Episode 3 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.'

Only months ago it was that 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...

'..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.

-That's your responsibility.

-Yeah.

'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're committing an offence under the Housing Act.

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

This good old boy.

Hello?

Today, I'm checking in on a hotelier who's not playing by the book.

There's a family of four in this bedroom here.

Hello there.

The property is licensed for a MAXIMUM of one person per room.

There's too many people living here.

A housing officer has high hopes for one of her teenage tenants.

-I just want to get in college and get a job and that.

-Absolutely.

I'm sick of sitting at home.

The last three months of me taking all these tiny little steps with him

have paid off and we've turned a corner.

And I couldn't be prouder of him.

And someone's feeling fruity in the gardens of Suffolk.

And he had white pants on...

-HE LAUGHS

-Was it cold that night?

It was bitter.

Absolutely bitter!

Right now, Britain is in the middle of a housing crisis.

If you want to buy a property, typically,

you'll need to have saved almost three years' salary as a deposit.

And that'll get you a mortgage that'll make your eyes water.

No wonder we've now got more people renting

than at any time in the last 60 years.

Protecting those renters are the country's housing enforcers.

And in this programme, that's what I'll be training to become.

From 2013 to 2014, house prices in our capital leapt a whopping 25%,

fuelling a dramatic rise in the rental sector.

In the borough of Newham,

this rise has meant a big demand for rented houses,

and unscrupulous landlords are cashing in

by squeezing as many tenants as possible into their properties.

But more than half of these buildings are failing

to meet acceptable standards.

'As part of my training,

'I'm joining planning officers Ellen Nicholson and Tiffany Mallen.

'It's their job to check up on these dodgy landlords

'who are breaking the law and make sure they start complying

'with regulations that are put in place to protect tenants.'

Interesting.

What are we going to be up to today then, Ellen?

OK, so, we've got a couple of compliance visits we need to do.

We served notices at the end of last year.

We've got a lot of new cases that have come in, so...

Are these coming in faster than we can handle?

There just seems to be a never-ending stream of these.

Yeah, there's a lot of cases, and we've just been given

a batch of 100 cases each that we've got to deal with.

-OK, shall we go?

-Yep.

We head out with a long list of landlords to track down.

There's no point in just taking one or two addresses,

because so many of them are out.

Last call of the morning is this property of 11 bedsits.

Previously, the council discovered it was being used as an overflow

from the hotel next door without the appropriate permission.

It served an enforcement notice which the landlord complied with.

You can kind of see what's happened.

At some point, it used to say Stratford Hotel

across BOTH of those doorways.

But then the enforcement notice came in

and the owner was forced to just put it all over the one doorway,

where they have the licence.

'With the case still open...'

Hello?

'..Ellen and Tiffany want to check the owner is now sticking

'to the licence and running it as a rented house rather than a hotel.'

-There are lights on...

-Oh, there's someone coming.

-Is somebody coming?

-Yeah.

Hi, we're from Newham Council planning department,

and we've just got a case open on this property.

We needed to check the use...

The number of people living here?

Yeah?

'After a frustrating morning, finally, we're in.

'If the building is being run as a rental property should,

'tenants here will have signed a legal agreement with their landlord

'and be paying rent weekly or monthly.'

Sorry?

-£50 a day?!

-Yeah, I think so.

So, you're paying per day to live here?

-(How does that work?)

-You think so. All right.

-OK.

-So, is this a hotel?

-Yeah.

-It is a hotel.

-Oh, OK.

From what that gentleman was saying,

this is operating as a sort of hostel/hotel?

Yeah, so it seems he's paying per night... £50 per night.

-£50 a night?!

-For that room.

-Yeah.

It might be that he's just using the empty rooms

and charging a fortune just to fill them for the night.

If you're running a hotel,

then a completely different set of rules apply, don't they?

As I understand it. Renting out per night

is different from having a long-term tenancy.

-Yeah.

-Yeah.

'Is this a case of the landlord

'not complying with the enforcement notice

'or of a tenant doing some unauthorised subletting?

'Heading upstairs, we find a different problem.'

There's a family of four in this bedroom.

Hello there. How are you?

-So, four?

-Yeah.

Four of you in this room?

A little girl, who's in bed at the moment,

and we've got a double bed

next to a single bed.

Then, in here, we have a shower, toilet and a sink.

Thank you very much, thank you.

I'll just close that door, let those people get on with their lives.

HE SIGHS

Four people in there.

'The family and landlord have signed a tenancy agreement,

'but according to the property's licence,

'there should only be one person living in each room.'

So, up here, we've got the property licence.

The property is licensed for a MAXIMUM of 11 people...

"living as 11 households, regardless of age."

So, that means...

one person per room.

Yeah. 11 individual tenancies.

But we've already seen that there's...

four people in some of the rooms,

and apparently, there's a family living on the ground floor.

-OK.

-So...

So, that licence, then, it looks, from what we've seen,

like there could have been a breach of that licence.

There's too many people living here

and they're not licensed for that many people.

'Later on, we'll discover just how difficult life can be

'for a family squeezed into one room.'

With Britain's economy experiencing all-time-low mortgage rates,

budding investors have never seen a better time to buy

additional property in the hope of making some money.

While some will capitalise on the housing demand

by renting their property,

others look to renovate and try to sell at a profit.

We're in Cumbria, where one such house,

bought potentially for investment,

has been abandoned and become dilapidated.

The derelict property has become a nuisance for its neighbours,

so housing manager Emma Bundock

has been called out to take a look.

As you can see, it's in a state of disrepair...

I believe the gentleman bought it without seeing the property,

so obviously he wasn't aware of the conditions in there.

You know, what he's bought, he's now left with this.

As well as viewing the property before you buy,

you should also have a survey carried out.

This will expose any potential hidden problems

and save you money down the line.

This place was bought as a potential buy-to-let investment,

but vital renovation work was never carried out

and the building has slipped into decay.

The difficulty with this now is that

it's not worth the value that he paid for it.

So, he's going to struggle to get any finance from a mortgage company.

We have an empty property grant scheme that...

We've been out and drawn up a schedule of work

to enable him to access that.

But he has to pay off any debt that he owes the council

and also raise 25% of the work that needs to be done.

So, financially, he's struggling and unable to do this work.

This abandoned property has fallen into such a shocking state of repair

that it's causing problems for the buildings on either side.

There is a school next door, which...

I believe they had concerns during the high winds

and stopped using the access there for the children to come

because they were concerned about their safety.

The guttering was hanging off.

There were also concerns that people were getting into the property,

vandals were getting in, and the risk there.

So, yeah, it needs addressing.

In the rubbish-strewn yard at the back of the house,

the true state of neglect is glaringly obvious.

There has been attempts to break in before.

We've actually got it boarded up now, so that's quite secure.

There's no need to worry there.

Slightly hazardous and very untidy, obviously.

For the neighbours next door, it's not particularly pleasant.

And for the school, as well.

We have been in and carried out an inspection internally

to see whether or not there would be grant-eligible works there,

which there is.

The ball's in his court to get quotes for the work

and then to come back to us with the relevant paperwork.

If I don't hear back from him very soon,

we'll be looking at the enforcement route,

which could be service of a notice requiring him

to renovate or demolish the property.

A few weeks later, and there's been a development.

Emma hears that the deserted house has been sold,

meaning that, after years of dereliction,

some urgently needed action may finally be taken.

So, I spoke to the owner today of the empty property

and he's advised me that the ownership is due to transfer,

and he will no longer be responsible for that property.

What I will need to do is establish

who the new owner is and meet them.

Once Emma has made contact,

she'll discuss possible ways forward,

some of which are quite radical.

So, the options for the property is that the new owner does it up

and we get a new family moving in there.

They may decide that it's gone beyond any kind of repair,

and they would look to demolish it and then rebuild a new house

which might be more financially viable

than renovating the one that's there already.

There's a lot of work that needs to be done,

and that might be the better option.

Back in Newham, I'm at a rental property

where at least one room is being hired out by the night

without a hotel licence.

-So, we've got certainly more than 11 people living here.

-Definitely, yeah.

-We've got maybe 20 or 25.

-Yeah.

-Hard to tell without seeing the other side of some of these doors.

-Yeah.

'And as we move around the building, we uncover more worrying signs

'of overcrowding as the owner continues to break the rules.'

-Would it be possible to come and have a look inside your room?

-Yeah, sure.

Thank you very much.

'We won't reveal this tenant's face

'but he was still keen for us to hear his story.'

So, you're here with your family?

-Yeah.

-And how many of you live in this room?

OK. How long have you been here?

-That's a long time to be...

-It's a long time.

-..in these circumstances.

And how is your work situation at the moment? Is it difficult?

Right. So this is coming from housing benefit?

Oh, OK.

So it's because of your child that

they have to make sure you have somewhere to live like this?

It turns out the family's awaiting a Home Office decision

regarding their right to remain in the UK.

Because they have a six-year-old son,

the council's obliged to house them and did so in the hotel next door,

but they were then moved to this room

by the hotel's management at a later date.

How do you find it living in here, trying to bring your family up here?

Yeah.

What does the future hold? Have you got a way out of this situation?

OK. Thank you so much...

-No problem.

-..for talking to us.

-I hope you get a better situation soon.

-Nice talking to you.

-Thank you very much.

-Thank you very much.

'There is a lot of form-filling and door-banging in this job,

'but when you actually come face-to-face with the people

'who the rules and regulations are trying to protect,

'you recognise what all the legwork is for.'

Since our visit, planning officer Ellen managed to track down

the landlord to get some answers.

He is adamant that it is just a house of multiple occupation,

it's not a hotel, but I'm waiting on tenancy agreements from him

to show that all the rooms are being rented out on an agreement

and they're not being rented per night.

Hello there. So, four of you in this room...

'Next, it was the issue of overcrowding.

'But since our visit, the landlord has insisted

'his property doesn't have more than the 11 stated tenants.

'So, this will be investigated further by the housing team.'

The good news is, though,

that the family we spoke to earlier have now been moved by the council

into more suitable accommodation, a self-contained flat.

The council has also decided

it will no longer use this hotel to accommodate families.

Teenagers - well, we know they'll argue black is white

and insist you're just there to make their lives miserable.

Harry Enfield might have turned adolescence into a comedy,

but for a lot of families it can be a time of genuine

relationship-threatening stress that's anything but funny.

I'm with Swale Council's housing options officer,

Sue Davis, in Kent. We're off to the Isle of Sheppey to visit a teenager

who's been kicked out of school

and is now in danger of being kicked out of home, too.

We're just off to see Rian. He's 16, lives with Mum.

He left mainstream school, couldn't cope very well

and went to what's called a "pupil referral unit".

Did OK, and then, went off the rails a little bit.

Mum is on benefit, so they're living on a very low income for two people,

which is obviously a massive strain on the family.

-Is he getting any benefits himself?

-No, no, because he lives at home.

-He doesn't want to leave home.

-He doesn't want to leave home?

He might not want to leave, but the strain of the situation

is taking its toll on Rian's mum.

There's a real danger he could end up homeless

if their relationship gets any worse.

One of the most common causes of youth homelessness

is a breakdown in family relations.

Sue's been working with Rian as part of the Troubled Families scheme,

which provides support to over 100,000 disadvantaged households across Britain,

households that are defined by the Government as having...

In Rian's case, Sue's there to provide any support she can now

to help keep the family together.

It will be better for them, but will also prevent things escalating

into a more costly and difficult problem if he becomes homeless.

I don't believe any child wakes up in the morning and thinks,

"I'm going to do something today that's going to make me homeless

"and I deliberately don't want to be happy."

Sue's had to deal with plenty of negativity from Rian.

He has been rude, he has been vile,

and he has been an absolute pleasure, and then sometimes...

he won't talk to me at all.

'She's clearly very fond of Rian,

'but I'm slightly nervous about which Rian we're going to get today.

'I'm hoping it's not the stroppy one.

'He is happy to talk to us. That's a good start, at least.'

-How have you been getting on with Mum?

-All right.

-Cos she does your head in sometimes, doesn't she?

-Yeah, she does.

-But it's been better?

-Much better.

Why do you think it's been better, though?

Cos we've just gone our own ways.

She stays down here, I stay upstairs. Simple as.

-Actually, that's not a bad answer. That's not a bad solution, that.

-No.

It's not the ideal situation, but at least they seem to have found

a compromise that's allowing Rian to carry on living at home.

Because he isn't in full-time education,

the family isn't entitled to child benefit

and the financial burden on Mum isn't helping their relationship.

But Sue's convinced Rian to do something that will really help.

College, then.

So, why have we got a change of heart? That's really fantastic.

Cos I just want to get in college and get a job and that.

-Absolutely.

-I'm sick of sitting at home.

-Yeah, boring, isn't it?

-Yeah.

Now, I've had a little look around

-and MidKent do it, you know Gillingham?

-Yeah.

They do one, it starts in January.

Would you be able to get me in that?

-Well, I have filled the form out already.

-Sweet.

You've made my day.

You've made my day. Right...

A place on the course is a win-win.

It could help Rian get a job when he's older

but will also ease the pressure on Mum, who could claim tax credits

and child benefit while he studies.

So, you need to sign for me there.

But Rian's already been excluded from school.

I want to have a talk to him,

man-to-man, to find out what went wrong.

Part of the idea of school is that you can see that

there's a bigger world out there, and there are opportunities,

and things that you could do, but did that not really...

-That's not the message you got from school?

-No, when I was in school,

I didn't click, like, my brain weren't clicking.

I was like the class clown.

There's always one kid that's always making everyone laugh and that,

and I was that kid, and I ended up getting kicked out.

And now she has, like, helped me out, so...

I can't praise her enough.

So, if Sue hadn't got involved when she did,

where do you think you might be now?

On the street. Probably be on drugs.

-Does a little bit of you want to get it right for her?

-Yeah.

'Meeting Rian has reminded me that dealing with teenagers,'

as they move from children to adults,

takes really sensitive handling.

That's not what I was expecting.

I was really, really worried that he wouldn't engage,

he wouldn't open the door.

If he did open the door, he would just not be interested.

And Sue is clearly moved by the progress that he's made.

That was fantastic, and his response to you, to me, to everyone

has shown that the last three months

of me taking all these tiny little steps with him has paid off

and we've turned a corner and I couldn't be prouder of him,

and of his mum. They've really worked with me,

the threat of homelessness has gone, he's seen the future for himself

for the first time ever, which is fantastic.

-Presumably, this is something you're still going to have to monitor and manage.

-Absolutely.

This is going to be maybe even harder, to a certain extent,

because now we're going to be looking at college,

new relationships with friends.

There's going to be dips, but you get through them

and I'm hoping that with the support

that I'm going to plan on giving the family, that we get there.

Coming up, Sue's left facing

a teenage tantrum that could jeopardise all her hard work.

I want to move out.

-You want to move out?

-Yeah.

In rural Suffolk, being a Babergh Council housing officer

isn't always about tackling big problems and dodgy landlords.

Today, community housing officer Andrew Weavers is responding

to a call-out about an unruly hedge

that's causing problems for one of the council's own tenants.

What we've got is a complaint about another neighbour's garden,

it's a bit overgrown, and I'd promised to get some work done.

I was under the impression it had been done, so I want to go

and check that because I'm still getting complaints from Denise.

Denise Murray has lived at her council-owned bungalow at Hadleigh

for ten years, and while an overgrown hedge might seem like a small thing,

Denise has trouble with her mobility

and the scruffy shrubbery outside her home is

making it even harder to get around.

It's difficult for me to get out to go to the shops

because it's overgrown, over the footpath.

I'm just going to walk the footpath

to see what has and hasn't been done.

Once Andrew arrives it doesn't take Monty Don to spot

that it still hasn't been sorted.

This is a bit of overgrown stuff that needs cutting back.

It looks a bit better than I last saw it

but I can't see too much work that's been carried out.

I'll, erm...

I'll go and see my little lady and just give a little chat, I think.

And Andrew's got a theory about what's happened.

I want to touch base with you, because I think at the beginning

of the footpath, there might have been some work done,

but they haven't done anything I've asked them to do.

-It's getting quite bad now.

-It is, I've just had a look.

-Especially when I go out on my scooter.

-I'm a bit disappointed

they've probably got the wrong end of the stick,

and they haven't done the work where I wanted it to be done.

-I'm going to ask them to come out and have a look, as well.

-Yes.

It's a simple mix-up and it should be easy to resolve,

but it seems the hedge isn't Denise's only problem.

Any movement on the old boiler house?

A redundant outbuilding in the communal garden's become

a magnet for fly-tippers.

The first thing Andrew needs to do is check out how bad it is.

There's just one small problem...

-Do you want ladders?

-I'll need ladders to have a look, will I?

-Come, come.

-I'm not good with heights.

It's not... It's only a small...

I don't think I've got the right safety equipment to go up a ladder.

HE LAUGHS

I tell you what, I'll give you a leg up and you can tell me

-how much rubbish is in there!

-HE LAUGHS

Denise is having none of it.

You get the feeling he's going to go up there one way or the another.

If I fall over this is going to be...

-I don't like heights. Oh, I see.

-It's awful in there.

What we've got is various bits of rubbish.

It's a real mess.

And it's only going to get worse if it isn't sorted out.

It appears to me that people are going by the footpath

with bits and pieces of rubbish and just throwing it over.

What we're going to have to do is clean it out but we're going to need

to do something else otherwise it's going to keep happening.

But the fly-tipping isn't the only antisocial behaviour

going on in the garden.

Some nocturnal nature-lovers have also been using it to give a whole

new meaning to neighbourhood watch.

One Friday evening, there was a couple having sex under the tree

out in the communal garden.

-Was it cold that night?

-It was bitter.

Absolutely bitter!

How rude. People dropping their rubbish is one thing.

When they start dropping their trousers, well,

that's quite something else.

Did your neighbour speak to the police about people getting in?

-They did.

-OK. They wouldn't have forensics round for that!

-HE LAUGHS

-I don't think so.

-OK.

THEY LAUGH

Nice to see you again.

-Thanks very much.

-OK, you're welcome.

I'll call round again, give it a week or two,

-and then hopefully I'll see a difference.

-Lovely.

-And I might have some answers for you.

-Lovely.

-Thanks very much, Andrew.

-Cheers, dears. Bye.

-Bye.

Fortunately, sorting the hedge and the rubbish is something he CAN do,

and while it might seem like a small thing,

it'll make a big difference to Denise.

We're called "community housing officers" for a reason

and so we have to be out there in the community.

But if we can do just the little jobs to keep people happy,

then I think that's the big picture, isn't it?

In Kent, Swale Council's housing options officer, Sue Davis,

has been working with a troubled teen whose strained relationship

with his mum is putting him at risk of being homeless.

Having been excluded from school, Sue managed to convince

16-year-old Rian to go back into full-time education.

I just want to get into college and get a job and that.

But after less than a week on his new course, he's been asked to leave,

so Sue's on her way round to talk things through.

-I made some phone calls...

-SHE SIGHS

..and they were really good at the college.

They explained it completely.

Basically, a bit of an attitude and a lack of respect.

Sue had hoped the financial support he would get while he was at college,

would take some pressure off his mum and help their tricky relationship,

so the news he's been kicked off the course already is a real bombshell.

When we last met, we were going to go to college,

all looking forward to it.

Went to college.

Lasted how long? Seven days?

-I didn't do nothing wrong.

-Didn't you?

-No.

-They said something about

earphones in in the lessons or when the man was talking.

-I heard everything he said.

-You're better than that, aren't you?

You know good manners.

Sue's worried his attitude could be the final straw for Mum

and she might decide she can't have him living at home any more.

But it seems Rian's come to a decision of his own.

I want to move out.

-You want to move out?

-Yeah.

But you're not moving out.

No, it's not any problems between me and my mum,

I just don't want to live here any more,

-I just want to get out.

-Having spent months doing everything she can

to help keep the family together,

Sue's hoping a reality check will change his mind.

You have a home, you have a mum that loves you.

You've got a really supportive family.

You've got all the potential to do well.

But we've got this little gap here, and I don't want you thinking

the answer is moving out and getting your own place. It's not.

We've got to build up to that. Everyone has to PLAN to leave home.

-Yeah, I do better without plans.

-Do you?

Well, that might be the case, but Sue's sticking to her original plan

and, luckily for Rian,

the college have agreed to give him a second chance.

The course starts again in April and I said, "OK, lovely.

"How do you get your name down? When do you put your name down?"

And she said, "I can do that for you now."

So, she put your name down for the course in April again.

Sue's delicate handling has done the trick.

Rian's going back to college and, for the time being at least,

he'll be living at home.

Yep, him and Mum are getting on better. He's not threatened

with homelessness which was always the issue.

It's a result. But Rian is a teenager, so Sue's under no illusions

he might well change his mind again tomorrow.

I think we're back on track, which is really good.

We have had a blip, I can't deny that.

I think he's learned from it.

But I'll keep in touch till I know he's settled in cos he needs that,

and I don't want the six months to have been for nothing.

Well, with a bit of luck, they won't have been wasted,

because Rian's all set to start back at college in April.

Let's hope he makes a go of it this time.

That's it for today's show.

Join me next time when I'll be finding out more about what it takes

to become a front-line housing officer.