Forms and procedures for LHA Landlords

My council certainly claw back from tenants. The galling thing for many is where the overpayment was a result of council error they still take it, even thoguh the tenant was receiving the money, confident that the council's assessment was correct. This leaves a shortfall and leads to eviction and rent arrears.

Also you will see a growing trend in claw backs in relation to Rent Repayment Orders. Councils are becoming more confident and knoweledgable about these. I recently attened an afternoon seminare where a couple of councils were spreading the knoweledge and procedures that have brought them some success

What are Rent Repayment Orders Ben;  and do I see a useful post on this subject  being  formulated by you for our relevant enlightenment!!!?

RROs are something that should strike fear into the heart of rogue HMO landlords. They were brought in as part of the same legislation that requires HMO Licensing but it has taken most councils several years to cotton on to the possibilities of income generation containined within it.

If an HMO should be licensed but isnt then council can slap an RRO on the property and apply to the standard residnetial property tribunal, which is a paper exercise only and if succesful they can claw back 12 month's rent from each tenant, HB or not. Given that HMOs only become licensable when ther are at least 5 tenants it becomes quite a substantial penalty.

I have just been made aware of 1 unlicensed HMO in New Cross with 20 tenants in it.. LHA rate is £125 per week. X 52 weeks = £6,500 X 20 tenants = £130,000. OUCH!

Quite an incentive to get licensed, I'm sure you'll agree.

Tenants can apply for their own RROs but only after a council is already taking action for not licesnsing so its easier and quicker for councils to do them.

Councils are like battleships, it takes a lot to get these oversized behemoths moving but once they do.......................

I recently attended a seminar at the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health at London Bridge where presenters from several councils told us all about their successes with them and gave us their handouts with all procedures that they have ironed the kinks out of and streamlined through experience. Lack of clear and tested procedures is the reason not many councils have used RROs to date. Now the information of the pioneers is being circulated we will all follow like dominoes. Thats how it always works.

All councils are under the cosh, cuts being the most well known aspect of them but the other side of the coin is 'Income generation' or what you in the private sector simply call 'Profit'.

Not that I have an HMO, as far as I am aware, there are issues that have mentioned before on this site about what is an HMO and when does it need to be licensed.
The localism bill will add further confusion.
So you could have circumstances where LL genuinely do not appreciate that they may have a licensible HMO
You can see the certain LL will be bankrupted by such confusions.
Consequently more LL will exit the HMO market as they can't be sure what classification  for HMO's applies to them and won't wish to take a risk and end up inadvertantly with a RRO!

No, using RROs as a blanket thing on every unlicensed HMO isnt the aim of anyone that I have spoken to about it. Every area has certain landlords who are real criminals, we know who they are and its those we will be targetting. Persistent offenders with dangerous and horrible properties.

We have one guy I know who has an overcrowded HMO, has 3 people living in a shed in the back garden and we have just found out after neighbours complained, that he is secretely digging out a cellar to create more space to rent using the shed guys as free labour because they are illegal immigrants.

And the New Cross guy has ignored works notices to put fire safety doors and fire escapes in, ignored injunctions, punched out a planning officer and illegally evicts whenever it suits him. He also has a convenience store with an old shipping container in the back garden which up until recently had 9 chinese immigrants living in, using the garden as their toilet. If we can bankrupt these 2 and put them out of business I wont have any sleepless nights over it.

Actually, writing that just gave me a great idea. We are starting to work with our landlords, building relationships etc and I have been charged with doing a lot of it, particulalry creating a new website service. I;m not  a manager but I am quite influential.

I am going to suggest to the powers that be that any money we make from RROs from our real bad landlrords should be used to build a fund we can use to help our good landlords.

I like the poetic justice of that

Ben

When the time comes and if you decide to outsource any of the work I would like to pitch for that contract, the strategic marketing, website build, SEO, SSO etc. Just imagine, an entrepreneurial landlord on the team - now that would raise eyebrows!!!

The key to such a project is attention - I am a professional attention seeker as you know LOL

Why doesn't the UKBA do anything about the situation.
I would have thought you should have ahotline to them as you you seem to face these issues before anyone else knows about them.
Getting rid of the illegal immigrants would stop him in his tracks!?

And in the real world? haha

Paul when you work in an area like I do property fraud and people trafficking are just everyday stuff. We dont have hotlines anywhere and they dont have hotlines to us.

Every single person that my unit places into temporary accommodation (B&B or Hostel as part of homeless applications) has to be photographed because we increasingly found that the people who the homeless crew interview and whose documents are checked and verified were so often not the people who turn up at the B&B/hostel.

And exploitation of illegal immigrants is always carried out by their own countrymen. Language and cultural barriers mean you cant get near them. Also, by sheer definition, if a person doesnt have recourse to public funds they cant even complain to us in fear of being deported.

I dont have a down on people in that position. They are very vulnerable and get exploited every which way. Its a dark, murky, impenetrable world that even the UKBA find difficult to keep on top of.

I can only deal with it as it impacts upon my work as a TRO. I often try to stop harassment and illegal evcitions but my powers only go so far and often the housing stuff is just the tip of the iceberg