As a Pimlico HMO Landlord …….

Speaking as a Pimlico HMO I was somewhat amazed at the stupidity displayed by 4 of my Bristol Bretheren who seem to have just ignored their local authority, and their responsibilities to provide safe decent accommodation.

The knowledge and attitude of local authority Environmental Health Officers can be patchy – they can be helpful, skilled, trained, or sometimes they leave you shaking your head in disbelief. You have to take the rough with the smooth, and in general things will turn out all right. What you cannot do is ignore them, or believe that the regulations apply to everyone else, but not you.

Housing Officers from Bristol City Council, found a series of problems at an HMO including:

Failure to provide adequate fire safety at the property.
Failure to ensure the shared areas of the property were maintained in a good and clean decorative order.
Failure to ensure the property was kept in good repair.
Failure to provide lighting in many of the shared areas of the property.
Keeping a property whose structure was a danger to the health of the occupiers.
Failure to provide information about the property when required to do so.

Bristol can offer a range of advice and support to help landlords comply with legislation, however, where landlords refuse to co-operate and where there are serious breaches of the Housing Act (as in this case) local authorities can and will take legal action to compel them to bring improvements.

On December 21, the landlords were summonsed before Bristol Magistrates Court in relation to alleged offences under the Housing Act 2004 and the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1976. They, failed to attend Court or have representation – talk about committing suicide! The defendants were found guilty on all charges, and the combined fines totalled £30,036.30 and combined costs totalled £5,199.60.

Private landlord prosecuted by council for Housing Act failures

Tags: Bristol, Housing Act 2004, Landlord, Pimlico, Property, Rent
Posted in Property on January 6th, 2012 |

One Response to “As a Pimlico HMO Landlord …….”

Anonymous says:

January 6, 2012 at 10:43 pm

Reminds me of someone I know in Weston S M.

Reply

The Landlord and the London Letting Agent

Happy Hippy

A small Landlord in a Rural Village goes out every day to tidy up the hall and entrance of the HMO that he rents rooms out from. The landlord tidies, repairs & cleans for three or four hours, before returning home. Every day he does this, without fail.

One week, a London Estate and Lettings Agent is having a holiday in this same village. Every day he sees this small Landlord go out, tidy, repair & clean, come back, go out, tidy, repair & clean, and come back. So after a few days, the London Estate and Lettings Agent approaches the small Landlord and he asks the small Landlord if he maintains his property like that all the time.

“I do,” says the small Landlord, who is about thirty years old.

“How long have you been renting?” asks the London Estate and Lettings Agent.

“All my life,” says the Small Landlord. “Since I was a boy.”

“And you rent like this every day?” He looks at the small HMO.

“Yes,” says the Small Landlord. “I have nice tenants, they tell me about their jobs, they pay their rent on time ……. then I go home for the afternoon”

“But you only go spend a short while in this house!, Why don’t you go out into town when you have finished – leaflet drop? You could source more properties, do them up, rent them out”

The young Small Landlord thinks a minute and looks down at his feet. He looks back up at the London Estate and Lettings Agent. “Well, I like to spend time with my family play with my children, go to the pub and play cards with my friends, watch the big game on TV. Some afternoons I go fishing, or I go for a stroll with my pretty wife”

The London Estate and Lettings Agent nods, he steps closer to the Small Landlord. “Look,” he says, “if you redecorate, and put a new kitchen and bathroom in, you can remortgage and draw your equity out – you’ll make double the amount of money you make now. You can afford to pay someone to do the leafleting for you. Plus you can use the equity that you’ve drawn out for the deposit on another house”

“Why would I want to do that?” asks the Small Landlord.

“Because once you’ve got 3 or four houses then you can hire a few people to do the cleaning and decorating for you, which will give you the time to follow up more leafleting leads, buy more houses, and get more mortgages”

“Why would I want to do that?” asks the Small Landlord again.

“Because then you’ll quadruple your earnings and pretty soon you can have your own Portfolio.”

“And why would I want to do that?”

“Well, once you have your own portfolio you’ll have enough houses to cut out the middle men and rent a High Street Office, and set up a lettings agency to rent out your own houses as well as some for other people You do well enough and then I can help you – we do a joint venture, and then we franchise out the business model, and we go National. Then we a float on AIM and take the whole operation public. We will cash in. We will be rich.”

“And then what?”

“Then,” says the London Estate and Lettings Agent, “you can spend time with your family, and play with your grandchildren, go to the pub and play cards with your friends, watch the big game on TV have someone push you and your wife’s wheelchairs round some pretty walks ….…”

Tags: Fun, Property, Renting
Posted in General on November 15th, 2011 |

2 Responses to “The Landlord and the London Letting Agent”

hmolandlady says:

November 16, 2011 at 10:28 am

Love it! But then you take the fun out of getting involved with the tenants and just become old and rich – what’s the point of that?

Not sure if this is a tongue in cheek post or advertising your services. I’m still wondering whether I want to be old, rich and removed from day to day operations or sitting in constant anticipation of the antics of the next tenant!

Good article – food for thought. Thank you.

Reply
- Nick Parkin (Pimlico Flats) says:
  
  November 16, 2011 at 1:24 pm
  
  You can take from the post whatever you want, and maybe different people will take different things?
  
  Reply

Pimlico Road Interior Design Shops

On Pimlico Road, Antiques stores are joined by bespoke furniture makers, such as Soane and Linley, and dealers of midcentury treasures like Gordon Watson and Lamberty. And the street’s gravitas continues to grow, thanks to new additions, including Coote & Bernardi, Talisman, Luke Irwin and Plus One Gallery. So, with Pimlico Road this year being named the London Design Festival’s newest design district, Interior Design Magazine Wallpaper has done a detailed review of Pimlico Road’s businesses as part of their Street View series.