Landlord Action calls for a Rogue Tenant List

Landlord Action calls for a Rogue Tenant List

16:41 PM, 4th January 2016, About 8 years ago 29

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Paul Shamplina

Paul Shamplina

The Housing and Planning Bill is currently making its way through Parliament following a Government consultation on ‘Tackling rogue landlords and improving the private rental sector’. They are proposing a blacklist of persistent rogue landlords and letting agents. In response, Paul Shamplina, Founder of Landlord Action, is calling for a blacklist of persistent rogue tenants to be made public.

Some of the consultation’s key discussion points in tackling the worst offenders within the private rental sector include, introducing banning orders and civil penalties of up for £5,000 for rogue landlords, speeding up repossessions of abandoned properties and producing a rogue landlord/letting agent blacklist. It is currently suggested the blacklist of rogue landlords and agents would be available to local authorities and central Government, enabling them to keep track of those who had committed offences.

Paul Shamplina, who was part of this consultation, is calling for the Government to show greater equality and more openness. He argues that if there is going to be a list of rogue landlords and letting agents then it should also include agents that have multiple money judgements against them by landlords for non-payment of rent. Mr Shamplina believes that all associations and redress schemes within the PRS should also put their banned members on this list. He thinks that the list should include rogue tenants and, most importantly, all the information should be made public.

He explains “We are constantly hearing about ‘rogue landlords and agents’. But to address issues in the private rental sector, we should also consider ‘rogue tenants’. Last year there were 161,000 possession claims issued in England and Wales. At present, there is no central database where possession orders with money claims are registered, as the courts do not recognise possession claims with arrears as a County Court Judgement. If they did, this information would show up on tenant referencing. At present, a rogue tenant can move from property to property running up rent arrears and it does not show up on referencing unless the landlord goes to additional expense of trying to enforce the money order. If we are to protect landlords at pre-let stage, in the same way we wish to protect tenants, this should also be made available.”

Mr Shamplina continues “The Government is clearly committed to improving standards in the PRS. One of the greatest challenges is finding a balance between supporting good landlords and agents, whilst cracking down on criminal activity without burdening the sector with unnecessary, expensive regulation. I believe that one of the best ways to do this is by giving the consumer (landlords and tenants) access to information. Allowing them to have freedom of choice about who they rent from.”

92% of respondents to the Government survey are agreement that there should be a blacklist of persistent rogue landlords and letting agents. Mr Shamplina says making the information available to the wider public would support those reputable landlords and agents and act as an effective deterrent.

Contact Landlord Action

Specialists in tenant eviction and debt collection. Regulated by The Law Society.


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Comments

Andrea Collins

12:10 PM, 5th January 2016, About 8 years ago

Reply to the comment left by "Mandy Thomson" at "05/01/2016 - 12:02":

Mandy, doesn't this mean that anybody who takes our money in return for a service is a parasite?
Landlords invest thousands of pounds of their hard earned money, why should they have to provide a service for free?

Mandy Thomson

12:16 PM, 5th January 2016, About 8 years ago

Reply to the comment left by "David Price" at "05/01/2016 - 11:52":

I stand corrected, David - yes, it's not "parasite", it's "snivelling parasite" :-). The problem with Her Majesty housing every ASBO in the country is the cost https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/251272/prison-costs-summary-12-13.pdf

So if the powers that be can find scapegoats to do it for them, why not?

A Snivelling Landlord.

Mandy Thomson

12:25 PM, 5th January 2016, About 8 years ago

Reply to the comment left by "Andrea Collins" at "05/01/2016 - 12:10":

Yes, Andrea - the economics of supply and demand, and even basic barter is an abstraction that certain otherwise intelligent people seem unable to grasp. Particularly difficult is the concept of ownership of property and charging for the use of that property, and the unseen behind the scenes work that landlords and property agents have to do to maintain that property. Whereas, if landlords and agents actually made some tangible, physical object in a factory, they would be respected.

So how then do you explain the kind of ridiculous salaries of top footballers and other A list celebrities, that large proportions of the same section of the public who hate landlords (sorry, snivelling parasites) idolise?

TheMaluka

12:42 PM, 5th January 2016, About 8 years ago

Reply to the comment left by "Mandy Thomson" at "05/01/2016 - 12:16":

Unfortunately the cost of not housing at Her Majesty's pleasure is chaos in society. I have tried hard over the years to rehabilitate problem tenants, usually alcoholics, with one notable success and hundreds of failures many of whom are now dead. I now employ the success and, because he understands the problem, he is my best employee.

I ensure that no responsible landlord houses my bad tenants by using Tenant Referencing.

Mandy Thomson

12:44 PM, 5th January 2016, About 8 years ago

Reply to the comment left by "David Price" at "05/01/2016 - 12:42":

You and other landlords who take such tenants are not just providing housing, you're also acting as (unpaid) social workers, both of which are government's responsibility.

Chris Byways

12:59 PM, 5th January 2016, About 8 years ago

Reply to the comment left by "Mandy Thomson" at "05/01/2016 - 12:25":

Dear snivelling parasite,

Apparently today is FAT CAT TUESDAY.

HPC say so. No not the lowlife, complaining, anarchists scumbags no decent snivelling landlord would ever want as tenants, fuelled be the politics of envy and work shy 'give us a home for free, so I can sublet it, claim my benefit' and........ Shurrup!

No, the other HPC say:-

-------- http://news.sky.com/story/1616583/pay-row-breaks-out-over-fat-cat-tuesday

"A fair pay row has broken out as campaigners claim top bosses will have already been paid more than a person on an average annual salary by this afternoon.

The High Pay Centre (HPC) has dubbed today "Fat Cat Tuesday".

The think tank's research aims to compare the earnings of top executives at FTSE 100 firms with UK average pay packets.

It found that typical annual earnings stood at £27,645 in 2015 - a rise of just £445 or 1.6% on the previous 12 months.

At the other end of the scale, the HPC said the FTSE bosses were handed an average of £4.96m - though that was in 2014 - with a chief executive's annual incentive award rising by almost 50% of salary.

It said that when assumptions were made that the bosses worked 12 hours a day, including most weekends and holidays, it would only take around 22 hours of graft for them to earn the UK average salary."
---------

Funny those scroungers (sorry I generalise too much) on HPC don't mention that.

Anyway we all MUST be wealthy as we own two or more homes, even if put to good use housing otherwise homeless. We are all worth at least £250m each, see Fergus and Judith have just sold up. That proves it! What a snivelling bunch we are.

Yours, another Devine parasite........

Mandy Thomson

13:33 PM, 5th January 2016, About 8 years ago

Ha, ha - very good!

If the Devine Parasite himself says I'm worth £250 million, then I'm off shopping on a spending spree (not that I have anything else to do, being a lazy parasite). But wait, I've just seen my bank statement, after my modest Christmas spending...

The Adam Smith Institute has dismissed HPC's figures as "pub economics". If the HPC want to make a point, at least aim for accuracy (e.g. mean average compared to median average?) and if indeed top bosses do put in the kind of hours HPC have used in their model, they are at least working bloody hard for that money. Money is also a much less finite commodity than say, housing.

A mere Snivelling Parasite.

Robert M

15:21 PM, 5th January 2016, About 8 years ago

The answer is NOT the database operated by Landlord Referencing, as good as it may be, because this requires landlords to input into the database, and not all landlords would do that. Therefore, although it is part of the solution (particularly relating to anti-social behaviour and damage etc), it is not the whole solution to the problem. Neither is Paul's suggested, presumably different, "rogue tenant" database. What is REALLY needed (in my opinion) is for the courts to automatically register the money judgement part of the possession order as a CCJ (i.e. register the CCJ with the Registry Trust and the credit referencing companies). If this was done, then the financial side of the tenant's housing history would be recorded, and accessed when the landlord does the tenant referencing. As this would be done by the courts, it would not be reliant upon individual landlords accessing a website and inputting tenant details.

Ian Ringrose

15:28 PM, 5th January 2016, About 8 years ago

Remember that a "normal" CCJ does not get registered unless the court is told it is not paid! Therefore a lot of unpaid CCJs don't get registered.

Mandy Thomson

16:14 PM, 5th January 2016, About 8 years ago

Moreover, if a new tenant presents with just one CCJ, wouldn't a lot of landlords (but not me!) take them? It is possible to get a CCJ for something minor, like a small sum owing on an old mobile phone contract, but as a CCJ is a CCJ, I would rather err on the side of caution and assume it's something serious (which it usually is).

There are a good few tenant history databases in existence (Landlord Referencing being just one), but they all work differently and they are far from universal.

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