Kent landlord is banned for life from contacting local council

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Controversial landlord Fergus Wilson has been banned for life from contacting his local council directly after losing a High Court battle.

Multi-millionaire Wilson has been slapped with an injunction after the court heard he had sent hundreds of letters and emails and made needless phone calls and formal complaints against officers, councillors and legal representatives.

He sent one letter to council leader Gerry Clarkson’s home address, encouraging him to ‘do all the young people in Ashford a service and commit suicide’. 

In another, Wilson referred to a female member of staff as an ‘objectionable fat lady’ and ‘Michelin lady’ when calling for her to be fired. 

In his judgment, Daryl Allen QC said: “The defendant’s conduct repeatedly went far beyond merely irritating and annoying, it was deliberately offensive. It included numerous unfounded allegations of professional misconduct and criminal conduct.”

Interim junction

It supports the previous interim injunction which Ashford Council was awarded in July 2020 and means the landlord will now only be able to contact it through a named legal advisor. A council spokesman says: “The judgement has vindicated the council’s decision to take the unusual step of resorting to litigation in order to protect its staff and councillors.”

Wilson admits that he called a staff member ‘Michelin Lady’, after receiving a letter which he took gross offence to, when Ashford Council failed to respond to his Freedom of Information request. He then decided to stop letting properties in Ashford when the council issued harassment proceedings.

He tells LandlordZONE: “All properties were either sold or spoken for before the outcome of the council’s application was known. I am sorry for all the tenants who had been with us for many years. They are totally innocent victims.”

Wilson recently offered to sell some of the remaining 150 houses from his 970-strong portfolio to the Home Office or Kent County Council to help address the issue of homeless asylum seekers, as he plans to retire and leave himself just 10 houses.

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – Kent landlord is banned for life from contacting local council | LandlordZONE.

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Labour the party of home ownership?

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Before the Labour Party conference, Lucy Powell, Shadow housing secretary said: “Labour is the party of homeownership, the Tories are the party of speculators and developers. They treat housing as a commodity, not the bedrock of stable lives and life chances.”

Labour has announced plans to:

Give councils powers to force landowners to sell vacant sites to build new housing at lower prices than the compulsory purchase system currently allows.

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Say goodbye to gas, electrical and EPC paperwork, new platform promises landlords

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An online platform has officially launched that helps landlords eliminate one of their most tiresome admin headaches – getting EPC, electrical and gas safety certificates completed on time.

Called Symple, it enables landlords so register their rental property and then flag up when each of the three mandatory certificates were last completed and the platform does the rest each time they become due.

Founder Simon Dresdner says his service guarantees that the work will be completed and that each certificate will be sent to the landlord in time and, if not, the certificate is provided for free.

Best described as a cross between birthday card website Moonpig and a property maintenance platform like Fixflo, Dresdner says rather than landlords having to do the chasing his team ensure the work is taken up by its army of 700 local service providers, who are then chased if they fall behind schedule.

“Some 80% of jobs don’t require chasing, but we ensure that the 20% that do aren’t allowed to lag behind – for example if an electrician picks up one of our EICR electrical inspection jobs and has hasn’t booked an appointment to visit the property within 24 hours, we chase them,” he says.

“We are also unique because our service covers all three types of certificate and also all of the UK.

“Most importantly, we’ve focused on taking the faff out of landlord lives when it comes to electrical and gas safety inspections and EPC compliance.”

Symple has been under development for several years and soft-launched a few months ago with around 200 landlords already using its service.

Dresdner says the service will eventually offer non-mandatory services such as boiler repairs and maintenance and electrical PAT testing. Symple charges £50 for gas and EPC certificates and £125 for an EICR certificate.

Read more about the mandatory certificates needed for a rental property.

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – Say goodbye to gas, electrical and EPC paperwork, new platform promises landlords | LandlordZONE.

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Local council is offering to lease my flats?

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Hi everyone, My local council is offering to lease my flats on an interim lease agreement, whereby they would use the properties as temporary accommodation for households owed a duty under S188 or S193 of the Homelessness Reduction Act.

Can I ask if anyone has done this with their properties and let them out on this basis?

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Planners error lands council in court – Your proposal is whack!

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Planners Error Lands Them in COURT! What steps you can take if you have a planning refusal

Linda and I discuss a bizarre mix-up ‘Your proposal is whack’: Chaos as ‘junior worker’ who thought he was testing a dummy council website rejects and approves REAL planning applications with BONKERS reasons such as an approval with the condition Incy Wincy Spider

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