My first proper rant(ish) about something I have first hand experience of. There has been a lot of talk in the local rag (Dorset Echo) about Houses of Multiple Occupancy (HMO's) and for want of a better word "dodgy" landlords. This is personal to me as I suspect my previous landlord to come into this category. The main focus of the talk is in the infamous Park District of Weymouth, but I can tell it's not exclusive to this area or even Weymouth. The problem is caused initially by the fact the residents of Weymouth on average are not well off, with an average wage reported to be in the region of £17,000 and well below the national average. Once upon a time you were only able to borrow for a mortgage 2½ the annual wage of the loanee. This would mean the average person could only borrow £42,500. Now they offer up to at least 6 times the annual wage which is insane, but thats another rant I think. £42,500! What would that buy you around here? Answer, absolutely nothing. Well you may be able to buy a beach chalet, or a static caravan and both completely useless. Even if you have two people contributing you'd still only manage £85,000. Again what would get? Not a lot. Now it's my opinion it wasn't always this bad. What went wrong? Greed, pure and simply greed. Who's fed this problem? Estate agents pushing up and inflating prices, second home buyers taking homes away from the locals bringing the available housing stock down and the buy to let market taking perfectly good family sized homes and splitting them up into flats. This brings about the massive problem of the HMO issue. Landlords taking advantage of the poor working class and those on benefits who can't afford to do anything else. What's my problem with all this? Rents are reasonably low because of the large amount of flats and HMO's , so thats not it. My problem is that some landlords are breaking the law in what they are doing. To have a HMO you have to be licensed to do so. Failure to do so could result in I believe a fine of up to £20,000 and/or 6 months in prison. Also certain building regulations should be met and should have fire safety checks done. I also believe deposits should be protected in someway and all rent payments should be recorded in someway with a copy held by both landlord and tenant. My previous address never existed as an actual address when calling call centres to change my address for bank details, TV license etc, I would have repeated problems registering the new address. This was what first alerted me to the fact that something wasn't quite right. My landlord also at time of signing the contract (At least I can say he did that bit right) said that ALL bills were inclusive, including council tax (The next thing that raised my suspicions) with the exception of the a TV licence. The chances are that he wasn't paying council tax on the building, except probably his own and he may well owe the council thousands, this too has a hefty penalty. My next suspicion was the lack of working smoke/fire alarms and in date fire extinguishers which tells me they probably haven't been checked since it was a guest house. Lastly if the building doesn't officially exist as a HMO or flats then he's probably not paying tax on his earnings from the rent acquired from the building. Again the Inland Revenue take that sort of thing quite seriously. But what makes me laugh is that as far as I can tell and for what the councils talk is worth. They have not taken a single landlord to court for anything.
So in reflection, come on Weymouth & Portland Borough Council start showing your teeth and sort this mess out. I was definitely not alone in the problems I had with dodgy landlords. On our own we can't do much, but you're the council, grow some balls, stop talking about it and DO SOMETHING!!!
P.S. I have passed on my concerns about my previous landlord to WPBC and I'm awaiting feedback... If I get any that is!
