Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Another Illegal Conversion. Information and Help Required.
I'm not sure if anyone else has noticed but no.69 Effingham Road is being gutted at the moment. It was bought very cheaply (for 270k) earlier this year by a company registered in Cyprus (suspicious already). The address given is care of a financial services company in Enfield that has no web presence whatsoever.
I wandered past the other day to quiz the builders. Peaking inside, I could see that they were almost certainly preparing the carcass for a separate downstairs and upstairs. There were 2 builders on site. The first initially said they were keeping it as a house but when I quizzed him about the dividing frames, he said that they were 'partitioning' it. The second builder then started to get a bit more heated and defensive, initially saying they were keeping it as a house but when I pointed out that they were clearly dividing it up, changing tack to say that was what it had always been like. The more I questioned, the more defensive and aggressive he got, saying things like, "what difference to you anyway?" etc.
While I can't be 100% sure, this seems pretty much a guaranteed dodgy conversion. I'm also sure it was a single house before.
Have you seen the works? Do you know if it was a house or bed/sits or separate flats before?
I will be lodging a complaint with planning first thing Tuesday and would please urge everyone to do the same. The more complaints planning get, the harder it will be for them not to action swiftly.
Tags for Forum Posts: casework, effingham road, illegal conversion
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Stuart on
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It's great news, thought it is of course only the start. The applicant has 6 months to appeal. Only after that will enforcement action kick in again - and that, in itself, can take anything up to 2 years to bring the owner to court for failure to reconvert. In the meantime, he is free to rent out the property and make some ill-gotten income while he strings out the enforcement process as long as possible (and as the house is registered to a company in Cyprus, it's unlikely to be simple).
So diarise for 6 months time and we'll crank up the campaign once again.
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An update. Nearly 2 years since the original application for a certificate of lawfulness was turned down, the fight may finally be over. The owner appealed the refusal of a COL and last year, that appeal was turned down (and the owner forced to pay the council's costs because of his unreasonable conduct in the way he conducted the appeal). The council then served a new enforcement notice. And the owner then appealed this enforcement notice. Yesterday, the Planning Inspectorate issued its decision on that appeal and upheld the enforcement notice (and once again stung the owner for costs for conducting an unreasonable appeal). He now has 3 months (I think) to comply with the enforcement notice and turn it into a single house again before facing prosecution.
At the same time, people who submitted evidence against the owner received menacing letters threatening them with all kinds of retribution if they didn't withdraw their evidence. Thankfully, they just ignored them.
However, I believe that the owner is now going to try to appeal again against the original COL appeal which he lost. Based on the 2 appeal decisions so far, he's fighing a lost cause but then these illegal developers don't half hate giving up their ill-gotten gains.
No doubt I'll be back with an update in an other 6-12 months.
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Permalink Reply by ElleCarumba on
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They should have reported his menacing letters to the police. They must do so if he does it again.
Well done for continuing to chase it.
Has he actually been paying the costs or has he just been ordered to do so? I assume if the company is registered in Cyprus it might be harder to actually get hold of the money.
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Permalink Reply by Anette on
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This is amazing. At which point will the appeals stop? Or can he just keep on doing it for years - and take the earnings from the flats in the meantime?
I can't believe no one reported the letters to the police! And that they got them in the first place is absolutely disgusting.
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OK, letter campaign anyone? Where do we start? Who can we flood with complaints?
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Permalink Reply by VIX on
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Did anyone one watch Dispatches on C4 Monday night? They have asked to report any landlord to the channel 4 website and they will do a followup program...
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They could do a Haringey special
I've not watched it but will be doing so on catch up.
Which town/area did the programme feature?
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Ha ha, I agree.It would have to be a six part series! But seriously John Snow did invite us all to tell all about slum landlords in our area. Take a look on C4 web site.
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Permalink Reply by Alison P on
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How depressing. How does this all fit with the new Harringay 'quality' approach to HMOs which I must confess I'm feeling very unimpressed by from all the discussion there has been on this and other recent posts. Is David Lammy still interested in this does anyone know ... Nora was doing some great work, but I'm not aware that it's been picked up on by anyone else.
On the C4 prog, thanks for the link VIX, really interesting - will have a look. I've pasted text associated with the programme if anyone else is interested (will see what the twitter link comes up with too).
In this undercover investigation, Jon Snow reports on the return of the slum landlord in 21st-century Britain. At a time when more people than ever are having to rent privately, unable to get on the property ladder, Dispatches reveals the shocking conditions in which tenants are forced to live.
Dispatches sends an undercover reporter to work for a rogue property empire in the north of England. He reveals a world of forced evictions, slum properties in dangerous condition, and routine bullying of tenants. Jon confronts the man raking in millions while his tenants suffer.
Dispatches also exposes an extraordinary new phenomenon: thousands of people living in illegal sheds, transforming parts of London into slums. A second undercover reporter lives in a squalid, illegal shed in London, paying £40 a week rent to another rogue landlord.
Dispatches lifts the lid on a world where unscrupulous landlords are exploiting the most vulnerable people in society and getting away with it.
Follow the discussion on Twitter: #LandlordsFromHell
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(By the way, doesn't this discussion - tho very depressing - show what a great site this is? Imagine trying to keep track of the info over the years yourself).
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