Longer secure tenancies and no above inflation rent rises (or no rises at all) and also landlord referencing.”
No, it’s not a catchy slogan, but it is heartfelt, and certain heroes are fighting hard.
First up – here’s (ahem…) a massive shout out for Edinburgh Private Tenants Group. Heroes - total legends for protesting in a humorous way, and for getting money back from the bad guys (too many bad guys to mention here, before you ask.) They, along with Shelter Scotland (and me!) have been highlighting that despite Scottish letting agents having been banned since 1984, some still charge stupid, made-up fees. Agents beware: a group of loud protestors might arrive outside your office to highlight the illegality of trying to con £500 for a ‘check-out’ fee out of impoverished.
Blackpool has a tenant’s group, as does Leeds. Londoners are blessed with Hackney Renters and Housing for the 99%. Both did sterling work highlighting the many problems of London tenants who endure a new kind of hell. Even Mark Carney, new head of The Bank of England might be onside, since he requires £250k to find a decent home, what with rents rising.
Aaanyway: here’s a festive, heart-warming and inspiring festive tale about what can be achieved when tenants are united.
It was a snowy winter during World War 1. In the chaos, some profiteering, opportunistic landlords tried to increase rents. Initially, tenants agreed to pay the usual cost but no extras, and landlords retaliated by callously given them notice. The famously, wondrously, empowered women of Glasgow organised the fight back, surrounding courts or blocking roads to stop oncoming bailiffs. The bad guys lost. Tenants won a rent freeze lasting for the duration of the war and six months afterwards.
For 2013, I predict righteous and rising tenant anger finding eloquent - possibly dramatic - expression. Rent strikes are on the cards I think, with rents devouring up to two thirds of income. There is no justification for raising prices other than sheer greed. Rent strikes could be dangerous, and might cause problems for benefit claimants, but it’s one way of making the point. Careful now.
I hope more renters adopt the EPTAG method: targeting specific cowboy operations, organising boycotts of especially shameless letting agents and, less radically, contacting councils over rogue landlords (most tenants simply move on: another hidden misery.)
I wonder if, one day, when I write a blog post and the usual random idiot comments: ‘Stop complaining - renting isn’t all that bad’ that they might be telling the truth, as if all these actions, interventions protests etc are successful, renting might safe, secure, long-term and fair. Thanks to tenant groups this might no longer a dream, but a reality.
http://eptag.org.uk/
Glasgow Rents strikes. http://libcom.org/history/1915-the-glasgow-rent-strike
http://www.blackpool4me.com/Blackpool4Me/Community/YourArea/BlackpoolResidentsFederation/Blackpool+Private+Tenants+Forum.htm
http://www.leedstenants.org.uk/page/communities/support-tenants-and-residents-groups
http://hackneyrenters.org/
http://housingforthe99.wordpress.com/2012/06/24/renting_rip-off/
Monday, 17 December 2012
Feeling Validated
Renting is in the news, at long last. According to the latest census results, home-ownership is in decline, and renters are increasing (figures don’t seem to include how many owners possess more than one home ie buy-to let, but we’ll ignore that, shall we?)
Do I feel validated? Or peeved about the people who commented ‘why not buy a flat/it’s not that bad’? I’m trying to be generous, but some of the news agencies now so very angry (or at least vocal) about the existence and state of renting have been whining about house prices falling as if that’s a bad thing.
Now, somebody in Parliament reads rentergirl regularly. Unless Camoron is reading this blog before sloping of to howl at the moon and drink the blood of helpless kittens, I’m thinking it’s Labour enjoying my lyrical insights hereabouts.
And recently, Labour issued a document – having realised that there are votes to grab, with renters growing in number and anger mounting. One policy solution is predictably safe: longer tenancies, therefore mirroring Shelter’s recently proposed Stable Renting Contract and my own much re-stated hatred of Assured Short Term Tenancies (Accursed Short-Term Travesties.)
Labour knows of the evil done by spiralling rents, so I’m suggesting two reasons for their recent embracing of no-higher-than-inflation rent rises: it’s popular with tenants (less so with profiteering landlords). It will also save billions (and I mean billions) in the housing benefits paid over to scrounging, sponging, shirking landlords (sorry, but they reap the rewards of housing benefit/LHA, not tenants, and that’s the language used on claimants.) Rents must rise no more than inflation. All very well and good, but what if inflation rises again (which will happen at some point.)
In stressing the harm caused by insecurity, Labour repeatedly use a phrase that makes me scream: ‘hard working families.’ What about singles/childless couples… etc? I’ve written before about the effect of transience and insecurity on communities, schools and health. So longer tenancies are official policy, which is good, but moving every six months is detrimental to everyone affected, even (or especially?) those without paid work.
There was no mention of restraining feral letting-agents, although the heroic Jeremy Corbyn MP tried his luck with an early day motion. Sad thing is, this is the one thing popular with both landlords and tenants (everyone hates letting agents and they don’t care) but it’s doomed, unless the Libdems agree. Nobody in power seems to have grasped that letting agents are the prime movers for private rented profiteering. It’s not even landlords: letting agents place an inherent above inflation rent rise in many contracts.
So we all agree. Renting must change, and soon. If we all shout together, will parliament hear us? Follow the Scottish model, and ban letting agents from charging tenants: landlords can pay instead.
If you do this, we will love you forever. We will wash your car. We’ll even let the odd little expenses thing slip by. We might even vote for you.
And finally, to MP’s, commentators, pressure groups and think-tanks. Sorry. I can’t resist it.
I TOLD YOU SO!!!!
(I did though. I really did.)
Do I feel validated? Or peeved about the people who commented ‘why not buy a flat/it’s not that bad’? I’m trying to be generous, but some of the news agencies now so very angry (or at least vocal) about the existence and state of renting have been whining about house prices falling as if that’s a bad thing.
Now, somebody in Parliament reads rentergirl regularly. Unless Camoron is reading this blog before sloping of to howl at the moon and drink the blood of helpless kittens, I’m thinking it’s Labour enjoying my lyrical insights hereabouts.
And recently, Labour issued a document – having realised that there are votes to grab, with renters growing in number and anger mounting. One policy solution is predictably safe: longer tenancies, therefore mirroring Shelter’s recently proposed Stable Renting Contract and my own much re-stated hatred of Assured Short Term Tenancies (Accursed Short-Term Travesties.)
Labour knows of the evil done by spiralling rents, so I’m suggesting two reasons for their recent embracing of no-higher-than-inflation rent rises: it’s popular with tenants (less so with profiteering landlords). It will also save billions (and I mean billions) in the housing benefits paid over to scrounging, sponging, shirking landlords (sorry, but they reap the rewards of housing benefit/LHA, not tenants, and that’s the language used on claimants.) Rents must rise no more than inflation. All very well and good, but what if inflation rises again (which will happen at some point.)
In stressing the harm caused by insecurity, Labour repeatedly use a phrase that makes me scream: ‘hard working families.’ What about singles/childless couples… etc? I’ve written before about the effect of transience and insecurity on communities, schools and health. So longer tenancies are official policy, which is good, but moving every six months is detrimental to everyone affected, even (or especially?) those without paid work.
There was no mention of restraining feral letting-agents, although the heroic Jeremy Corbyn MP tried his luck with an early day motion. Sad thing is, this is the one thing popular with both landlords and tenants (everyone hates letting agents and they don’t care) but it’s doomed, unless the Libdems agree. Nobody in power seems to have grasped that letting agents are the prime movers for private rented profiteering. It’s not even landlords: letting agents place an inherent above inflation rent rise in many contracts.
So we all agree. Renting must change, and soon. If we all shout together, will parliament hear us? Follow the Scottish model, and ban letting agents from charging tenants: landlords can pay instead.
If you do this, we will love you forever. We will wash your car. We’ll even let the odd little expenses thing slip by. We might even vote for you.
And finally, to MP’s, commentators, pressure groups and think-tanks. Sorry. I can’t resist it.
I TOLD YOU SO!!!!
(I did though. I really did.)
Monday, 10 December 2012
You Are The Landlord
Here is my tribute to ‘You Are The Ref’ a popular cartoon strip in Shoot magazine, I think, where a dilemma about the national obsession with the professional game involving twenty-two overpaid grown men kicking a plastic globe around on some grass is discussed and resolved.
So, let’s play ‘You Are The Rentier’ (my campaign to render landlady/lord obsolete continues.) Pretend you own property (pretend? Dream…) and wish to rent it out. Now let’s try and resolve some recurring and topical issues with the tolerance, wisdom and practicality you wish was used by real life rentiers.
Some decisions are easy for me. Prospective tenants are smokers? Sorry, but no. I hate smoking: it stinks and the place will need redecorating far sooner than for non-smoking occupants. Do you trust people to smoke outside, all the time? So that’s a no.
Next, some excellent tenants have asked if it’s okay for them to have a pet. Here, I am torn: I’m thinking yes, albeit it with a proviso making tenants responsible for repairing, or paying for the inevitable puppy/kitten door scratching. And while I would expect to do post occupancy clean, I’d want the carpets cleaned (I love puppies and kittens, but they can be ‘messy.’) I would ban those poor hairless hand-bag dogettes, just because I hate them. See – power corrupts.
Children? No problem. Children to be actively welcomed and encouraged: in a house it’s also reasonable for the tenant to fit safety gates and other child-protection type things. And yes, they might scribble on the walls, but it’s paint isn’t it.
Would I house an unemployed renter? Yes. Some of this is about ability to pay, and there is a whole LHA minefield, but yes. I know, some mortgage providers ban claimants including the publicly owned RBS. Expect a court challenge on that – moves are afoot.
Tenants with bad credit rating? CR checks are next to useless for assessing the potential reliability of tenants, or their ability to pay. As the wise Sir Ben Reeves Lewis has said, Siralan ‘You’re Fired’ Sugar is a rehabilitated multiple bankrupt. There are many reasons why a tenant might even not have paid a former landlord, so I’d want more information, but that’s another yes.
I wouldn’t ask for a massive deposit: what’s the point? In the event of a default, a huge, albeit protected deposit just delays the inevitable. And if tenants want to decorate, I’d discuss this prior to them moving in, but a coat of emulsion would be fine – horrible wallpaper a no-no. I’d place some hooks on the wall, and like my own Landgirl, and allow personalisation of what is the place they are paying to call home.
Life is messy and people are complicated. I once interviewed an award-winning landlady who was proud of her record with arrears: she had never evicted anyone, having elected insted to stay in contact with errant tenants, made no threats and never tried to kick down a door or employ heavies to menace renters. She always got her money in the end.
Finally: that was never an offside free penalty tackle kick. Or something. Was it?
So, let’s play ‘You Are The Rentier’ (my campaign to render landlady/lord obsolete continues.) Pretend you own property (pretend? Dream…) and wish to rent it out. Now let’s try and resolve some recurring and topical issues with the tolerance, wisdom and practicality you wish was used by real life rentiers.
Some decisions are easy for me. Prospective tenants are smokers? Sorry, but no. I hate smoking: it stinks and the place will need redecorating far sooner than for non-smoking occupants. Do you trust people to smoke outside, all the time? So that’s a no.
Next, some excellent tenants have asked if it’s okay for them to have a pet. Here, I am torn: I’m thinking yes, albeit it with a proviso making tenants responsible for repairing, or paying for the inevitable puppy/kitten door scratching. And while I would expect to do post occupancy clean, I’d want the carpets cleaned (I love puppies and kittens, but they can be ‘messy.’) I would ban those poor hairless hand-bag dogettes, just because I hate them. See – power corrupts.
Children? No problem. Children to be actively welcomed and encouraged: in a house it’s also reasonable for the tenant to fit safety gates and other child-protection type things. And yes, they might scribble on the walls, but it’s paint isn’t it.
Would I house an unemployed renter? Yes. Some of this is about ability to pay, and there is a whole LHA minefield, but yes. I know, some mortgage providers ban claimants including the publicly owned RBS. Expect a court challenge on that – moves are afoot.
Tenants with bad credit rating? CR checks are next to useless for assessing the potential reliability of tenants, or their ability to pay. As the wise Sir Ben Reeves Lewis has said, Siralan ‘You’re Fired’ Sugar is a rehabilitated multiple bankrupt. There are many reasons why a tenant might even not have paid a former landlord, so I’d want more information, but that’s another yes.
I wouldn’t ask for a massive deposit: what’s the point? In the event of a default, a huge, albeit protected deposit just delays the inevitable. And if tenants want to decorate, I’d discuss this prior to them moving in, but a coat of emulsion would be fine – horrible wallpaper a no-no. I’d place some hooks on the wall, and like my own Landgirl, and allow personalisation of what is the place they are paying to call home.
Life is messy and people are complicated. I once interviewed an award-winning landlady who was proud of her record with arrears: she had never evicted anyone, having elected insted to stay in contact with errant tenants, made no threats and never tried to kick down a door or employ heavies to menace renters. She always got her money in the end.
Finally: that was never an offside free penalty tackle kick. Or something. Was it?
Monday, 3 December 2012
The Fear
I started blogging when I lived in Dovecot Towers, a new but accursed, prematurely decrepit and chaotic apartment block which now seems like a bastion of sanity and comfort.
I remember the trials of life in that building: there was a murder, after all, and I witnessed the aftermath of a man taking his own life. There were drug dealers, prostitutes, burglaries and assaults. There were evictions, repossessions, thefts and frostiness and distance replaced neighbourliness, not to mention that the building was falling down.
But nothing is as fearful as reading my own statcounter – the tool allowing me to view what search terms used to find me.
And it’s horrible. Every other question shows real fear, with the words ‘I’m afraid of…’ followed by a varying and increasing list of terrifying eventualities and dreadful possibilities. Flatmates, are (as I wrote previously: see links) increasing menacing, especially when they are unavoidable, and claimants (remember, most housing benefit claimants are in work) are paid only enough to share.
Then comes landlord terror, refined and honed, adding phrases like: my landlord is visiting unannounced, scared my landlord will evict me, I can’t pay my rent, they won’t renew my lease, won’t let me stay. Then there’s I am afraid of benefit cuts, I am afraid to move, afraid to go home, afraid of the future.
Letting agents? I am afraid if I ask for repairs, then they will give me notice, scared they will keep my deposit. Scared they will discover I lost my job…scared they will blame me for the stain on the carpet… scared they will find my cat.
Benefit cuts and rising rents mean tenants have not choice but leaving their home (rising rents in the South, or benefit cuts everywhere) and they have need a payday loan with crippling interest to cover another deposit, while they wait for the other one to be returned after the now traditional dispute about what is reasonable wear and tear and what is vandalism.
When did renting start resembling a horror film? Why are tenants living in constant fear? There is mounting insecurity, a feeling that nobody is on their (our) side, and that we have nowhere to go if things go wrong, and had better move as demanded without a murmur.
Research by the World Health Organisation on sound intrusion has shown the detrimental impact of stress on well-being, happiness and health. Perhaps I am over-interpreting data, but any fool knows that feeling constantly undermined and insecure, being afraid all the time makes people ill, since it has a deleterious effect on the immune system (it’s one possible explanation for the premature death of those classed as financially poor.)
I’d love to see a study of the health of long-term, perhaps lifelong tenants, with regard to mortality rates and longevity, as I am certain it wouldn’t be a pretty picture (evidence required, obviously, but that’s my hypo-deductive hunch…)
But the most regularly occurring and consequently, the most upsetting, worrying and sinister search-term, is rarely refined, or re-defined – it’s simply: ‘Really scared of my landlord.’
Another popular term, meanwhile is this heart-warming gem: ‘Tenants are scum.’
I remember the trials of life in that building: there was a murder, after all, and I witnessed the aftermath of a man taking his own life. There were drug dealers, prostitutes, burglaries and assaults. There were evictions, repossessions, thefts and frostiness and distance replaced neighbourliness, not to mention that the building was falling down.
But nothing is as fearful as reading my own statcounter – the tool allowing me to view what search terms used to find me.
And it’s horrible. Every other question shows real fear, with the words ‘I’m afraid of…’ followed by a varying and increasing list of terrifying eventualities and dreadful possibilities. Flatmates, are (as I wrote previously: see links) increasing menacing, especially when they are unavoidable, and claimants (remember, most housing benefit claimants are in work) are paid only enough to share.
Then comes landlord terror, refined and honed, adding phrases like: my landlord is visiting unannounced, scared my landlord will evict me, I can’t pay my rent, they won’t renew my lease, won’t let me stay. Then there’s I am afraid of benefit cuts, I am afraid to move, afraid to go home, afraid of the future.
Letting agents? I am afraid if I ask for repairs, then they will give me notice, scared they will keep my deposit. Scared they will discover I lost my job…scared they will blame me for the stain on the carpet… scared they will find my cat.
Benefit cuts and rising rents mean tenants have not choice but leaving their home (rising rents in the South, or benefit cuts everywhere) and they have need a payday loan with crippling interest to cover another deposit, while they wait for the other one to be returned after the now traditional dispute about what is reasonable wear and tear and what is vandalism.
When did renting start resembling a horror film? Why are tenants living in constant fear? There is mounting insecurity, a feeling that nobody is on their (our) side, and that we have nowhere to go if things go wrong, and had better move as demanded without a murmur.
Research by the World Health Organisation on sound intrusion has shown the detrimental impact of stress on well-being, happiness and health. Perhaps I am over-interpreting data, but any fool knows that feeling constantly undermined and insecure, being afraid all the time makes people ill, since it has a deleterious effect on the immune system (it’s one possible explanation for the premature death of those classed as financially poor.)
I’d love to see a study of the health of long-term, perhaps lifelong tenants, with regard to mortality rates and longevity, as I am certain it wouldn’t be a pretty picture (evidence required, obviously, but that’s my hypo-deductive hunch…)
But the most regularly occurring and consequently, the most upsetting, worrying and sinister search-term, is rarely refined, or re-defined – it’s simply: ‘Really scared of my landlord.’
Another popular term, meanwhile is this heart-warming gem: ‘Tenants are scum.’
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