Rogue landlady faces jail over long-running campaign of violence against tenants

admin    Uncategorized     agents

A rogue landlady has been convicted of illegally evicting tenants during a decade-long campaign of violence, theft and vandalism.

Sohila Tamiz, of Flint Lane, Lenham, even helped organise a gang of 10 to douse one man in petrol and smash his teeth, the trial at Canterbury Crown Court heard.

Tenants at flats in Athelstan Road, Margate, saw locks changed, toilets broken, flooring removed, electricity sabotaged and masked men ordering them to leave between 2011 and 2021.

Some were forced to go without heating and evicted after falsely having drugs pinned on them.

In what Thanet Council believes is the largest prosecution of its kind for eviction offences, Tamiz was found guilty on five counts of conspiring to unlawfully evict a tenant, eight counts of conspiring to, or interfering with, the peace or comfort of a residential occupier, and one count of conspiring to burgle.

Unlawful eviction

Her son Pedram Tamiz was found guilty of two counts of conspiring to unlawfully evict a tenant, and five counts of conspiring to, or interfering with, the peace or comfort of a residential occupier.

Enforcer Adam McChesney, of Gloucester Avenue, Margate, was found guilty of two counts of conspiring to unlawfully evict a tenant, and three counts of conspiring to interfere with the peace or comfort of a residential occupier.

Agent Kasem El Darrat, of Athelstan Road, Margate, was found guilty of one count of conspiring to unlawfully evict a tenant, and one count of conspiring to interfere with the peace or comfort of a residential occupier.

Read more: How to handle the evictions process.

Councillor Jill Bayford, cabinet member for housing, says: “We hope that this outcome sends out the serious message to other landlords in the district and further afield that criminal activity, or any intimidatory or threatening behaviour towards tenants, will not be tolerated, but will instead be routinely prosecuted.”

The council is now gathering victim statements ahead of sentencing, which is due to take place on 10^th October.

Read more about Margate.

View Full Article: Rogue landlady faces jail over long-running campaign of violence against tenants

Landlords face ‘scandalous situation’ as housing payment problems continue – expert

admin    Uncategorized     agents

A Universal Credit expert has warned that the “scandalous situation” of landlords trying to access housing payments is getting worse.

Bill Irvine at UC Advice & Advocacy claims the DWP is simply making up rules as it goes along, often explaining that it can’t speak to landlords directly when dealing with cases where tenants have refused consent for payments to be redirected.

“These rules are designed to frustrate and impede landlords looking to get their rightful entitlement,” he tells LandlordZONE.

“They’re basing the line they give about not sharing information on one meeting where a private organisation warned it would evict a tenant if it found out they were receiving benefits – which is illegal.

“The DWP now just repeat that and are misinforming landlords. They can share this information but are choosing not to.”

Deny redirection

Irvine is currently dealing with a case where a tenant accrued £9,000 in rent arrears and the landlord has applied many times to have the housing costs redirected. He discovered that the tenant has twice exercised her ‘option’ – supposedly based on UC regulations – to deny redirection.

“No such option is available, certainly not in the regulation that created the Alternative Payment Arrangement scheme,” he asserts.

Although the DWP often takes the tenant’s side, says Irvine, he has also been involved in a case where one tenant’s payments – a former refugee – were suspended despite the fact he’d provided exhaustive amounts of ID.

‘Confidentiality’

Irvine raised his case directly with DWP’s director general’s office, explaining that the tenant’s landlord was willing to rehouse him immediately. At first, the DWP would not share any information because of GDPR and ‘confidentiality’ reasons but finally restored the Universal Credit and wiped out 95% of the rent owed, which resulted in the tenant being offered a new tenancy.

Irvine adds: “I hope the courts will start challenging the DWP during eviction cases and apply more pressure but until that happens this situation will only get worse.”

LandlordZONE has contacted DWP for comment.

Read more stories about APAs.

View Full Article: Landlords face ‘scandalous situation’ as housing payment problems continue – expert

Build-to-rent giant takes a side-swipe at landlords as it trumpets benefits

admin    Uncategorized     agents

Build-to-rent developer Grainger has taken a dig at private landlords by extolling the virtues of the purpose-built sector.

Naming decorating restrictions and restrictive tenancies as some of the common myths around rental properties – obliquely referring to the perceived drawbacks of the traditional PRS – resident services manager James Bell says contrary to popular belief, those in a rental property aren’t completely limited when it comes to decorating or doing DIY.

“Some build-to-rent operators go one step further and in many properties allow residents to paint the walls within their apartment, providing they have signed up for a reasonable length of tenancy and that the space is returned to its original condition before vacating the property,” he explains.

Unbreakable

Bell says another common myth is that renting involves lengthy unbreakable contracts that can incur charges when a contract or lease is prematurely ended by a tenant.

“Many build-to-rent developments offer flexible solutions for residents, such as ‘stay as long as you want’ tenancy options in the case of Grainger,” he adds.

“This flexibility offers residents peace of mind, as well as the opportunity to relocate, downsize or upsize at far greater ease.”

Although all landlords will soon have to accept reasonable requests for pets as part of the new renting reforms, he says Grainger already has multiple pet-friendly properties which allow residents to live with their furry friends at home.

“Some developments even offer residents doggy bowls, water, and treats for dogs,” adds Bell.

Read more about BTR.

View Full Article: Build-to-rent giant takes a side-swipe at landlords as it trumpets benefits

40% of privately rented homes won’t make 2028 deadline – agents claim

admin    Uncategorized     agents

Forty per cent of privately rented homes in England are unlikely to achieve the energy efficiency rating target that is due to come into force in 2028.

Trade organisation Propertymark says its analysis of the latest English Housing Survey shows that 60 per cent of the rental sector will have achieved the minimum EPC C rating by that year, leaving the rest technically unable to be rented out.

The draft strategy includes a ‘preferred policy scenario’ for new tenancies to have a valid EPC rating of ‘C’ or above by 2025, extending to all tenancies by 2028.

But Propertymark is calling for the UK Government to move away from a one-size-fits-all policy in favour of energy efficiency proposals that consider a property’s age, condition, and size rather than its tenure.

Its Lagging Behind report highlights the variances in retrofitting costs based on individual characteristics and regional property values.

It includes proposals for local councils to develop ‘one stop shops’ to engage with landlords to find suitable methods to facilitate retrofit at pace which has also been recommended by stakeholders such as the Local Government Association.

Incentive?

“We knew it would be a huge challenge for the PRS to achieve the proposed 2028 target because the owners of rental properties will not directly benefit from lower energy bills, so where is their incentive?” says Timothy Douglas, (pictured) Head of Policy and Campaigns for Propertymark.

“The data in the English Housing Survey shows just how far there is to go.

“Our member agents are already seeing rental properties disappearing from the market for a variety of reasons and there is a real danger more could go with the EPC rating target hanging over them.”

Read more: Ultiamte guide to MEES and the EPC system.

View Full Article: 40% of privately rented homes won’t make 2028 deadline – agents claim

LATEST: Councils mount ‘flurry’ of new initiatives to regulate HMOs

admin    Uncategorized     agents

Councils around the country are launching a flurry of HMO rules and proposals – in York, North Northamptonshire and Hounslow.

York Council hopes to introduce additional HMO licensing in eight of the city’s wards: Hull Road, Guildhall, Fishergate, Clifton, Heworth, Micklegate, Osbaldwick and Derwent, Fulford and Heslington.

This would increase the number of properties needing a licence from about 1,000 to 3,000, in a scheme scheduled to start in April 2023.

The council aims to improve health and safety standards and HMO management after a consultation shaped new recommendations in a report which will go to the council’s executive on 28th July.

In North Northamptonshire, residents are being asked to take part in a two-month public consultation to explain how they’ve been affected by HMOs.

They can even pinpoint specific properties where they have had issues. It follows a council plan to scrutinise the level of HMOs in six key areas: Kingswood and Hazel Leys, Corby West, Clover Hill and Northall in Kettering, Finedon, and Croyland and Swanspool in Wellingborough.

The council says it wants to work with landlords, tenants and other stakeholders to use “the whole suite of regulation and planning requirements”, which could include an Article 4 direction.

Read more: Ultimate guide to HMOs.

Meanwhile, Hounslow Council has introduced an Article 4 direction for landlords wanting planning permission to covert family homes into HMOs. It says the new measure – which takes effect in a year’s time – aims to address increasing concerns among residents about the negative impact of HMOs in their local communities, which have been blighted by an increased level of anti-social behaviour, fly-tipping and noise.

Councillor Tom Bruce (pictured), cabinet member for regeneration and development, says: “It’s clear that many HMOs are having a detrimental impact on the local community and this new measure will ensure thorough oversight – protecting both the tenants in HMOs and the communities that surround them.”

A consultation runs until 9th September.

Read more about York landlords.

View Full Article: LATEST: Councils mount ‘flurry’ of new initiatives to regulate HMOs

Have your say on the Renters Reform White Paper

admin    Uncategorized     agents

The Levelling Up, Housing and Communities select committee is launching a probe into the Renters Reform White Paper and is asking for evidence to answer a list of questions they consider unanswered. The closing date for submissions is 19 August 2022.

View Full Article: Have your say on the Renters Reform White Paper

Keep yourself up to date at the next Virtual National pin Meeting

admin    Uncategorized     agents

It is so important at the moment to keep up to date with the Property Market. On Wednesday 3rd August at 6 pm, the property investors network will be running their Virtual August National pin Meeting.

There are three amazing speakers

View Full Article: Keep yourself up to date at the next Virtual National pin Meeting

Cost of EPC improvements exceed landlord pain thresholds

admin    Uncategorized     agents

There is a gulf between the amount that landlords are willing to pay to meet proposed new EPC requirements and what it is actually likely to cost.

A survey of landlords carried out on behalf of Paragon Bank has found that 77% of landlords are willing to spend up to £3,000 to upgrade each property they own to EPC C in order to meet new regulations proposed by the Government

View Full Article: Cost of EPC improvements exceed landlord pain thresholds

Opinion: the case of an uncashed cheque raises many important questions

admin    Uncategorized     agents

With the recent publication of the Government’s policy paper, “A Fairer Private Rented Sector” here comes more uncertainty for landlords when it comes to the unfortunate situation where a landlord needs to evict a tenant. A recent legal eviction case, in my view, raises some issues that need answers.

Gul v Bilal (2021)

The case of Gul v Bilal involved a tenant eviction, issues around tenancy deposit protection, the section 8 and section 21 processes, and the non-cashing of a presented check.

Should a landlord fail to protect a tenancy deposit in one of the approved schemes, within the 30 days allowed, then not only is the landlord subject to a penalty of up the three times that deposit, and on the renewal of that tenancy, he or she cannot serve a valid section 21 notice.

One get-out-of-jail-free card with this is that according to the legislation, a valid section 21 notice can be served, providing the deposit monies are returned to the tenant in full before a section 21 notice is served.

Gul v Bilal (2021) is a county court case, so cannot be taken as binding on other cases, but to my mind it does raise some interesting and vital issues, especially given that landlords may no longer be able to use the section 21 eviction process if the proposed changes become law, which looks likely.

The case revolved primarily around the question of whether landlord Mr Gul’s action of presenting Mr Bilal with a cheque amounted to returning the deposit, when in fact Mr Bilal said he never accepted it and never presented it to his bank.

If the action of presenting the cheque made the money available to the tenant, could this not be deemed to be legally returning the deposit? If so, following this action the landlord would be in a position to serve a valid section 21 notice, if not then he wouldn’t. This was the question facing the court.

The run-up to the dispute

The background to the case was that Mr Bilal was behind with his rent payments. Mr Gul served Mr Bilal with a Housing Act 1988 section 8 notice citing grounds 8, 10 and 11 (common grounds used for rent arrears). Unlike a section 21 notice – where the landlord does not have to state grounds (reasons) for eviction, and usually leads to an eviction without the need for a court hearing, section 8 always requires a hearing.

Grounds 8, 10 and 11 of Schedule 2 of the Housing Act 1988 are mandatory grounds. This means that the judge does not have discretion as to whether or not to grant possession, providing the grounds are met.

Unfortunately for Mr Gul, the tenant in his determination to avoid eviction came up with a couple of tactics that would help him do that: Mr Bilal counter-claimed against Mr Gul citing disrepair in the property, and also non-protection of the deposit, for which penalties would be due.

I’m not saying that there was no justification for what Mr Bilal was doing, just my observation that in many such cases counter-claims are actions sometimes used to delay or prevent an eviction.

Covid arrived and intervened in the hearing process, but in February 2021 the case was reactivated and notice was served for a directions hearing to take place. This is where the court gives instructions to the parties as to how they are to proceed and prepare their case.

However, just before the directions hearing Mr Gul presumably had second thoughts, and here I surmise, realising that taking the section 8 route for rent arrears, and subsequently receiving a counter claim against himself, he would probably have been better using the no-fault section 21 route.

There was however a major obstacle preventing section 21. That was the deposit that he had taken and not protected. He needed to use his get-out-of-jail-free card before service of the section 21 notice and that was to return the deposit in full, which by the way he had done by way of a cheque given by hand at the property to Mr Bilal in January 2020, when he served the original section 8 notice.

He decided to serve a section 21 notice, and waited for two months (the notice period) which expired just before the court hearing. Mr Gull then applied to have the court rely on the section 21 notice, which would mean he could bay-pass the section 8 proceedings.

A question of when payment is made

The question the judge had to decide was, could the landlord rely on his presenting a cheque, which was not cashed? Could it be accepted as having legally returned the deposit to the tenant, and so allowing the section 21 – the mandatory possession proceedings – to succeed?

Unfortunately for Mr Gul, the judge didn’t think so. The tenant argued that although he had been given the cheque he did not accept it, he did not accept the return of his deposit, and the landlord agreed that it had not been cashed.

The ruling

The judge agreed with the tenant that the deposit amount had not been returned, and the section 21 notice was therefore invalid. The court dismissed the application to use section 21 and directed that the claim proceed based on section 8 (rent arrears grounds) and to deal with the counterclaim. Costs for the direction hearing were awarded against the landlord because the judge argued the landlord’s section 21 application was last minute, which did not even consider the tenant’s claim, defence and counterclaim.

In making the decision the district judge had to rely on previous judgements that determined that (1) a section 21 notice would be valid only if served after a returned deposit had actually been received, (2) that a cheque would have to be accepted by the tenant to represent payment, and (3) if accepted, the cheque would have to clear, but if it did clear the deposit return date would be when the cheque was given and accepted.

So, in the Gul v Balal case these requirements had not been met in full. The District Judge therefore refused to allow the S21 notice to be relied upon and the original claim and counter-claim were directed for trial.

A similar case with a different outcome

The case of Andy Coltrane v Janice Day (2003) involved a section 8 rent arrears eviction where the tenant had given the landlord a cheque on the morning of the possession claim hearing.

In order to meet the mandatory possession grounds for section 8, the landlord needed to show that the tenant was two months in arrears – on the day of the hearing. Here again, the question the court had to decide was whether the cheque was to be deemed to have been paid when the landlord received it (on the morning of the trial) or whether the landlord would have to present the cheque at his or her the bank before the arrears were to be deemed paid in full.

At a hearing in September 2002 the tenant handed to the landlord a cheque for the full amount of the rent arrears. The landlord accepted the cheque and it was subsequently met when presented. The judge decided that the rent was unpaid on the day of the hearing and made out an order for possession. The tenant appealed.

The appeal outcome in Coltrane v Day

The appeal court determined in Coltrane v Day that delivery of a cheque was a “conditional” payment and if the cheque was subsequently cleared by the bank, and met in full, this was then deemed payment from the date of delivery.

This principle, the appeal court said, applied to ground 8. If the cheque cleared, the debt was deemed to have been paid when the cheque had been given.

So, the cheque had been delivered to the landlord just before the hearing and had been accepted by him. Further, he had been bound by his contract to accept as he had done with previous rent payments, and therefore the cheque had to be treated as payment of the arrears in full at the date of delivery, providing that it subsequently cleared through the bank.

The appeal court said that district judge at the first trial could have adjourned the claim to see whether the cheque cleared. The appeal court ruled that the judge had been wrong to make out a possession order. It was therefore set aside.

Lessons learned and issues arising

It is clearly unwise to rely on repaying a deposit by cheque before serving a section 21 notice unless it has been accepted, and preferably cleared through the bank.

Rent will not be deemed to be in arrears under the section 8 mandatory possession proceedings if a cheque for the arrears is given at the date of the hearing, accepted by the landlord and subsequently clears through the bank.

An interesting question would be, and I don’t know the answer, what if Mr Gul had repaid Mr Balal’s deposit through a back transfer directly into the tenant’s bank account?

Some general questions about section 8

In the light of the possible changes in the Government’s policy paper, “A Fairer Private Rented Sector” section 8 will be the only route available to landlords – effectively, if the suggested changes become law, and that’s far from settled, the assured shorthold tenancy (AST) will no longer exist, tenancies will be periodic from day one and effectively assured tenancies (AT).

This will certainly redress the balance of power from the landlord to the tenant and some would argue, tips the scales the other way – the tenant has full security of tenure. The Government has said that section 8 will be amended, adding more grounds and giving landlords more certainty, but it’s hard to see how this will be made to work in practice given the adversarial system of the courts – there will be no ground for possession equivalent to section 21.

Gul v Bilal raises an important issue to my mind: tenants can easily use tactics that, even in the worst cases of breach of contract, for example rent arrears, anti-social behaviour and damage to the property, certainly under the present regime, prevent or cause lengthy delays to eviction.

Filing a counter-claim is one major example of a delaying tactic. It is not easy for a landlord to disprove breach of contract for defects in the property. The hearing is usually adjured for a future hearing, perhaps 6 months down the line, pending expert reports, while all the time rent is not being paid and further hearing necessary – the process can drag on inexorably.

Further hearings mean more and more expense and if the landlord loses, he or she is paying the tenant’s legal costs. If the tenant has a barrister at public expense then he or she is unconcerned about the costs, but the landlord is really up against it, and the legal costs will certainly rack up.

Will the new system prevent these last minute payment of rent tactics, right up to the day of the court hearing, when the landlord has committed time and expense to get the case to court? Will the tenant then go on to get into arrears again, only to repeat the same process?

The courts are overstretched as it is. If every eviction is to have a hearing using section 8, how much delay will there be under the new system? Will the amendments to section 8 adequately deal with the problem of tenants using delaying tactics as above, and running up astronomical costs.

View Full Article: Opinion: the case of an uncashed cheque raises many important questions

European property management platform for portfolio landlords launches in UK

admin    Uncategorized     agents

Proptech firm iDWELL has launched in the UK as it bids to become Europe’s leading digital solution for the property management sector.

The company digitises complex and time-consuming admin work and communication, and offers an integrated maintenance ticketing system along with full email and communication integration, automated workflow, and separate landlord- and tenant-facing apps. 

Founded in Vienna in 2017, iDWELL’s CRM solution and corresponding customer app manages more than 900,000 apartments and the company believes expansion into the UK market is the next logical step for the platform which has the potential to grow internationally.

Big topic

Alex Roth, founder & CEO, says it will offer close support to property managers when transferring over to the product, digitising their processes and making them more efficient in order to save time, resources and money.

“The feedback from our first UK customers and appointments has been excellent, so we are looking forward to supporting more customers to solve their issues and help their business grow,” he explains.

Alex Abbott, leader of iDWELL’s UK team, adds: “iDWELL is an outstanding product and ideal for the UK market where digitisation in the property management market is a big topic. We’re confident that this is exactly the right time to be launching and that iDWELL is now the best property management CRM on the UK market.”

View Full Article: European property management platform for portfolio landlords launches in UK