LANDLORD STARTS THREATENING!
We have a landlord who has knowingly placed tenants into his flat directly underneath a roof that needs replacing (with its associated leaks) and a problem we inherited when we took over management. We can’t afford to do it but we have however been able to effect temporary repairs to any area of the roof where leaks keep occurring. We did however run out of funding and required him to wait until we could afford another ‘patch and seal’ which would of course have taken priority over other repairs.
He couldn’t wait for this and had his own contractors put in a quote for full repair to his section at a cost of £7,000 which he expected everyone else to pay for. He had also been withholding service charge payment because his tenant had given notice to leave which would cost him the loss of rental income for which he would hold us responsible! Our agent had approached his mortgagers in an attempt to get him to pay his service charge arrears but he had instructed them not to!
Eventually we were railroaded into allowing him to carry out a repair to his part of the roof after we received an e-mail at the end of 2008 from our agent that said the CEO had agreed that the landlord would have repairs (a layer of roofing felt) carried out to his part of the roof and the cost would be taken out of future service charges. Anyway, because it was all arranged with such speed we weren’t notified so when the contractors came to the development they were initially prevented from going up to the roof. We had to allow them in the end and so the work was carried out accordingly albeit at a much reduced cost to the initial £7,000, (£1,240.00 to be precise).
We were also compelled to credit his service charge account with his costs in order to get him to agree to pay the remaining amount of service charges he owes!
Galling
A galling part of this was that as far back as 2006 (in an attempt to get some leaseholder solidarity) we instructed our solicitor to send a letter to all flat owners stating that the lease obligations hadn’t been fulfilled by either the freeholder or his managing agents. The letter clearly stated that the roof was in need of urgent repair and the water tanks needed replacing. Despite this, this landlord still put tenants into the flat in the full knowledge that they would suffer more leaks! And we get held to ransome, despite doing our best!
Seafood In A Bath!
To make matters worse I later had to send a letter to our managing agent about the tenants of this landlord who were not only preparing food and handing it out to residents but storing live seafood in their bath! We knew this to be a fact because our agent got an e-mail from the landlord on another matter but where he stated he had both called and written to the tenants who had promised to stop doing this immediately.
We also ended up with mice and cockroaches!
There was however no evidence of tenants keeping/cooking and selling seafood by the council which was hardly surprising because as a matter of courtesy (or stupidity) we notifed the landlord of our intent to report this. Doh!
ACQUIRING THE FREEHOLD VIA THE RTM COMPANY?
We have been advised that it may be possible to obtain the freehold for little cost if more than 50% of leaseholders agree to buy it and we use the RTM company as the purchasing vehicle to mitigate costs.
If whoever we send the request to fails to respond (and this would be the family solicitor) we can apply to the LVT to enforce our request to purchase at a suggested figure of £1,000. If we receive no response we proceed to LVT. On the other hand, if we do get a response and the offer is rejected we will not have lost anything and we will actually discover who the freeholder actually is because the Land Registry shows it as still being owned by our (deceased) freeholder.
In terms of fees this will be carried out by the CEO of our managing agent on an hourly basis.
COUNCIL SAYS NO!
In reply to my request for financial assistance for the cost of replacing the roof (last November) I received a very short reponse which basically said that they weren’t in a position to assist. This was because since 2007 it had stopped accepting any new applications for Discretionary Renovation Grants from owner-occupiers. I felt the response had taken far too long considering I had made reference to there not being any renovation grants available so I requested a fuller explanation.
Reply
Apparently its because the Regulatory Reform (Housing Assistance) (England and Wales) Order 2002 (RRO) has undergone a number of significant changes with much of its earlier prescriptive legislation relating to the provision of grants to homeowners being removed (repealed). This means that things like renovation grants, common parts grants, HMO grants, group repair and home repair assistance that all came under the Housing Grants, Construction and Regeneration Act 1996 are no longer available.
However, under this revised legislation, the CLG advise that local authorities have a certain amount of power in terms of flexibility and freedom in terms of providing discretionary assistance for repairs and adaptations.
Whilst central Government doesn’t prescribe the exact manner in which these powers are used they do expect councils to offer packages of assistance to householders whilst taking note of local priorities, individual circumstances of the applicant and available resources.
Unfortunately for us, the Council won’t assist in that area.
Tenants Moving So Landlord Is Requested To Keep Flat Empty
As the council won’t assist us and the tenants in the flat next door have finally had enough and are moving after a nightare tenancy, I suggested to our property manager that the landlord staves off renting it out again until we have made further progress on the roof. In any event he should have insurance to cover him for the void period.
On speaking to the tenants it seems that whilst we have benefited from repairs to our section, water has found its way into their bedroom with the subsequent dripping keeping them awake. I suspect that water has probably pooled in that area as it has certainly done so next to the tank above our neighbours on the other side – water is just sitting there.
TRYING AGAIN TO FIND OUR FREEHOLDER
We decided to try again to find out who owns our freehold, as we are sure someone in the family owns it. This time we are going through the council who are issuing an s16 Notice to the family solicitor of our deceased freeholder.
An s16 Notice is a legal notice that request details of the freeholder and which by law requires the notice recipient to comply with the request with failure to do so constituting an offence.
Attempt Unsuccessful
I was advised that approaching our deceased freeholders family solicitor for information had failed to yield who owns the freehold. The solicitor stated that ‘the s16 notice has no application to him because he is not a person falling within section 16 (1), (1), (b) or (c).’
Having read these sections the response was unsurprising but it did not however detract from the fact that we had the legal right under s3 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 (duty to inform tenant of assignment of landlord’s interest) to expect that his daughters, (as managing agents) would have sent us a notice advising us of the change of landlord.
To me the situation is still somewhat ludicrous because the whole point is that we don’t know the correct recipient even though I suspect that he does. In any event he’s the only party that would be likely to have this information, outside of whoever owns the freehold.
I rang the Legal Complaints Service of the Law Society to ask for advice regarding the solicitors response to the notice. They advised that the freeholder’s solicitor is under no obligation to provide the information to any third party (us) unless he has been instructed to do so by his own clients (i.e. family members of the deceased). I can’t imagine that he would ever receive that particular instruction!
I passed this information back to the council but reminded them that we did not receive official notification of our freeholder’s death. It only came up in a conversation I had with the former buildings insurer a few years ago. I didn’t think his death was even registered in this country as I had tracked him down to an address in Pakistan which left me to assume that is where he was when he died.
This appears to be the end of the road, unless less there are any more enforcement powers that the council can bring to bear.
I have now asked the council if there is now any possibility of putting together a business plan for a loan as the roof will continue to become more and more of a problem because as fast as we patch and mend, the roof needs patching and mending somewhere else!
SUBLETTING PROBLEMS
The issue of sub-letting has been a contentious one for our development for some considerable time although the issue itself isn’t actually that complicated. There has to be an express provision in a lease that restricts sub-letting but if there isn’t one then the leaseholder is free to sub-let without any control. Our leases contain covenants to notify the freeholder within 28 days and to enter into a direct covenenant to conect the tenant to the freeholder.
So, in order to get a grip on the situation I asked for an initial letter to be sent to all our landlords advising them that under the terms of the lease they have to obtain a Licence to Sublet (as advised by our managing agent). The letter also contained the relevant lease clause.
The Licence usually requires leaseholders to comply with the following steps
1) All tenancies must be on an Assured Shorthold Tenancy, the ‘contract between the landlord and his tenant, most of which are usually 12 months;
2) A written request to sub-let must be sent to the Managing Agents when the lease has a clause that requires permission to do so
Copies of the references in respect of the proposed tenants are sent to the Managing Agents, prior to the tenancies being granted;
3) A contact telephone number for the tenants is given to the Managing Agents (for emergencies);
4) A copy of each Tenancy Agreement (or a copy of any Memorandum of Extension) should be sent the Managing Agents on completion (responsibility of the landlord);
5) The owners’ responsibilities under the terms of the lease must be incorporated into the Tenancy Agreement (landlords responsibility);
6) Ideally a copy of the relevant clauses should be attached and there should be a clause that the tenants will abide by them – landlords responsibility;
7) A fee payable to the Managing Agents for each new letting although this can vary from agent to agent;
8) The Managing Agents should have details of a forwarding address or the name and address of the Letting/Managing Agents in case of emergencies.
Whenever the tenant changes, a new Licence needs to be issued.
I have to say though that I don’t think we’ll get much in terms of response.
NOT A SINGLE PENNY FROM LANDLORD FOR 18 MONTHS!
We have a leaseholder who has not contacted our agent since they took over, any more than he has contested the service charge demands as being unreasonable via the LVT. Even when I met him by chance earlier this year and explained the developments background and what we were trying to achieve, and despite being in agreement with our objectives, he has made no attempt to communicate, let alone contribute anything!
This non-payment is of major concern though for three reasons
1) Firstly we only have the service charges to do any maintenance and repairs and any non-paymment, particularly over a sustained period impacts heavily on our ability to carry out works quickly and effectively;
2) Evidence seems to demonstrate that outside of our agents own mechanism for collecting payments, once it passes to external parties, the processes virtually grind to a halt!;
3) Our lease doesn’t make provision for late payment fees, costs, or interest charges.
Update
On requesting an update I was advised that a Warrant of Execution (Bailiff Request) had been submitted to the court who will then instruct Bailiffs to visit the property. The Bailiffs will then send a report to our agent advising on how many times they visit and what happens, such as who’s at home and whether the property is tenanted (which this one is).
The bailiffs will not force entry and will advise any tenant to inform their landlord that they have visited though I would be surprised if the tenant even has a contact number for the landlord. When the process has reached this stage its out of our hands for a while.
Only when a report comes back from the bailiffs stating that the property is rented out to tenants can the managing agent proceed with the next stage – a third party debt order to gain funds to clear the arrears direct from the tenants rent or landlord’s bank account.
Other steps that can be taken are that of an Attachment of Earnings Order where monies are deducted regularly from the debtors salary, a Charging Order where the debt is secured against land or shares in which the debtor has an interest and the Small Claims Court where most claims under £5000 are dealt with in the County Court.
PRIVATE SECTOR LEASING AND ANTI-SOCIAL BEHAVIOUR
We had a serious issue regarding a new and anti-social tenant. When she first kicked off we sent an e-mail to our property manager as we didn’t have the telephone number of the landlord or his agent. I also e-mailed our council as I assumed that the tenant had been placed here by them as that particular flat had been used by the council in the past.
Not a lot happened from the landlord end to start with and after putting up with any number of strangers entering and leaving the premises, day and night and often the following morning and trouble regularly starting from around 10.30 pm onwards, things finally came to a head!
We were woken up in the early hours of the morning by loud music (which I heard through double glazing and ear plugs) and thumps on the floor by neighbours nearer to the source of the disturbance.
Going down and trying to deal with it ourselves led to a very unpleasant exchange and a strong e-mail of complaint being sent directly to the landlord around 3am on a Monday morning. This led to him finally advising us as to who the letting agents were and I contacted them as well.
Finally they started the process of eviction but we still kept pressing them because they got worse, with the boyfriend of the tenant being abusive and being heard threatening to kill people because he had a gun!
She was eventuall removed around two weeks later because homelessness applicants are placed on a licence with very few rights. Very fortunate in our case!
The council told me that when someone approaches them and states they are homeless then the council are under a legal obligation to house them whilst their homelessness application is being assessed, which is what happened here.
Thats not to say though that, without a bit of persistance, information is never forthcoming. Some vital information in terms of management was freely given by the Private Sector Leasing division because they recognised the simple fact that with having it, we would know exactly who to approach in the event of trouble. This is all we have ever required information to be provided for and so would likely be considered reasonable, should Data Protection have been cited as a reason for not providing it.
I also was advised as to the types of housing used and the interaction between the council, their managing agents and the individual landlords. Extremely helpful and surely a ‘must’ if more and more landlords are going to take advantage of the enticements currently used to get the private sector to provide accommodation to the social sector.
