All posts by Ben Reeve-Lewis
Cannabis Factory – Landlords Case Study...
How do you know if your property is being used as a Cannabis factory?
I’m writing this, having been involved recently in a case where a landlord got caught in this conundrum. Leona… we will call her...
Is rent hiking a good business model?
It’s been a while since I wrote anything in my ‘Don’t shoot the messenger’ series. Mainly because I kept getting shot ha-ha.
But I have a tough skin.
This article is an open letter to all you P118...
Homelessness suitability order and PRS landlords by Ben Reeve-Lewis...
A bombshell was dropped recently. Admittedly an expected Bombshell, but it took all us people working in the public sector by surprise in the speed of introducing the Homelessness Suitability Order, having...
Ben Reeve-Lewis has a possession question for district judges...
Are district judges staging an unspoken rebellion in possession cases?
This article is largely based on possession claims brought by social landlords but I ask you, the PRS landlord reader, to think about...
Might the word ‘Landlord’ be damaging relationships?
I’ve been writing for P118 for a while now and feel I have connected with enough sane voices here to put forward a slightly more insane idea for reasoned discussion, ideas that have been occurring to...
The quiet revolution among letting agents...
I have a suit but I hardly ever wear it. It’s only a cheap one, £100 from Zara’s a couple of years back, I use it for court sometimes. Some people were born to wear them; they carry them off...
Jugaad...
My article this time is more of an open question to which I would like your input. Background first.
I was listening to ‘In Business’ on Radio 4 the other day, a programme about something I had not...
Don’t Shoot the Messenger #10...
I recently had a long online discussion with Mary Latham, in which we both tried to get to the bottom of the legal stuff around whether or not a managing agent is allowed to sign a Section 21 notice.
We...
Ben Reeve Lewis at 2012 The Property Investor Show...
A Connecticut Yankee in the Court of King Arthur – or if you prefer, A Tenancy Relations Officer at a Property Investor’s Show.
Around 120 years ago Mark Twain wrote the classic fish out of water tale...
Don’t Shoot the Messenger #9 – How the Police can land you...
Imagine the scenario. You are being threatened or assaulted in the street, your home has been burgled, your car has been stolen. Who ya gonna call? The cops of course, because they know their stuff, act...
Systems thinking for the PRS...
An article written in ire is not usually a good thing generally but my ire this time has been growing for some time and based on sound and constructive principles that I think many P118 readers, especially...
Rogue Landlords II – A Definitive List...
Before I got sucked into housing I trained in Cognitive Linguistics, the study of how language can be used to show how we make sense of the world, our beliefs and interpretations of a larger reality.
One...
Sorting the Rogues from the Ridiculous...
I’m an amiable kinda guy, the office joker in the roman helmet, more predisposed towards seeing the good in people than the bad. My default approach to dealing with landlord tenant disputes is to go...
A serious new blow to mortgage borrowers...
I read with interest an article in the Daily Mail this week based on an announcement by Santander that they are radically over-hauling their policy on interest only mortgages. Now you can’t get an interest...
Shams, Scams and Blocking Tactics...
By Guest Columnist Ben Reeve-Lewis
We live at a time when mortgage repossessions are running at an all time high, last year saw 45,000 with a huge impending increase in 2012 and even more restrictions...
Avoiding being ripped off by the Olympics...
Having written my article on the predicted downside of renting during the Olympics I thought I had better provide a bit of guidance for landlords on how to avoid getting ripped off.
Foreign sports tourists...
London Olympics – Fraud Warnings for Landlords...
You can’t be involved in housing and not be aware of the upcoming rent-fest that is going to be the 2012 Olympics, and not just for London landlords either as Weymouth on the South Coast is hosting...
A Tale of Two Toilets...
A strange case came my way today and I thought it a grand example of the sort of world I move in and an insight into the Kafkaesque madness that is the stock in trade of my day.
Localism and Tenancy Deposits...
As regular readers of P118 will know, the rocky road of tenancy deposits was pretty much a farce from its introduction in 2007 and has been right up to the present day.
I’ve been involved in housing...
How minor criminal convictions can invalidate a landlords insurance...
I have been liaising a lot recently with someone I know whose job it is to find accommodation for people being released from prison. I wouldn’t go so far as to call them meetings, although that’s how...
Don’t Shoot the Messenger # 8...
When a tenant has a beef with their landlord, I’m the guy they go to. My job is to either negotiate or prosecute, depending on the circumstances. This occasional and random series aims to let landlords...