Forum Topic

Greedy Private landlords

Is there anything that can be done to greedy private landlords, when because of goverments caps on housing benifit, the cash cow they so enjoyed, when the council were paying them the exhorrbtent rents they asked for has now stopped and they have started to evict the families they were renting to, they also had the council and A2 Dominion do their flats up to take these tenants on, I guess these greedy landlords can legally rob the tax payers at their leisure?? If anyone has any advice or the lagelities of this practice, can they let me know.This is not me by the way I own my property and do not rent any property.

Diana Oneill ● 4987d16 Comments

That's Capitalism for you

Sarah Gates ● 4987d

Not sure I understand. Has the cap been applied already in Acton?I thought it is to be applied from April? And are there many families in Acton paying more rent than the new maximum? Surely most if not all of those families are entitled to alternative accommodation under the Housing Act? It might mean moving but baliffs aren't usually required for people who have somewhere else to go. What is the problem here?

Maire Lowe ● 4987d

Many landlords are just ordinary people who have invested in property by way of a pension and are trying to get a decent return on their money. I'm not one myself but I do get tired of their being demonised in this way

Susan Kelly ● 4987d

This particaular landlord has over 100 properties, lives in a £1.2 million hous himslef and still has lodgers in his house, he is not some poor man who is using his properties as his pension he is a multi millionaire who since last August knowing that this rant cap was coming has evicted 4 families, one with 6 children, one with five, two with 3, this man is charging £2400.00 for a 3 bedroom flat in Acton, the council has paid to do these flats up as they were in a terrible state for these familys and now the council has said they canot pay £2500.00 he is chucking these families out, there children go to school in the area and have settled down, surely this cannot be right that a modern day RACKMAN is allowed to get away with this, I thought this was abolished??

Diana Oneill ● 4986d

That is very interesting.  From what you say he is withdrawing from the rental market perhaps as his contract with the Council is coming to an end. To have your property renovated by the Council, you need to commit for a certain number of years. Is he selling his houses then? He would have been obliged to give the Council and his tenants notice to terminate this sort of contract. Have the families been settled somewhere else?

Maire Lowe ● 4986d

Oh, and there is another thread about an increase in houses for sale in certain roads. i wonder if there is a connection between this landlord withdrawing from the rental marker and larger houses coming on the market?

Maire Lowe ● 4986d

I suppose that it's quite possible that some of this landlord's properties are owned on a buy to let basis. Some lenders have reviewed loan to value ratios and subsequently demanded additional capital deposits and / or hiked up interest rates. It's quite possible that the headline "expensive" rent cost is actually not much more than the landlord's mortgage cost. The frequent hassles of renting (void periods, damage to property, bad tenants, endless agents fees etc.) combined with higher mortgage rates may just have stacked up to make the risk outweigh the return.

Chris Martin ● 4986d

Rackman let properties in a bad state of repair and overcrowded them. He would then intimidate and bully tenants. Have you any evidence that this businessman is doing anything like this rather than, say, just trying to get a decent return on his investment? What does the value of his own house have to do with the price of fish? He seems to be being criticised for being rich. While it would be nice if the very rich were generous and unselfish, no law requires this of them.As for 'evicting' people, I assume that their tenancies had come to an end and he chose not to renew them. Landlords do this all the time for many different reasons.

Susan Kelly ● 4986d

This landlord has bought several flats on the same eestate, only 4 have buy to let mortgages, the rest have normal mortgages, how he can phyiscally live in more than one flat is beyond me. He is now multi letting but only gives a contract to one tenant, so that is the only one registered as living there. He is very clever and knows the system inside out. He will tell a group of students that the rent is £2500.00 and it is up to them how many people lives there as long as he gets his £2500.00 per month.

Diana Oneill ● 4984d

I have been to some of his properties they are in an appalling state(you would'nt put a dog in some of them, he tells his multi tenants that he dose'nt care how many they have living there I have counted 9 at one point(and they bring in there own sub tenants)as long as he gets his rent which is £2500 per month on a 3 bedroom flat. My neighbour who was renting from him is a very hardworking family man and gets help with his rent from the council, is not in arrears, has made the place lovely and spotlesss imagine his surprise last week when he came home from work to find a court order telling him is is to be evicted when he phoned his landlord he refused to speak to him and let some lackey tell him that it was about the money and that he would get more money from multi letting (with no HMO licenses I should add, the council is investigating) this lovely man you are defending, has been taken to the the Residential tribunal on several occasion for various infractions and been found guilty, and been found guilty in a court of law on several occasions for harrasement and threatening behavior. Still think I am down on him becuase he is rich, I don't like him becuase of the way he treats people and skirts the law.

Diana Oneill ● 4984d

There is no way that Ealing Council would have paid £2500 for a normal 3 bedroom flat at any time.The Local Housing Allowance rent cap has been in for quite a long time now.There can be a fine of up to £20,000 for anyone caught renting out a HMO without a licence.Local Councils take the issues of poor housing quite seriously.You could find out the lender for a mortgage but not the type of mortgage it is.

Chris Lucy ● 4976d

I have seen the rent books of 2 tenants and the landlord has told A2 Diminion that thay are 4 bedroom flats but I have the priginal plans and they are 3 bedroom, Kate Crawford our councillor has been out to visit one of these families and she also says they are 3 bedroom, these are 30 purpose bulit flats bulit back in 1933 and they are all exactly the same I have lived in one for 19 years. Also he has found a loop hole which our councillor is trying to get aroung as he does not have HMo licenses for any of these flats and thats definete, please do not quote the council to me as I have been to every department there and noone wants to know, they shove you somewhere else as its not their problem. Where in this councils Utopia do you live as I have lived here for 25 years and can find noone to listen even when I have given them proof.

Diana Oneill ● 4976d

"most if not all of those families are entitled to alternative accommodation under the Housing Act..." This gets to the nub of the crisis that threatens to engulf thousands of people in April. A statutory entitlement can't conjour up premises that councils don't have, and London councils in particular will find themselves either (a) having to put families in the nightmare of B&B - something which we had seen the back of until recently, and/or (b) snapping up properties elsewhere, including outside London, where the benefit cap won't have an effect. Places like Slough are already seeing London councils hoovering up property - the upshot of which will be to drive up rents in a ripple effect, even in places where local incomes and rents are historically lower, so disadvantaging local residents. To put it in context, Karen Buck, MP for Westminster North, believes that not one single rental property in the borough of Westminster can be rented for a sum less than the new benefit cap (and it's not all posh there), so that council will inevitably look to export its problem.There are big problems around the corner in April that people just haven't spotted yet.

Steve Donnelly ● 4976d

Re  I don't like him becuase          xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx he sounds a thoroughly disgusting character! How people like him can sleep at nights  escapes me and it is obvious he does not need to squeeze the last drop of blood out of his tenants. I hope the Local Authority make life very difficult for him such as with  places being used as H M O's, insist on very costly fire regulation compliances.

Tony Price ● 4975d

Re  the rest have normal mortgages,            xxxxxxxxxxxxx    shop him, and have no qualms in doing so. Treat him as he does others.

Tony Price ● 4975d

Re  they shove you somewhere else           xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx  the quality of Local Authorities is going to the dogs, fings ain't what they used to be.

Tony Price ● 4975d