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by Mick Roberts
14:04 PM, 5th March 2018, About 6 years ago 38
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Sajid Javid wants more houses building, but his other policies are forcing thousands to be homeless with Nottingham City Council’s Selective Licensing.
My Letter to Sajid Javid,
Dear Sajid
I am having to make 350 people homeless this year because of your decision to allow this Selective Licensing.
You have granted Nottingham Council permission for Selective Licensing, but are you aware of the conditions they are imposing of Nottingham Landlords and tenants?
They can only be implemented if we use a Letting Agent. Letting Agents will not take my Housing Benefit tenants along with the internal damage they have caused on doors etc. What do we do?
A simple solution would be to do it on new tenancies, as most things are done when bringing in big changes like this.
I have no problem in the few letting agent tenants I have passing these conditions, but it will be impossible for the rest to comply. I am not a Policeman, I don’t live with them 24 hours a day.
I urge you act quickly & get involved because you granted this permission without realising there are some very different people out there.
I await your reply.
Yours sincerely,
Mick Roberts
COMPLAINT-Last stage before Ombudsman
Dear Nottingham City Council,
Regarding Selective Licensing.
I am having to make 350 people homeless this year because of your decision to allow this Selective Licensing.
I emailed you a lot of letters & questions on the 18 Feb, but you have yet not replied.
I understand you have 27000 homes.
Could u if asked, license all your home’s between April and August this year?
Would you have the funds to spend between £600 and £2000 per house all in 4 months?
EVERY house?
Could u with all your existing current tenants comply with all the conditions asked of selective Licensing?
Would you have the admin staff to do it?
Would you have the builders to do it?
If they you NCH can’t do this, how can I be expected to do this?
You probably have more staff ratio per houses than I do.
But I do manage my houses well as is, and all new boilers, new kitchens, doors, windows etc.
But if you couldn’t do what is asked of Selective Licensing, how can I be expected to?
These are the proposed conditions
https://empo.co.uk/empo-news/proposed-selective-licensing-conditions.html
The conditions are IMPOSSIBLE with my existing current tenants. I primarily have Housing Benefit tenants, I have housed the homeless that the council have sent me over the past 20 years.
You now wish to enforce more stringent than Letting Agent rules on the homeless tenants you have sent me.
I have a problem with a Council house fence next to mine. You told me & my tenant & your tenant they have to wait 9 months, before you start the next schedule of works. Yet the same council is asking me complete a mammoth schedule of works on LOTS of houses within 4 months?
You are seriously going to have to look into my situation. I have gave 10 households section 21 notices already. Approx 50 people including kids to be made homeless.
Housing Aid has asked me to please not issue any more, to see what can be done.
My solicitor has said it could take years for me to evict all my tenants. Due to the sheer amount and workload and court workload etc.
You have asked for the impossible.
You are saying we must have a License.
You are saying we must pay between £600 and £2000.
But you are also giving us the most stringent conditions that will not work with EXISTING tenants that YOU SAME COUNCIL HAVE ASKED US TO TAKE before u bought out these conditions.
I await your reply with urgency as the clock is ticking.
Licensing me to Questions 3 March 18
You asking for Right to rent check. How’s this going to work with Non resident Landlord? Letting Agents are telling me they have quite a few Landlords who live overseas, Landlords from China too.
What about the bloke in Spain that’s renting a house to a family in the UK who are very happy?
They fail the Right to rent, what now?
Are the tenants to be made homeless?
Who is keeping these logs u ask for? He can’t keep them in Spain. Then is the License for the Agent of the Landlord?
What if I was planning to retire to Spain in 10 years? 30 year plan from 20 years ago. Can I not do that now?
Accreditation is only for 3 years? So I have to pay another £840 in 3 years?
Along with the time of the accreditation course?
And the time in inspecting the houses with the Inspector?
Your Licensing fee, including the stringent works you will require:
You want more than the whole annual maintenance bill on ALL my houses together.
You want more than my whole annual mortgage bill
You want 1/3 of my annual rents on the License fee . Where is the money coming from?
Mick Roberts
8:08 AM, 8th March 2018, About 6 years ago
Reply to the comment left by Monty Bodkin at 08/03/2018 - 07:58
Consultation has closed but they can still do what they like with pricing & conditions.
Yes the prices changed yesterday afternoon, will be probably made more public soon. They use the words proposed in the July 17 article.
It's shocking, someone somewhere should be allowed to look at this. What's to stop them charging 2k? 3k?
TheMaluka
8:10 AM, 8th March 2018, About 6 years ago
Reply to the comment left by Monty Bodkin at 08/03/2018 - 07:58
Surely they mean "less of a disincentive"
Gromit
8:34 AM, 8th March 2018, About 6 years ago
Reply to the comment left by Luke P at 08/03/2018 - 07:57
................. a new round of consultations (aka kick it into the long grass for a few years).
Monty Bodkin
10:27 AM, 8th March 2018, About 6 years ago
What's to stop them charging 2k? 3k?
Economics Mick. They are pricing themselves out of the market.
"If you build a better mousetrap, the world will beat a path to your door."
"If you abuse power for political reasons, make up a scheme of no benefit to anyone at all but the jobsworths creating it and then try charging a ridiculous price for it, landlords will just take the risk and not register."
(With 70 Nottingham properties let to council benefit tenants, posting and protesting under your own name, that option might not be open to you Mick.)
Mick Roberts
17:47 PM, 8th March 2018, About 6 years ago
Reply to the comment left by Monty Bodkin at 08/03/2018 - 10:27
I agree posting under my name, but I've also told 'em as someone had to tell 'em.
My tenants are now also writing in to Alex Morris MP & Jeremy Corbyn etc.
But I could have not told 'em & the risk is 2k a house fine for not being licensed. They have the power to do this.
Monty Bodkin
21:14 PM, 8th March 2018, About 6 years ago
Reply to the comment left by Mick Roberts at 08/03/2018 - 17:47
Mick, the risk is a £30,000 fine for not licensing. And not awarded by an unbiased English court but from any (possibly) rabid Marxist private landlord hating council.
Along with Rent Repayment Orders.
My point was the £400 for licensing in a split payment might have been slipped through to the majority of law abiding landlords.
But they've got greedy now they've got approval from the secretary of state and are trying it on for £780. Many Notts landlords will stick two fingers up to that and there is no way they have the resources to enforce it, even if they were half competent.
I reckon they've been looking at Newham to see how much they can bleed landlords and think they can do exactly the same in Nottingham.
Have a look at Newham lettings;
http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-to-rent/find.html?locationIdentifier=REGION%5E61231&sortType=2
£11,000 *a month* for a 3 bed flat on the top listing. You can buy a bloody house for that in some Notts mining villages!
Obviously I'm using extremes to make a point but Nottingham are charging the same fee as Newham for a license. (Actually, Nottingham are charging more).
The conclusion I'm coming to is that Nottingham council are going to fall flat on their arse over this- eventually.
Not much consolation to you or your tenants Mick, sorry.
Mick Roberts
8:14 AM, 9th March 2018, About 6 years ago
Yeah I know about the 30k too. I was referring to other councils using the 2k figure.
Michael Jones
7:53 AM, 12th March 2018, About 6 years ago
Hi Mick,
Perhaps small landlords need their own letting agent cooperative ( to create the “ independent “ letting agent , as well as distance themselves from the tenant )