Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
A lesson from Lewisham on dealing with rogue landlords
I wonder just how many of of the shockingly bad landlords you can find in Haringey would fall foul of HMRC?
Officers from Lewisham Council, the police, gas and electricity suppliers have mounted three raids on a total of 25 properties inside two weeks in a determined programme to crack down on rogue landlords.
The raids uncovered four new criminal landlords, all involved in high level tax evasion, with at least 50 properties between them.
It also found three unauthorised structures to be demolished and a fourth outbuilding illegally used for residential. In one case a boarded-up restaurant had been converted into six substandard ‘studio’ flats.
Council officials also found five unlicensed houses in multiple occupation presenting critical health and safety hazards, including one severely overcrowded three-bedroom house occupied by 29 people.
Fifteen addresses had dangerous, stolen or unregistered utility meters while two cannabis factories running on stolen electricity, posing serious fire risks, were also found.
Police acted immediately to take down the cannabis factories. Legal action will now follow which will result in:
• unsafe premises being closed down
• hefty fines imposed on landlords involved in criminal activity
• recouping public money and tenants’ deposits that has been fraudulently obtained
• landlords forced to bring their properties up to scratch.
From LandlordToday
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Michael Anderson on
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I used to work next to a team that dealt with substandard rental property. The one that really sticks In my mind was a tiny room that was being rented where the landlord had built a bunk bed and under this was a gas cooker. Next to the cooker was a toilet.
Interesting article on BBC London news this evening about a report recommending a compulsory landlord registration scheme and the banning of landlords who are prosecuted for horrors like this.
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Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on
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The March 2014 issue of Harrow People magazine reports (page 9) that:
"Harrow Council commissioned a specially fitted plane, complete with thermal imaging camera, to fly two one-hour missions over the town on two icy nights in January this year."
This showed 319 "beds in sheds" plus five cannabis factories. The Council Leader said:
"“The occupants of these ‘beds in sheds’ are also invariably being ripped off by a landlord who has a financial interest in cramming as many people as possible into a confined space." Adding that the people living in these conditions: "are at the bottom of a pyramid of exploitation".
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Permalink Reply by pamish on
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Curious to know how they found out about these (though they may well want to keep this confidential). Being shopped by neighbours? The heat-seeking cameras as above? Tax returns? Tenants complaining? - probably not, as many of them will now be homeless, especially the shed-dwellers.
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