LATEST: Rogue letting agencies kicked out of sector after failing to pay landlords compensation

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Landlords are being warned about three lettings agencies which have been expelled from the industry after failing to pay awards for poor service and, in one case, ‘recklessly’ referencing a tenant.

The three agents who between them owe landlords nearly £5,000 in compensation are Saville Park Ltd in Slough, Sun Properties in Leicester and Property Dragon in Porth, Wales.

All three had been directed to pay awards to landlords who had complained about poor service and, after these issues were not sorted out informally, referred to The Property Ombudsman (TPO).

Two of them are understood to be trading under alternative names but with the same directors or ownership.

But, as is the case for all the ombudsman schemes, the three lettings agencies are now banned from operating within the industry legally because they no longer have access to redress.

TPO says it understands that The Property Dragon Limited has already ceased trading and has been dissolved and removed from Companies House, but could be trading as Property Solutions Wales Porth.

The Property Dragon failed to pay a landlord £1,180 compensation after the firm’s management of a property failed to reach minimum standards set out in TPO’s Code of Practice.

Tenant complaints

Saville Park Ltd in Slough has been expelled after tenants complained about repairs and maintenance of their rental property, the provision of documentation, the end of tenancy procedures, provision of the landlord’s details and complaints handling.

But the more shocking of the three cases is Sun Properties in Leicester which was required to pay £3,220 in compensation after a landlord complained that the firm had carried out ‘reckless’ references on a tenant and used a deposit to clear rent arrears.

The ombudsman found that the agency had failed to carry out even basic checks on the tenant, had only obtained a single landlord reference and not checked a guarantor. The tenant stopped paying the rent soon after taking up the tenancy and caused damage to the property totalling £500.

Sun Properties’ has a website but appears not to be trading and instead, TPO warns, appears to have ‘phoenixed’ as Sunrise Properties Leicester.

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Rogue management board and cladding grant funding?

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Can anyone provide some guidance regarding The Private Sector ACM Cladding Remediation Fund? We are a residents group with apartments in an 8-floor building.

We are extremely dissatisfied with the way the current management board (one individual in particular) have been running our affairs

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EICR has thrown a complete spanner in the works?

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Can anyone help? We have 10 properties all currently let and very few issues – life good right?

Along comes the EICR legislation and throws a complete spanner in the works. We have used the same Electrician for a number of years and trusted him completely

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MHCLG Right to Rent Checker

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The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government has published a Right to Rent guide for landlords with a basic checklist designed to confirm if a tenant has the right to rent and stay, backed up with a guide for the documents required to provide evidence.

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BREAKING: All students to return to campus from 17th May onwards, government confirms

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The Department of Education has also made an extra £15 million available to students who are struggling to pay their rent due to the pandemic.

This will cover both international and postgraduate students along with their domestic undergraduate counterparts.

The announcement is ‘Step 3’ in the government’s relaxation of Covid restrictions roadmap in England, assuming the steps preceding it roll out without infections, hospitalisations and deaths rising again.

Arts and ‘practical’ students have already been allowed to return sinc early March with an estimated 49 per cent of students already eligible to return to in-person teaching, subject to decisions by their institutions, while the remainder have continued to attend online lectures and seminars.

Covid testing

But the remaining students who return will have to jump through several Covid hoops in order to return to campus.

Returning students will have to take three supervised Covid tests, each three to five days apart regardless of whether they have symptoms or not. And they will have to take Covid Lateral Flow Tests twice weekly all the way through the summer term.

All tests will be free, and all students and staff who test positive from an LFD test will need to self-isolate for ten days, unless they receive a negative polymerase chain reaction or PCR test within two days.

Find out more about Covid student accommodation tenancies.

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EXCLUSIVE: ‘This is how PRS needs to be reformed to work better’

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Private rented sector expert Paul Shamplina has set out some key ideas to reform the market for privately rented homes so that it works better for both landlords and tenants.

Shamplina, who is consulted by civil servants when new regulations are being framed, says the key areas that need reform include the broken Universal Credit rent payment system, evictions and the dual problems of rogue tenants and landlords.

He says the government needs to think long and hard before banning Section 21 notice evictions.

“If S21s are banned then it is going to make landlords much more exposed to the kind of serial rogue tenants who play the system, and this will dramatically change referencing,” he told popular industry podcast Property Jam.

“Landlords are going to scrutinise tenants much closely before they get the keys and I think the voluntary schemes that link people’s credit scores to their rental payment track record need to be put on a more official footing.”

Tenant rogue databases

Shamplina has already told ministry of housing officials that the UK needs a national rogue tenant database – as exists in Australia – and that a ‘three strikes’ system should be introduced for landlords to exclude the worst offenders.

He told the podcast presenters this would be more effective than the current national rogue landlords database, which so far has only a handful of people listed after three years in operation, and is only available to local councils, not the public.

Also, the Landlord Action founder says the government’s decision to allow tenants on Universal Credit to be paid their rent direct has caused significant problems for thousands of landlords because it is difficult, and sometimes impossible, to persuade the DWP to pay a landlord the rent directly when a tenant is struggling to manage their finances.

“I always say that there are more rogue tenants than there will ever be rogue landlords, but at the moment the regulatory and political campaigning doesn’t reflect this reality,” he says.

Listen to the Property Jam podcast for free.

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High profile East Anglian landlord fined over offences at infamous apartment block

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An much lauded landlord with his own Wikipedia page whose block of flats was in such a poor state that all the tenants had to be rehomed has been fined £6,100.

Nick Sutton, a director of Faiths Lane Apartments, which ran 60 Faiths Lane in Norwich, admitted six offences at Great Yarmouth Magistrates Court relating to breaches under the Housing Act.

It heard that following a complaint by a resident in December 2017, Norwich City Council inspectors visited the 40-flat block and found problems including fire hazards.

In January 2018, an engineer inspected the electrics and found hundreds of defects. Sutton was handed eight improvement notices, requiring him to fix defects by the end of June.

But, during another inspection in August 2018, inspectors found a smoke alarm hanging from a ceiling, large gaps between the rails in a stairway, putting children at high risk, a lack of smoke detectors, damp and mould on walls and defective fire doors in the basement boiler room.

Prohibition order

In October 2018, the council put a prohibition order on the building and ordered all tenants to leave, paying them compensation totalling £50,000.

In March 2020, the Royal Courts of Justice’s Upper Tribunal ordered Sutton and his company to jointly pay £174,000 for failing to fix the apartment block, a 70% reduction on the original £572,000 sought by the council.

Sutton told the court he had no previous convictions and that there were only issues with five of the 144 fire doors in the building.

Following his latest court appearance, District Judge Shanta Deonarine fined Sutton £6,100, as well as £4,000 costs and a victim surcharge of £610.

Long and difficult

A Norwich City Council spokesman told the Norwich Evening News that it was a long and difficult case. He adds: “We acted swiftly to protect the residents of St Faiths Lane after it become clear how serious and appalling the conditions were at these premises.

“Our private sector housing team has worked tirelessly to bring this case to a positive conclusion, and we’re delighted with the outcome.”

Sutton put the property on the market via a local estate agency for £5.5 million, and it has recently been refurbished and turned into upmarket short-term rental apartments (pictured).

PIC CREDIT: Booking.com

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SURVEY: Landlords worried by home working trend and what it means for PRS

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More than half of landlords have lost confidence in the buy-to-let market as uncertainty around home working, property prices post Covid-19, concern about future tax hikes and fear of rent arrears when the furlough scheme ends in September have kicked in.

Rentround’s survey of 20,000 landlords shows 20% are looking to leave while 33% are unsure about their future.

It says landlords worry that prices could dip due to the exodus away from London and the big cities, as well as companies embracing working from home policies.

Rentround found that letting agent fees – the biggest expense for landlords – is the most important factor when choosing an agent (28%), followed by the agent’s ability to quickly find tenants and fill void periods (27%) and to give a hands-off, headache-free landlord life (20%).

While 28% of landlords find agents on the high street, 27% use Google as their main source.

Tenant find-only services is what 39% of landlords want from an agent, while 30% report they’ll be looking for a guaranteed rent service next time, according to Rentround, which says this fits with a similar rise in guaranteed rent searches it has seen on the site since the first lockdown in March 2020.

Rentround founder Raj Dosanjh (pictured) believes it will be interesting to see how the number of landlords choosing letting agents with a high street presence changes as more agents adopt online or hybrid approaches.

He adds: “Guaranteed rent continues in popularity. The uncertainty brought about by eviction bans, the future ending of furlough and changes in tenant behaviour is pushing landlords for safer approaches where their rental income is concerned.”

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PM advertises prospective tenants with animals will be ‘considered’

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Dog loving Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, has advertised his Oxfordshire cottage for rent at £4,250 a month with the listing confirming prospective tenants with animals will be ‘considered’.

It remains to be seen how ‘considered’ a pet-owning tenant will be in his £1.2 million Grade II-listed 4-bed family cottage.

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Unsatisfactory EICR is an absolute shower?

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The electrician who recently did an EICR for my property found the installation “Unsatisfactory”, one of the reasons being that the shower circuit (6mm twin and earth) is overrated with a 40A overcurrent device.

In 2017 I had a new 18th edition consumer unit installed and that electrician provided a complete Domestic Electrical Installation Certificate valid for 5 years to the next inspection.

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