Episode 15 The Housing Enforcers

The law says everyone has the right to a safe place to live...

I worry about the fire risk here.

..but for thousands of people across Britain,

the reality can be more hovel than home.

How many months ago was it we had this place cleaned?

The whole of that bit goes black with mould.

Hello?

In the battle between tenants and landlords...

-It's your fault, not the dog's fault.

-This is what you get.

I don't care.

-..it's local housing officers...

-What's causing that smell?

..who are on the front line.

The son's come out with baseball bats and knives on occasions.

I'm Matt Allwright...

-A lot of this problem is caused by the dogs.

-Yeah.

-That's your responsibility.

-Yeah.

..and I'm back on the job,

once again, joining the ranks of the housing enforcers.

It's got that mouse smell.

They're tackling problem properties...

This feels like an accident waiting to happen.

..dealing with the consequences of nightmare neighbours...

So, I need to tell you that you are committing an offence

under the Housing Act.

..and doing their best to help those in need.

Good old Will.

Today, I uncover one family in a housing crisis.

Do you have a toilet in there?

There's no toilet attached?

Blood isn't thicker than water,

as two housing officers find a family dispute

has made one property uninhabitable.

Yeah, handle's come off and he's put it on upside down, back to front.

-Is the Sellotape a part of the feature?

-Yeah.

-Oh, right, excellent.

And I get an insight into the pressure some landlords face

as they try and manage their business.

There's drugs paraphernalia.

Yeah, we've got our suspicions as to what they're up to,

but you couldn't prove anything.

They've smashed the door to pieces.

I don't know what that is on the floor.

They say an Englishman's home is his castle

but if that place is rented,

it's the job of housing officers

to make sure it's a decent place to live.

They keep an eye on landlords

to make sure the property is up to scratch

and on some tenants to make sure

they're keeping their half of the bargain.

Newham, east London.

It's a vibrant, multicultural borough,

but according to council figures,

it's not always somewhere people choose to stay.

They have one of the highest percentages turnover of residents

moving out of the borough after 12 months.

Unable to afford expensive rents, many tenants who do stay

find themselves living in unlicensed houses of multiple occupancy,

single-family homes

that are unlawfully rented out as individual rooms.

I'm with planning officers Ellen Nicholson and Tiffany Mallen,

heading to a property,

which just a few months ago was home to 17 people,

resulting in a landlord being served with a council closure order.

Ooh, look.

Clearly some changes have taken place here recently.

Internal doors with locks have been removed.

Tenants in shared accommodation often fit locks to their doors,

so this could be a sign the property has been returned to a family home...

but we need to know for sure.

Is it OK if we just have a quick look around?

An array of tradesmen's equipment

suggests the landlord is doing up the place.

The question is, as what?

So, the work's taking place right now,

but then if this work is turning this into a house

of multiple occupation,

then this is a good time to stop it, isn't it?

We probably won't be able to tell

whether it's going to be a house of multiple occupation

or a family home. Obviously, we can see whether

-they're turning it into flats or not if they've put a kitchen in.

-Yeah.

With so much work going on, and the apparent lack of any facilities,

you'd think the house would be empty,

but we're in for a shock.

-Hi.

-Hello.

Are you living here?

Yeah?

Is it you and your family?

There are still tenants here.

The mum doesn't want to be identified.

OK, do you mind if we have a quick look in the rooms?

Yeah, is that OK?

Sleeping?

The tenant, her mother-in-law, daughter and partner

should have moved out four months ago,

but despite the council's order,

and the landlord serving them with an eviction notice,

they haven't left.

How long have you been living here for?

-Two years?

-OK.

Two years is a long time to be crammed in to a house

with 13 strangers.

Naheeda is the partner of the woman we've just met.

What were the conditions like?

When did that change?

When the council came, and the council noticed these things,

they got the proof that there are 17 people living in this house.

Photographs taken by the tenants show just how bad this place was.

Overcrowded, unhygienic and riddled with damp.

So you're living in the house like this, but the council comes in,

they notice it and they demand changes.

Now we're seeing the changes take place.

-You're still here.

-I'm still here.

And you're the only ones still in the house,

-and you've been asked to leave several times?

-Yes.

Naheeda came to the UK as a student

and, although he can't claim benefits, he is allowed to work.

But because the Home Office have kept his passport

while he applies for an extension to his work visa,

he currently has no ID and no way out of these conditions.

Are you without a toilet? Do you have a toilet in there?

What are you going to do? Are you looking for somewhere else to live?

I am looking for somewhere but it is not easy, you know?

Because everywhere is very difficult to get a house.

Coming up, I find out what life is like for a family of four

living in just one room.

Who wants to live like this? Who?

Every relationship has its ups and downs,

but for many of the four million tenants living in privately

rented accommodation across Britain, maintaining a good relationship

with their landlord can be trickier than most.

And when disputes do arise,

it's all too easy for things to spiral out of control.

In Clacton, housing officers Rob Goswell and Grant Fenton-Jones

have had a call from a tenant, whose fears about the dangerous

state of her home have led to a total breakdown in relations

with her landlord.

The complaint is no back door, which means the house is

open to the elements for 24 hours a day. And, supposedly, we've got

-a boiler that is connected up with an extension lead.

-Oh, right.

The tenant claims the landlord's failure to maintain the house

is putting her five young children at risk,

but there's an added complication to the relationship.

The landlord's the father

of the lady who is the tenant in the property.

It appears that there's been a breakdown

in communications between both.

The tenant, who doesn't want to be identified,

has applied to the council to be rehoused.

While she waits, Rob and Grant need to inspect the property to

work out what needs to be done to make it safe.

Right, just before we move on,

I've just noticed you're missing your balustrade here.

Yeah, my dad brought a sofa in, took the old one out and

took them down to get in, broke a couple of them,

said he'd replace them, but that's been about a year.

-You need to have some sort of support going up and down the stairs.

-Yeah, I know.

With three children under five living in the house,

the lack of banisters is an accident waiting to happen,

so it's not a great start.

Another apparent amateur repair job has turned what should have

been a simple fix into a safety issue.

This handle came loose, so he took the door handle from here

and put it like this one that goes round.

So we changed the handles round and, because it

didn't lock, he had a bright idea to put that on that.

-To screw it shut.

-That's came out.

-Yeah.

As one door closes, dangerously, another is open, permanently.

-A completely missing door.

-It was really tight as well.

I literally just nudged it with my bum and, as I nudged it,

the whole thing just went, only the one door, literally just fell off.

He was here, he witnessed the whole thing.

He offered to go off halves to pay it and we fell out,

and this is what he left me with.

If she caused the damage,

fixing the broken door is the tenant's responsibility,

unless, as she claims, it happened as a result of the father's

failure to maintain it properly. It's a grey area.

But whoever's responsible, the breakdown in their relationship

has left them with a serious problem.

We're thinking quite a risk of entry by intruders,

so we'll need to have this obviously reinstated.

I've got five kids here and even my eldest, she's 11,

and I've got one that's nine, and they're scared here. They hate it.

Difficulty in securing the property from intruders is another

category one hazard.

From the roof down, the whole place is in a terrible state of disrepair.

See this floodlight here, there's exposed wiring there.

There's quite a bit really.

But the electrics outside are the least of Grant's concerns.

Inside, he's uncovered an even bigger problem

that could prove fatal.

All the back boxes are broken,

so technically you could put your fingers right in there

and touch the lives wires.

So I'm rather concerned with children about with that like that.

There's three of those.

See all the Sellotape here, look.

The exposed wiring could be a deathtrap,

so it's yet another category one hazard.

It's starting to look like sticky tape is the only thing

holding this place together.

And upstairs, it seems some bright spark has used an equally

slapdash approach to fixing the broken boiler.

It's been installed fairly well, but it appears there was a fault

with it at some point,

and somebody, cos of that reason,

has disconnected the electrics here, wired it directly to a plug,

an extension lead, and rigged it up and plugged it into the ring main.

A boiler that's had its electricity supply cut then taped up

and left live is obviously not good news for anybody.

Added to the fact that extension leads can overheat, well,

this boiler's just dangerous.

It's a heck of a steep staircase, innit?

Everywhere they turn, there is a serious threat to the

welfare of the tenant and her children,

even in the converted attic.

I don't know whether it's been done with building regs or not.

I know. It's hard to tell, isn't it?

I'll check the records.

Inspection complete. The danger to the family is overwhelming.

The thing that immediately strikes me

is the little children running around under four,

with exposed conductors in socket outlets.

The room upstairs has not been converted with building regs

so it's in a pretty bad way.

The situation would be bad enough

if it was a simple landlord-tenant dispute,

but the fact is they're dealing with a family at war.

I would hazard a guess that...

Some of it is due to...

I would imagine, looking at it, some of it is tenant damage.

And the father is probably fed up with replacing bits and pieces,

or doing repairs there,

and he's got to the point where he's given up.

Although part of the damage to the property is down to the tenant,

it isn't safe for the family to carry on living there.

With so many category one hazards putting the family at risk,

the council has issued an emergency prohibition order

on the property and moved the family into a new home.

Father and daughter are still not on speaking terms.

Back in Newham, the council ordered

the closure of a property which was unlawfully housing 17 tenants.

The landlord's now refurbishing the place but, despite being served

with an eviction notice two months ago, one family of four remains.

But they're crammed into a single room with no heating or even

basic facilities.

How do you make this work? Because this seems to be, to me,

-a very difficult space for four people to live in.

-I know, yeah.

I need to manage it because I don't have any other option.

So you've got one double bed here for three adults

and then the cot for your daughter.

So what are the sleeping arrangements?

My daughter is in the cot and my wife and my mum are in the bed,

and I'm on the floor.

-So you go on the floor?

-Yes.

Dad Naheeda came to the UK as a student.

And although the Home Office is holding his passport while

he applies for an extended visa, he is currently allowed to work.

-Are you working at the moment?

-I'm working in retail.

So you do a supermarket shift after sleeping on the floor here.

How does it work in terms of baths, showers, that kind of thing?

What do you do here?

I forget these things, to be honest, because you see the house condition.

-Yeah.

-If you're looking for this, you can't do anything.

-So you've got no way...

-No way. No other option.

Who wants to live like this? Who?

I think the answer is nobody...

least of all a family with a child.

What's the main thing that is preventing you from moving

somewhere else?

The money is still not enough because,

if I look for the many houses, and they say, "You have no passport."

-We have passport in the Home Office.

-Right.

So you have to accept somewhere like this,

-where they don't ask those questions?

-Yes.

So even if they do manage to scrape together enough money,

without the necessary ID,

Naheeda and the family could end up in another room in another

unlicensed house of multiple occupancy.

Thank you so much for talking to us. I really appreciate it.

This is a complicated story.

It's not the housing team's role to deal with passport issues,

but Tiffany has found out even more about this family's situation.

From what he was saying, the landlord did serve the notice

and, from what I gather from him,

is that they are living here rent-free.

The landlord's taken the steps he needs to take to evict his tenants,

but obviously they've got nowhere to go.

So he's given them the notice to quit...

According to him, I don't know, but this is what the tenant said.

-And then two months have elapsed?

-Yeah.

So they've given them the time to find somewhere new to live

and he's still here.

I mean, really, the tenant should have moved out in that time.

At this point, there's no breach that we can see occurring,

but we'll keep it open and probably come back in a couple of months and

see if it's rented out, and see what he's doing with it at that point.

Obviously we've only got one side of this story

and that's from the tenant.

They've been served with an eviction notice,

but they're still here, over two months after that was served.

Now, as for my friends in the planning department,

what they can see is that what's taking place

is what should be taking place - work is being done.

For me, I'm looking at four people living in one room

without a toilet, without a working kitchen, without heating,

and I'm thinking, "How's that come about?"

Clearly this is one property that the council needs to keep

an eye on, so it's gone on to their list of homes to revisit.

The good news is, though, since we met Naheeda and his family,

they've managed to find accommodation elsewhere.

They're the kind of scenes I've grown used to in rented properties

up and down the country -

mess, rubbish, smell.

I don't even know what that is.

It must be terrible to rent a place like this,

but imagine if you own it

and you're landed with the job of clearing it up.

So often I've heard the perspective of the tenant.

Now I'm keen to hear from the other side.

So I've come to Sandwell, to a landlord steering group that's

operated by the local council.

I think it's pretty important for all of us

to be aware of what our properties are being used for.

It's a platform for local landlords to have a voice.

It's here I meet Tommy Billingham.

He owns 30 rental properties in the area.

If you do get a bad tenant, someone who lets you down on the rent,

what difference does that make to your finances?

It makes a massive, massive difference because on a normal

buy-to-let property you probably earn, over 12 months,

£1,500, £2,000 tops.

-That's profit?

-Profit, yeah, out of one house.

If you've got one bad tenant

and they don't pay rent for a few months, trash the place,

leave owing money, that could cost you £5-6,000 easy

and that's three years' profit for that one house.

And also that could be putting other people at risk.

Because if you can't pay your bills and your mortgage,

the bank will just come along, repossess your whole portfolio,

kick everyone out.

So it seems one bad tenant can cause problems for more than just

the landlord. It can put other renters' homes at risk.

If you've had a dodgy tenant, you'll certainly know all about it.

Tommy's inspecting one of his properties

that has just been vacated.

I think they left about two weeks ago,

but they didn't give me any notice.

I only found out about it yesterday that they've actually left.

It's not a pretty sight.

So, the kitchen, the kitchen door's broken

and they've scraped all the skirting boards off, so they need replacing.

It smells of rotten food and dog.

I don't know what that is on the floor.

I haven't... I haven't got down there to smell it.

Yeah, the bath hasn't even been emptied.

However long that's been there I'm not sure.

I have to just keep reminding myself it is a business,

even though it still hurts.

It may be part of the job for a landlord,

but it's certainly not fun.

Later, in Sandwell, I'll see for myself the impact of a problem tenant.

This is literally how it's been left?

That's how they left it.

If you're renting a house, a flat or even just a room to somebody,

that makes you a landlord,

which means you are required by law to provide a decent

and safe standard of accommodation.

In Stafford, housing officer Chris Butcher wants to make sure

landlords take their responsibilities

to their tenants seriously.

We're pretty lucky in Stafford. Most landlords want to work with us

and want to provide good quality accommodation.

Good landlords have to pay their way and undertake repairs,

and apply for licences.

It's only fair that we take action against bad landlords who seek

to make profit by giving poor conditions to their tenants.

Chris is checking up on a property which was converted into bedsits

without having the correct licence.

To make matters worse, the landlord tried to cram even more

rooms into the house by installing dodgy chipboard partition walls.

Chris ordered these to be removed

and for a suitable fire alarm system to be fitted,

but in the months since his last inspection

it seems nothing's changed.

I'm certainly very concerned that no works have taken place,

so far that I can see.

This is a wall that the landlord's put up to divide what used to be,

presumably, the living room to create an extra bedroom

and there's somebody living in here.

It's not really very stable, there's gaps around the top.

This wouldn't really help in case of fire and, at present,

there is no real smoke alarms.

There's not really a good lock on the door, so anyone could

sort of access, get in and out, they could just undo these.

So I'm really quite worried about it.

The landlord hasn't complied with the council's improvement order.

That's not just bad news for Chris, it must be pretty

frustrating for the five tenants still living here too.

When you have more than two people who are not related

and share facilities -

so a group of students or just people who are renting rooms -

this is called a house of multiple occupation.

And there are some laws in place designed to ensure those

people are safe in their homes,

and they are around fire safety and disrepair.

It's clear this house in multiple occupation isn't safe

and therefore not fit for purpose.

So this is obviously the bedroom.

You can see the construction isn't really anything to make up about.

This is just some studs that have been created.

Here's the key meter for the electricity.

The problem is that it's inside a potentially locked bedroom.

It's just not in an ideal position.

You can see that there's these portable heaters, so there's no real

heating in here apart from this portable and lots of trailing plugs.

So, that's not great, at all.

Hazards like those chipboard partitions and the ropey heater

make having a decent smoke alarm system especially important.

So what I've got is a battery-powered alarm,

so it means that it's not interlinked with the rest of the house.

The only time that will go off is

when smoke has come from one of the other rooms,

and there's a real risk that they'll have a very serious fire occur

before residents and occupants know that it's happened.

I would expect them to have interlinked,

mains-wired smoke detectors throughout.

By law, landlords have to keep their rented properties safe

and free from health hazards.

It appears that might not be happening here.

These stairs might be fine

if you were just accessing the loft for storage in your home,

but there's no hand rail around the sides.

Each of the steps are in a different position -

it makes it quite difficult to get up and down safely.

On Chris' last inspection, this loft space was empty.

But, judging by the new bed and the belongings, the landlord hasn't

just ignored the improvement order,

they've brought even more tenants in.

The first thing is that there's no smoke alarm up here,

which I would expect considering that this is in the loft.

There is no form of fixed heating.

I can see a plug-in heater on that side of the room.

It's just not suitable as a bedroom. It's not been kitted out for it.

I think the next thing to do is to go talk with

the landlord about what his intention is.

Whether he intends to apply for a licence and get building works

done to make this safe and secure

or, more likely, for him to stop using it as a bedroom

and get it properly shut off.

It's quite a list,

but it sounds like the council's demands are the final

straw for the landlord.

Because a few weeks later, Chris has some news.

I think the landlord's decided that running bedsits

wasn't really for them.

It's not really their main line of work,

so they decided to move in themselves,

which I think is probably a very good idea.

I'll visit again in a couple of months' time, just to make sure

they've done what they've said they are going to do,

but I'm pretty confident that it's going to be OK.

In my role as a wannabe housing officer,

I've been hearing the private landlords' take on things.

Before you realise that it's gone bad ways,

you're thousands of pounds down in lost rent.

And here in Sandwell in the West Midlands,

someone who knows the realities of being a professional landlord

is bedsit big shot Jim Haliburton.

-Hi, Jim. How are you?

-Hello, Matt.

-Good to see you.

-Is this the place here?

-That's it.

-Let's have a look.

You go in.

Jim is a buy-to-let HMO mogul,

with an incredible 160 rental properties on his books,

the majority of which are rented out by unemployed tenants.

In fact, Jim even runs courses teaching others the economics and

practicalities of putting multiple tenants into a single property.

Not all landlords will take on tenants that receive housing benefits.

And I'm here to see a property of his that's just been vacated.

So what's the story here?

There's obviously... I mean, there's drugs paraphernalia.

Yeah, I think they were definitely into drugs.

This is not natural behaviour from tenants,

and it only represents a very small minority of who my tenants are,

but it goes to show how disruptive drugs are.

If you put drugs in your body,

you obviously don't care about yourself

and you're certainly not going to care about the landlord's property.

How often would you say from your tenants, your DSS tenants,

you end up with this kind of situation?

An unsatisfactory end to the tenancy.

I've got 480 unemployed tenants

and we've probably got less than 1% who are a problem.

But these 1% cause enormous problems.

I've had properties that have been completely stripped of all

copper and materials. They cause problems to other tenants,

but it's part and parcel of what you do.

From what you're saying, it sounds like you're saying, if you're going

to house people at that end of the market,

this is the natural by-product,

which you can mitigate as much as possible and try and learn from.

Don't be a landlord if this is going to upset you

because you won't hack it.

So problem tenants are an occupational hazard, says Jim.

He also says that the majority of his properties

and tenants cause him no problems at all,

as we see with his next flat, which is basic but clean.

Yes, I'd like to provide lovely properties in the country

with lovely gardens and fountains etc.

But, unfortunately, the reality is, what can people afford?

Who is going to house these other people?

Who is going to house the people who want that accommodation?

They choose to live there.

There is a real place for enforcement

and I find it a bit concerning that you don't see that.

I can't change the world.

The enforcement's here.

I'm entitled to my view.

I think the market regulates itself pretty well from my experience

and I couldn't get away with giving substandard properties.

If the property was damp and cold,

the tenants would just get up and go.

They will not stay in that kind of accommodation.

If it wasn't for the council coming in and looking

at the state that they're living in, and doing something about it...

And closing the property down.

..and dealing with it, one way or the other, then that problem...

That's just not the case.

The way of dealing with it is to close the property down.

It's not, it's not.

No, it's not because they will do, the majority of housing officers

I've worked with will do anything to avoid evictions.

What they will do is they will deal with the landlord wherever possible,

when the landlord is present, and try and make it liveable, habitable,

even in the short-term.

-Lovely to meet you, Jim.

-My pleasure.

-Take care.

-Safe journey home.

-Cheers.

-Bye.

So, one of the West Midlands' biggest landlords

and a self-professed leading light in how to run a HMO - that's bedsits

to you and me - is saying, yes, he's providing a valuable service,

providing accommodation for people who wouldn't

be able to find it elsewhere. That's fine.

But he's also saying that he doesn't feel the need for enforcement.

There doesn't need to be a man from the council checking that

he's adhering to basic standards because,

if the tenants didn't like it,

they'd get up and they'd find somewhere else to live.

All very well and good, as long as those tenants have got

other options, other places they can live.

We've seen far too many people who don't have any other options.

That's it for today. Join me, next time, on the front line

with Britain's housing officers.