Councils are under fire for failing to prosecute bad landlords ? but the problem, says Ben Reeve-Lewis, is cuts
As a tenancy relations officer (TRO), I help to prosecute landlords who harass and illegally evict their tenants, yet I don't agree with the focus of a campaign against rogue landlords being run by the housing charity Shelter.
I don't disagree with Shelter's analysis of the problem. In fact, it is spot on. Harassment and illegal eviction is still widespread. Just last week I had to deal with three illegal evictions in a single day, and that is not unusual. Violent assaults by landlords and lock changes by landlords who have no intention of following due legal process is what I am paid to deal with, and often I am drowning in work.
My issue is with Shelter's solution. It places the blame firmly at the door of local authorities for not using their resources to prosecute local rogues. Its recent report points to only 270 successful prosecutions of errant landlords in the past year, against more than 11,000 reported complaints by tenants. Damning evidence that I wouldn't contest. However, the problem for councils lies in the sheer volume of complaints that TROs have to deal with; the difficulty in gathering evidence and a lack of credible tenants as witnesses; and the role of the police and the judiciary.
TROs don't lack the will to prosecute, but in boroughs such as mine we are so overwhelmed by the number of weekly complaints that we cannot possibly countenance any more than basic dispute resolution.
If the TRO decides that a criminal route is the appropriate solution there will have to be days gathering evidence, writing statements, delivering injunctions, interviewing perpetrators and arranging temporary accommodation for the tenant. The matter might reach the magistrates court in perhaps 18 months, with luck. Perhaps over two years, if the landlord opts for trial by jury. Once in court, judges will often give paltry fines. I once took a landlord to court who threatened a woman and her three children with a gun. It took me two and half years to get it before a judge who fined him �400 and refused the council's costs in the case.
The real problem is enforced local authority cuts, which mean that there aren't enough resources to deal with the scale of the problem; a judicial system that often doesn't take matters seriously; the government, for its refusal to regulate the private rented sector; and the police, who proclaim that landlord and tenant disputes are civil matters. In almost all cases I see where the tenant has called police to the incident the police have taken the landlord's side. They often help the landlord to illegally evict the tenant.
Shelter is pointing the finger the wrong way and backing up the government's pronouncements that there is sufficient legislation. But the difficulty is limited resources in the face of a massive problem that nobody wants to hear about.
"Rachmanism" is taking place right now in a street near you.
? Ben Reeve-Lewis is a tenancy relations officer in an inner London borough
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/joepublic/2011/sep/27/shelter-rogue-landlord-campaign-flaws
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