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There is a failure to provide enough housing | 0:00:02 | 0:00:03 | |
for the people of this country. | 0:00:03 | 0:00:05 | |
But landlords haven't made this problem, | 0:00:05 | 0:00:08 | |
they've just got wealthier on the back of it. | 0:00:08 | 0:00:11 | |
Once a nation of homeowners, | 0:00:13 | 0:00:16 | |
there are now over 11 million people renting in Britain | 0:00:16 | 0:00:19 | |
and most of the rent is being collected by private landlords. | 0:00:19 | 0:00:24 | |
My philosophy is buy low, rent high. | 0:00:24 | 0:00:27 | |
Proud Polish millionaire - that's the label I should be happy with. | 0:00:29 | 0:00:32 | |
But many landlords have no idea what it's like to live in the properties | 0:00:34 | 0:00:38 | |
they profit from... | 0:00:38 | 0:00:39 | |
See the walls - damp and mould here. | 0:00:40 | 0:00:42 | |
The baby's with allergy. | 0:00:42 | 0:00:45 | |
It's affecting my health, undoubtedly. | 0:00:45 | 0:00:48 | |
..and they can't always rely on the tenants to speak up. | 0:00:48 | 0:00:51 | |
They have the power to say, "Right, you've nagged too much. | 0:00:51 | 0:00:53 | |
"That's it. You're gone." | 0:00:53 | 0:00:54 | |
I can't make it better for you till you say something! | 0:00:54 | 0:00:57 | |
So, to experience it for themselves, | 0:00:59 | 0:01:02 | |
these landlords have decided to swap their home comforts | 0:01:02 | 0:01:06 | |
for a week in their tenants' shoes... | 0:01:06 | 0:01:08 | |
It will give me some great insights. | 0:01:08 | 0:01:10 | |
Maybe I don't want those insights. | 0:01:10 | 0:01:13 | |
I'm quite excited. It's like going on holiday. | 0:01:13 | 0:01:15 | |
Oh, my goodness! | 0:01:15 | 0:01:17 | |
..to see the properties through their tenants' eyes... | 0:01:17 | 0:01:19 | |
Whoa! Wow! | 0:01:19 | 0:01:21 | |
That's the bad boy. | 0:01:21 | 0:01:22 | |
Oh, OK, that pretty much is it. | 0:01:22 | 0:01:24 | |
-Yeah. -So it's quite small. | 0:01:24 | 0:01:26 | |
Don't touch it - health and safety. | 0:01:26 | 0:01:28 | |
..and live on their budgets. | 0:01:29 | 0:01:30 | |
How are we going to eat on £54? | 0:01:30 | 0:01:32 | |
It's like being unemployed again! | 0:01:32 | 0:01:34 | |
And once they have lived the realities | 0:01:34 | 0:01:36 | |
of renting for themselves... | 0:01:36 | 0:01:37 | |
We feel like we've lived like paupers. | 0:01:37 | 0:01:40 | |
A bit upset, really. | 0:01:40 | 0:01:42 | |
I think it makes me feel vulnerable. | 0:01:42 | 0:01:44 | |
..will it make them change their properties | 0:01:44 | 0:01:47 | |
or how they view their tenants? | 0:01:47 | 0:01:49 | |
It's not safe. Not sure how did they survive? | 0:01:49 | 0:01:52 | |
If I don't help right now, she's going to be there forever. | 0:01:52 | 0:01:56 | |
People often ask me how many properties I've got | 0:02:01 | 0:02:06 | |
and what I'm worth and to be frank with you, I have lost track. | 0:02:06 | 0:02:13 | |
Surrey landlord Ben has built his fortune buying up family houses | 0:02:13 | 0:02:17 | |
to rent to the student market. | 0:02:17 | 0:02:19 | |
Did you know I tried to buy this one here? | 0:02:19 | 0:02:22 | |
What we should do is get a set so we have a house in each road. | 0:02:22 | 0:02:25 | |
Real-life Monopoly! | 0:02:25 | 0:02:27 | |
It's a strategy that's proved increasingly lucrative. | 0:02:28 | 0:02:31 | |
If I was to rent out to a family, | 0:02:31 | 0:02:34 | |
I can get £1,300 to £1,500 for the house. | 0:02:34 | 0:02:37 | |
But if I rent out each single room and use the existing lounge | 0:02:37 | 0:02:43 | |
as a bedroom, I can get £1,800 to £2,000. | 0:02:43 | 0:02:46 | |
Three, four, five, six. | 0:02:46 | 0:02:48 | |
You can get six bedrooms. | 0:02:48 | 0:02:51 | |
-Yeah. -And students are less demanding. | 0:02:51 | 0:02:54 | |
We've got the strips coming off, haven't we? | 0:02:54 | 0:02:57 | |
-They have. -Unless they're spoilt, | 0:02:57 | 0:02:59 | |
and in that case the students are very demanding. | 0:02:59 | 0:03:02 | |
One, two, three, four, five. | 0:03:02 | 0:03:05 | |
Ben has 22 properties that provide | 0:03:05 | 0:03:08 | |
a monthly rental income of around £20,000 | 0:03:08 | 0:03:11 | |
and ensure he's free of financial worry. | 0:03:11 | 0:03:15 | |
The thing that being a landlord allows you to do | 0:03:15 | 0:03:17 | |
is to have a lot more time, | 0:03:17 | 0:03:18 | |
rather than being caught up in whatever it is | 0:03:18 | 0:03:21 | |
that people want you to do, you can say, "No, I don't need to do that." | 0:03:21 | 0:03:25 | |
I can just go off and follow my dream. | 0:03:25 | 0:03:28 | |
Eight, one... | 0:03:28 | 0:03:30 | |
I love dancing. | 0:03:30 | 0:03:31 | |
I do a lot in the Latin, but I also know a lot of modern jives. | 0:03:31 | 0:03:35 | |
See those mirrors there, so I had those specially put in for me | 0:03:37 | 0:03:42 | |
to practise my way of doing a body roll, so... | 0:03:42 | 0:03:46 | |
My dad is eccentric, kind, highly intelligent. | 0:03:46 | 0:03:51 | |
You think he's like bat sugar crazy. | 0:03:51 | 0:03:54 | |
I have about 20,000-plus comics. | 0:03:54 | 0:03:57 | |
I would say it's a valuable collection. | 0:03:57 | 0:03:59 | |
It's probably worth about £30,000 or £40,000. | 0:03:59 | 0:04:03 | |
There's this bit in me that wants to save the world. | 0:04:03 | 0:04:07 | |
I really do feel like I would probably be like the Doctor Who, | 0:04:07 | 0:04:10 | |
that would be my superhero. | 0:04:10 | 0:04:11 | |
I'd arise when there's a problem. | 0:04:11 | 0:04:13 | |
I'd fix it and I'd vanish from people's lives. | 0:04:13 | 0:04:16 | |
Doctor Who. I'm a Dalek! | 0:04:16 | 0:04:18 | |
So, no, it's the other way around, isn't it? | 0:04:18 | 0:04:21 | |
Ben has properties all over the UK, but the majority | 0:04:21 | 0:04:24 | |
are in the Surrey town of Egham, just outside of London. | 0:04:24 | 0:04:28 | |
With over 9,000 students here, finding tenants is never a problem, | 0:04:30 | 0:04:35 | |
but renting to the youth market is not without its challenges. | 0:04:35 | 0:04:39 | |
I have to incorporate damage because they do wreck your houses. | 0:04:39 | 0:04:43 | |
So I've had students iron on the carpet, right? | 0:04:43 | 0:04:47 | |
And they think, "Oh, I've burnt it. | 0:04:47 | 0:04:49 | |
"I'll tell you what I'll do, I will move the bed over that," | 0:04:49 | 0:04:52 | |
or, "I'll put a rug over it." | 0:04:52 | 0:04:54 | |
The worst, oh, my goodness, | 0:04:54 | 0:04:56 | |
I came to check up on a student and she'd gone to bed, | 0:04:56 | 0:05:00 | |
she'd left the gas stove on and it had blown out. | 0:05:00 | 0:05:04 | |
Oh, five bedrooms. | 0:05:04 | 0:05:05 | |
Ben now uses letting agents | 0:05:05 | 0:05:07 | |
so he doesn't have to deal directly with issues from his tenants. | 0:05:07 | 0:05:11 | |
I do feel a little bit disconnected from the tenants | 0:05:11 | 0:05:14 | |
and I do wish I could engage more with them. | 0:05:14 | 0:05:17 | |
To reconnect, Ben will be moving into one of his student rentals | 0:05:17 | 0:05:21 | |
for a week, living with the students and on their budget. | 0:05:21 | 0:05:25 | |
I'm going to carry some tools with me. | 0:05:25 | 0:05:27 | |
Some screwdrivers, a clamp and a hammer. | 0:05:27 | 0:05:29 | |
A plunger - that's just in case. | 0:05:29 | 0:05:32 | |
I'm very nervous, actually. | 0:05:32 | 0:05:34 | |
I was OK about it until last night and then I was, like, "Crap!" | 0:05:34 | 0:05:39 | |
I've got to go and live with students! | 0:05:40 | 0:05:42 | |
I'm worried about being a parent and having to say, | 0:05:42 | 0:05:45 | |
"Come on, this is four nights in a row | 0:05:45 | 0:05:47 | |
"that you've been out drinking and partying," | 0:05:47 | 0:05:50 | |
or just, I don't know, they'll be talking crap to me as well. | 0:05:50 | 0:05:53 | |
Ben will be moving into this house in Egham. | 0:05:56 | 0:05:59 | |
Originally a four-bed family home, | 0:06:00 | 0:06:02 | |
Ben converted the garage and a living room and it's now shared | 0:06:02 | 0:06:07 | |
by six students, each paying a monthly rent of £433. | 0:06:07 | 0:06:11 | |
I wasn't thinking, I just poured the whole can of tomatoes in. | 0:06:12 | 0:06:15 | |
One of them is 20-year-old Tilly. | 0:06:15 | 0:06:18 | |
This is the first house I've ever rented myself. | 0:06:18 | 0:06:20 | |
It's the first place I've ever lived without parents. | 0:06:20 | 0:06:22 | |
But it is a daunting experience. You don't really know what's going on. | 0:06:22 | 0:06:25 | |
You're obviously constantly calling your parents, saying, | 0:06:25 | 0:06:28 | |
"Is this right? Am I paying the right amount?" | 0:06:28 | 0:06:30 | |
Rents in Egham are twice the national average, | 0:06:30 | 0:06:32 | |
and roughly the same whether it's a professional or student let. | 0:06:32 | 0:06:36 | |
Overall, we pay £2,600 a month, which is a lot of money, | 0:06:36 | 0:06:43 | |
so you wouldn't expect to have the basic problems that we have. | 0:06:43 | 0:06:46 | |
PUMP WHIRS | 0:06:46 | 0:06:48 | |
That's the sound of the water pump and that's not even hot water, | 0:06:48 | 0:06:51 | |
that's cold water. | 0:06:51 | 0:06:52 | |
So whenever anyone flushes the toilet in the night | 0:06:53 | 0:06:55 | |
or whenever anyone's showering, whenever anyone's washing | 0:06:55 | 0:06:57 | |
their hands or does the washing-up we get this constant noise. | 0:06:57 | 0:07:00 | |
WHIRRING CONTINUES | 0:07:00 | 0:07:02 | |
Someone's obviously washing their hands downstairs. | 0:07:02 | 0:07:05 | |
We complained about it quite a lot when we first moved in | 0:07:05 | 0:07:07 | |
and the advice we were given by our maintenance company | 0:07:07 | 0:07:10 | |
was to not shower at night-time. | 0:07:10 | 0:07:12 | |
When they moved in, Ben said work would be done on the garden. | 0:07:14 | 0:07:18 | |
We were promised it would take no more than 30 hours of work, but, um, | 0:07:18 | 0:07:22 | |
a year later and still can't really use the whole garden, | 0:07:22 | 0:07:26 | |
which is infuriating because if they hadn't hired gardeners, | 0:07:26 | 0:07:29 | |
we would have just done it ourselves and it wouldn't look pretty, | 0:07:29 | 0:07:31 | |
but we'd have just been able to use it. | 0:07:31 | 0:07:33 | |
Often when you're using the hob, | 0:07:33 | 0:07:35 | |
one of the rings will just turn up to the highest heat | 0:07:35 | 0:07:38 | |
and it won't turn off. | 0:07:38 | 0:07:39 | |
So that now is... I can't even put my hand there, it's so hot. | 0:07:39 | 0:07:43 | |
It's burning my face! | 0:07:43 | 0:07:44 | |
And we have reported it and they said we need a new one, | 0:07:44 | 0:07:48 | |
but it's never been fixed and we just sort of live with it. | 0:07:48 | 0:07:51 | |
The students have also had issues with security. | 0:07:53 | 0:07:56 | |
The amount of times I've woken up with maintenance men in the house. | 0:07:56 | 0:08:00 | |
Like, they've knocked on my door, | 0:08:00 | 0:08:01 | |
I've been asleep at eight o'clock in the morning and they've, like, | 0:08:01 | 0:08:04 | |
knocked on my door, and I'm like, "Who the hell is this man?" | 0:08:04 | 0:08:06 | |
Like, when I was here on my own because I was working | 0:08:06 | 0:08:10 | |
and everyone was back home, so that's happened many times. | 0:08:10 | 0:08:13 | |
And people just... You call them and they'll say, | 0:08:13 | 0:08:15 | |
"I don't know who sent them." | 0:08:15 | 0:08:17 | |
For Tilly, making the decision | 0:08:18 | 0:08:20 | |
to come to university wasn't an easy one. | 0:08:20 | 0:08:22 | |
Ultimately, the aim is to teach philosophy, | 0:08:24 | 0:08:27 | |
obviously to be a teacher you have to have a degree. | 0:08:27 | 0:08:29 | |
But it was something I did have to think about financially. | 0:08:29 | 0:08:32 | |
I come from a single parent background. | 0:08:32 | 0:08:35 | |
And I rely solely on my loans. | 0:08:35 | 0:08:39 | |
I'll be leaving university with about 54 grand in debt, which is | 0:08:39 | 0:08:42 | |
obviously quite a substantial amount of debt to be left with. | 0:08:42 | 0:08:46 | |
It's a big weight to carry on your shoulders and you don't know | 0:08:46 | 0:08:48 | |
how it's going to affect you in the rest of your life. | 0:08:48 | 0:08:51 | |
-Hello. Do you want waffles or toast? -Waffles. | 0:08:51 | 0:08:54 | |
To help limit the debt, | 0:08:54 | 0:08:56 | |
Tilly works at student union events whenever she can, | 0:08:56 | 0:09:00 | |
but still has just £8 a day to live on. | 0:09:00 | 0:09:02 | |
After tuition fees, my rent is my biggest outgoing, absolutely. | 0:09:03 | 0:09:06 | |
I think students are potentially dealt with as just a moneymaker. | 0:09:06 | 0:09:10 | |
There's no concern about things that are going wrong. | 0:09:11 | 0:09:13 | |
I guess it's because they expect students | 0:09:13 | 0:09:15 | |
to be these people that just party all the time, and just get drunk | 0:09:15 | 0:09:18 | |
all the time and wreck the houses and it just isn't the case. | 0:09:18 | 0:09:21 | |
There's been such a shift in the university experience | 0:09:21 | 0:09:25 | |
with tuition fees. | 0:09:25 | 0:09:26 | |
If we're now having to pay for this experience and pay to get a degree | 0:09:26 | 0:09:30 | |
and live in debt for the rest of our lives, | 0:09:30 | 0:09:32 | |
then maybe the houses that we live in should step up with that as well. | 0:09:32 | 0:09:37 | |
So their landlord can experience the property as a house share, | 0:09:39 | 0:09:43 | |
Tilly and two of the other tenants will be living alongside him | 0:09:43 | 0:09:46 | |
while Ben moves into a bedroom vacated for the summer. | 0:09:46 | 0:09:49 | |
Right, Spring Rise, Egham. | 0:09:52 | 0:09:54 | |
My goodness! | 0:09:54 | 0:09:55 | |
It is like an unusual adventure for me. | 0:09:58 | 0:10:01 | |
I'm excited, but also apprehensive. | 0:10:01 | 0:10:04 | |
It will give me some great insights. | 0:10:04 | 0:10:06 | |
If all the problems were dealt with, | 0:10:06 | 0:10:08 | |
it has potential to be a fantastic house, but until then, | 0:10:08 | 0:10:12 | |
unfortunately, I don't know if it ever will be. | 0:10:12 | 0:10:15 | |
Maybe I don't want those insights, that's my concern. | 0:10:15 | 0:10:18 | |
Cos it means I have to do something about it. | 0:10:19 | 0:10:21 | |
-Hello. -Hey. | 0:10:27 | 0:10:28 | |
-Hiya. -Hi. | 0:10:28 | 0:10:30 | |
-Tilly? -Nice to see you, Ben. | 0:10:30 | 0:10:31 | |
How are you? I've got wet hands. | 0:10:31 | 0:10:33 | |
-I'm Poppy. -I'm Georgia. | 0:10:33 | 0:10:35 | |
It's nice to meet you. | 0:10:35 | 0:10:36 | |
What years are you guys? | 0:10:36 | 0:10:38 | |
So we've all just finished second year. | 0:10:38 | 0:10:40 | |
-Cool! -You own quite a few houses here, don't you? | 0:10:40 | 0:10:43 | |
I have a few houses in this area, yeah. | 0:10:43 | 0:10:45 | |
Are they all student houses? | 0:10:45 | 0:10:46 | |
Well, I only like students. | 0:10:46 | 0:10:49 | |
Well, I used to do it myself, I used to manage the properties myself, | 0:10:49 | 0:10:52 | |
but it just got too much for me. | 0:10:52 | 0:10:54 | |
Do make yourself at home. We're cooking dinner now, | 0:10:54 | 0:10:56 | |
so you're welcome to cook with us. | 0:10:56 | 0:10:58 | |
-Can I get a pot? Would that be all right? -Mm-hm. | 0:10:58 | 0:11:00 | |
Of course you can. What's mine is yours, Ben. | 0:11:00 | 0:11:03 | |
Thank you. Thank you so much. | 0:11:03 | 0:11:05 | |
Something is burning. | 0:11:06 | 0:11:08 | |
-I think it's... -I think it's the hob. Can you smell that? | 0:11:08 | 0:11:10 | |
Yeah, I can. I can feel it from over here. | 0:11:10 | 0:11:13 | |
So how do I turn it down? | 0:11:14 | 0:11:16 | |
-You can't. -You can't when it's like this. | 0:11:16 | 0:11:18 | |
The rings sort of have a life of their own sometimes. | 0:11:19 | 0:11:21 | |
I just don't know if it's safe to leave it on. | 0:11:22 | 0:11:24 | |
When did this happen? Was it recent? | 0:11:24 | 0:11:26 | |
No, it's been happening for a long time, but, yeah, | 0:11:26 | 0:11:29 | |
we have had two electricians come around and look at it. | 0:11:29 | 0:11:32 | |
They didn't do anything? | 0:11:32 | 0:11:34 | |
Well, they told us that they told the letting agency | 0:11:34 | 0:11:37 | |
that we needed a new one. | 0:11:37 | 0:11:39 | |
And the letting agent didn't do anything? | 0:11:40 | 0:11:41 | |
That was months ago, so, yeah. | 0:11:41 | 0:11:44 | |
I'm concerned. And quite angry with the letting agent | 0:11:44 | 0:11:48 | |
for not dealing with something which is potentially quite dangerous. | 0:11:48 | 0:11:52 | |
Anything to do with gas and electricity | 0:11:52 | 0:11:55 | |
must be done very, very quickly. | 0:11:55 | 0:11:57 | |
This really worries me. | 0:11:57 | 0:11:58 | |
-Yeah. -Seriously, it really worries me. | 0:11:58 | 0:12:00 | |
Cos if this is happening to you guys, | 0:12:00 | 0:12:02 | |
it's probably happening to some of my other properties as well. | 0:12:02 | 0:12:05 | |
I mean, there's been, like, a few issues. | 0:12:05 | 0:12:07 | |
Some of them haven't been dealt with. | 0:12:07 | 0:12:09 | |
-Some of them have. Some have taken a while to be dealt with. -Right. | 0:12:09 | 0:12:11 | |
-I'm sure we'll... We can explore them as the days go on. -Right. OK. | 0:12:11 | 0:12:16 | |
200 miles north, another landlord | 0:12:23 | 0:12:25 | |
is about to move into his tenant's home. | 0:12:25 | 0:12:28 | |
Proud Polish millionaire. | 0:12:28 | 0:12:29 | |
That is the label I should be happy with. | 0:12:29 | 0:12:31 | |
Polish-born Paul moved to the UK 13 years ago | 0:12:32 | 0:12:36 | |
with just a couple of hundred pounds in his pocket. | 0:12:36 | 0:12:39 | |
I'm proud that I achieved everything myself by my hard work and my brain, | 0:12:39 | 0:12:45 | |
basically. That's what I think. Yeah. | 0:12:45 | 0:12:46 | |
Hi, guys. How you doing? You all right? | 0:12:46 | 0:12:49 | |
I just love the UK from the perspective | 0:12:49 | 0:12:51 | |
that it's a very open country, very easy to do business with people. | 0:12:51 | 0:12:56 | |
When I first came to the UK my English was very, very little. | 0:12:56 | 0:12:58 | |
Very, very basic. | 0:12:58 | 0:13:00 | |
I start work first in the bar, just doing part-time job. | 0:13:00 | 0:13:03 | |
Years later, after training as a mortgage broker, | 0:13:05 | 0:13:09 | |
Paul and his business partner, Adam, made a fortune | 0:13:09 | 0:13:11 | |
helping foreign investors buy into the booming UK property market. | 0:13:11 | 0:13:15 | |
We going to get this building | 0:13:15 | 0:13:17 | |
and we want to do the bar here in the very near future. | 0:13:17 | 0:13:20 | |
The perception of Polish people in this country is they all work | 0:13:21 | 0:13:25 | |
in factories, they all working for minimum wage. | 0:13:25 | 0:13:28 | |
They're cleaners, which is not true. | 0:13:28 | 0:13:30 | |
Many Poles who live in this country | 0:13:30 | 0:13:32 | |
are running very successful multimillion pound businesses. | 0:13:32 | 0:13:37 | |
They're employing many people, sometimes in hundreds. | 0:13:37 | 0:13:40 | |
And they are paying thousands of pounds in taxes and doing very well. | 0:13:40 | 0:13:44 | |
When Paul and Adam realised the growing demand for rentals, | 0:13:45 | 0:13:48 | |
they started to buy up houses to let out themselves. | 0:13:48 | 0:13:51 | |
Most are in Greater Manchester - | 0:13:53 | 0:13:55 | |
the second most populated urban area in the whole of Britain. | 0:13:55 | 0:13:59 | |
And as demand for property rises, so do the rents. | 0:14:01 | 0:14:05 | |
We try to be expensive because if the rent is high, | 0:14:05 | 0:14:09 | |
usually we get better tenants and we're trying to provide | 0:14:09 | 0:14:13 | |
better quality properties to our tenants. | 0:14:13 | 0:14:16 | |
As Paul's main business focus remains foreign investment deals, | 0:14:16 | 0:14:19 | |
he spends most of his time travelling abroad, | 0:14:19 | 0:14:22 | |
leaving him little time for the basics. | 0:14:22 | 0:14:24 | |
I'm very busy person. | 0:14:24 | 0:14:25 | |
I don't have time. I have a stylist who is buying for me. | 0:14:25 | 0:14:29 | |
It takes me hours to, for example, find the right shoes. | 0:14:29 | 0:14:32 | |
So, if someone can do this for me, that's brilliant. | 0:14:32 | 0:14:35 | |
-I think a powerful colour. It works well. -Thank you. | 0:14:35 | 0:14:38 | |
I definitely going to say I got more into business, | 0:14:38 | 0:14:41 | |
less into personal life | 0:14:41 | 0:14:42 | |
for simple reason that I'm single. | 0:14:42 | 0:14:44 | |
I don't have a partner. | 0:14:44 | 0:14:45 | |
There we go. Yeah. | 0:14:45 | 0:14:47 | |
But one person he always makes time for is his five-year-old daughter. | 0:14:47 | 0:14:52 | |
It's lovely weather today. | 0:14:52 | 0:14:54 | |
Daddy might buy you ice cream. | 0:14:54 | 0:14:56 | |
But my mum says I'm not allowed ice cream. | 0:14:56 | 0:14:58 | |
Oh, no worry. | 0:14:58 | 0:14:59 | |
We're going to do it. | 0:14:59 | 0:15:01 | |
Motivation is my daughter. | 0:15:02 | 0:15:04 | |
I just want to give her a piece of my future empire. | 0:15:04 | 0:15:07 | |
Yeah? Lovely one. | 0:15:07 | 0:15:09 | |
Unfortunately we are not family with her mum. | 0:15:09 | 0:15:13 | |
-You want some bubbles? -Yeah, bubbles, bubbles. | 0:15:13 | 0:15:16 | |
However, in any occasion I could do I literally spending time with her | 0:15:16 | 0:15:20 | |
and trying to be like good dad. | 0:15:20 | 0:15:22 | |
Paul was so determined to stay close to his daughter, | 0:15:22 | 0:15:25 | |
he bought the house next door to her mum. | 0:15:25 | 0:15:28 | |
I could afford it. I was very lucky that I can see her any time I want. | 0:15:28 | 0:15:31 | |
Wow! | 0:15:31 | 0:15:33 | |
So, in that way, it's very convenient for me | 0:15:33 | 0:15:35 | |
and it's a lovely house as well, so that's why I'm happy. | 0:15:35 | 0:15:38 | |
When it comes to choosing tenants, Paul is motivated | 0:15:39 | 0:15:43 | |
by his own experience when he first arrived in the UK. | 0:15:43 | 0:15:46 | |
Most of my tenants are foreigners. | 0:15:46 | 0:15:48 | |
They are new arrivals who are just starting life here. | 0:15:48 | 0:15:51 | |
It's very difficult to get into the property market | 0:15:51 | 0:15:53 | |
because of the reference checks and background checks. | 0:15:53 | 0:15:56 | |
Many landlords say, "No, no, no, sorry, we don't want this client." | 0:15:56 | 0:16:00 | |
We're taking the risk. | 0:16:00 | 0:16:01 | |
We're trying to help people, accommodate them. | 0:16:01 | 0:16:05 | |
Someone Paul has accommodated is Olegario Santos, | 0:16:11 | 0:16:15 | |
who moved his family from Portugal to Manchester two years ago. | 0:16:15 | 0:16:19 | |
Daddy. | 0:16:19 | 0:16:20 | |
Mama. | 0:16:20 | 0:16:22 | |
In Portugal, the economy is not too great. | 0:16:22 | 0:16:25 | |
People there, they have big problem to find job. | 0:16:25 | 0:16:28 | |
England, you can find many opportunity - | 0:16:28 | 0:16:30 | |
jobs and education is more easy, I think. | 0:16:30 | 0:16:35 | |
His wife, Solange, is a business graduate and a stay-at-home mum, | 0:16:35 | 0:16:39 | |
while Olegario works full-time as a cleaner in a factory. | 0:16:39 | 0:16:43 | |
It's not my dream job, | 0:16:43 | 0:16:45 | |
but it gives me what I need now to support my family. | 0:16:45 | 0:16:49 | |
When they moved to the UK, they struggled to find a landlord | 0:16:49 | 0:16:52 | |
who would rent a decent home to them. | 0:16:52 | 0:16:54 | |
Most houses we see is not good price | 0:16:54 | 0:16:57 | |
and the condition, very, very bad. | 0:16:57 | 0:17:00 | |
They don't care. If they don't rent to you, | 0:17:00 | 0:17:03 | |
they're going to rent to another person. | 0:17:03 | 0:17:05 | |
Seven months ago, they were introduced to Paul's company | 0:17:06 | 0:17:10 | |
and offered this three-bed terrace | 0:17:10 | 0:17:12 | |
on the outskirts of Manchester for £625 a month. | 0:17:12 | 0:17:16 | |
When I saw the first time, I loved the space, it's big. | 0:17:16 | 0:17:20 | |
I decided to rent that house. | 0:17:20 | 0:17:22 | |
Goal! | 0:17:22 | 0:17:24 | |
But when they moved in, there were several problems waiting for them. | 0:17:24 | 0:17:27 | |
This is danger place, this garden. | 0:17:29 | 0:17:32 | |
Because, look, I don't know what is this. | 0:17:32 | 0:17:34 | |
This is all rubbish the landlord left. | 0:17:36 | 0:17:38 | |
If you can see, it's not properly fixed. | 0:17:41 | 0:17:44 | |
All this carpet here, put nails here, | 0:17:45 | 0:17:47 | |
because when they came is all out. | 0:17:47 | 0:17:49 | |
Once I trip on it. | 0:17:49 | 0:17:52 | |
I can broke my legs. | 0:17:53 | 0:17:54 | |
If I broke my legs, how will I pay the rent? | 0:17:54 | 0:17:56 | |
A month after moving in, a more serious problem began to emerge | 0:17:58 | 0:18:02 | |
in the living room and the main bedroom. | 0:18:02 | 0:18:05 | |
This is a big problem I have in this main bedroom. | 0:18:05 | 0:18:08 | |
If you see the walls, it's very, very wet. | 0:18:08 | 0:18:10 | |
I have damp from mould here. | 0:18:10 | 0:18:12 | |
To make matters worse... | 0:18:15 | 0:18:17 | |
The window is broken. | 0:18:17 | 0:18:19 | |
..the lack of ventilation means damp lingers in the air. | 0:18:19 | 0:18:22 | |
We tried to keep some clothes here. | 0:18:22 | 0:18:25 | |
This box, after the washing, but the smell is still there. | 0:18:25 | 0:18:31 | |
Exposure to mould can cause allergic reactions | 0:18:31 | 0:18:34 | |
and the family believe it's affecting the children's health. | 0:18:34 | 0:18:38 | |
The baby's with allergy. | 0:18:38 | 0:18:41 | |
You can see the allergy. | 0:18:41 | 0:18:43 | |
It's very bad for our children. | 0:18:43 | 0:18:45 | |
I feel sad, and you're in a low income, | 0:18:46 | 0:18:50 | |
so you can't afford for a better house. | 0:18:50 | 0:18:53 | |
Look, it's wet. | 0:18:54 | 0:18:55 | |
Since moving in, seven months ago, the family have spent over £200 | 0:18:55 | 0:18:59 | |
on products to clean the mould and a dehumidifier. | 0:18:59 | 0:19:03 | |
Every day I take three litres of the water. | 0:19:03 | 0:19:05 | |
I don't speak too much English. | 0:19:08 | 0:19:10 | |
I don't understand what things work here. | 0:19:10 | 0:19:12 | |
Despite sending text messages to Paul's business partner, Adam, | 0:19:12 | 0:19:16 | |
they are waiting for all the problems to be resolved. | 0:19:16 | 0:19:19 | |
I don't know the law. | 0:19:19 | 0:19:20 | |
I don't know who I should ask for help. | 0:19:20 | 0:19:22 | |
Say you rent house, but you don't complain. | 0:19:22 | 0:19:24 | |
I just pay because I don't have a choice. | 0:19:25 | 0:19:28 | |
He's hoping that if Paul experiences living in his home, it will help him | 0:19:28 | 0:19:32 | |
realise the extent of the work needed. | 0:19:32 | 0:19:35 | |
Bye, Zizi. | 0:19:35 | 0:19:36 | |
I think they deserve better, no? | 0:19:36 | 0:19:38 | |
Because when we father, we try to fight to give our children the best. | 0:19:38 | 0:19:44 | |
Bye. | 0:19:44 | 0:19:45 | |
I want to be prepared for everything, so I don't know. | 0:19:48 | 0:19:50 | |
I'm taking T-shirts, I'm taking this stuff, so everything, | 0:19:50 | 0:19:54 | |
to make sure I'm... I'm ready. | 0:19:54 | 0:19:57 | |
Sometimes I feel that I'm a little bit losing the contact with reality. | 0:19:57 | 0:20:02 | |
When you've had success, when you get money, | 0:20:02 | 0:20:04 | |
then you start losing common sense in your life, | 0:20:04 | 0:20:07 | |
so maybe if I can be again for at least few days with living the life | 0:20:07 | 0:20:12 | |
of the tenant, then it will help me to be the better person. | 0:20:12 | 0:20:16 | |
And he's about to find out which of his 31 properties | 0:20:16 | 0:20:21 | |
he'll be moving into. | 0:20:21 | 0:20:23 | |
Oh! Wow! | 0:20:23 | 0:20:24 | |
Stirling Bridge. Nice! | 0:20:26 | 0:20:28 | |
It's nice property. They're good tenants. | 0:20:30 | 0:20:32 | |
They pay rent on time. | 0:20:32 | 0:20:33 | |
I've never met them before. | 0:20:33 | 0:20:35 | |
Never spoke with them. | 0:20:35 | 0:20:36 | |
There's Peppa, Zizi. | 0:20:38 | 0:20:39 | |
THEY BABBLE | 0:20:39 | 0:20:41 | |
While Paul moves into their home, | 0:20:41 | 0:20:43 | |
Olegario and his family will move into a nearby serviced apartment... | 0:20:43 | 0:20:48 | |
-She's asleep. -They will wake up in a better home. -Yeah, yeah. | 0:20:48 | 0:20:53 | |
..and they'll meet Paul at the end of his stay. | 0:20:53 | 0:20:57 | |
Wow! | 0:20:57 | 0:20:58 | |
-It's beautiful! -Beautiful! | 0:20:58 | 0:21:00 | |
Smell of fresh air. | 0:21:00 | 0:21:01 | |
Nice place! | 0:21:03 | 0:21:05 | |
Isn't it, girls? | 0:21:05 | 0:21:06 | |
Wow! It's going to be good. | 0:21:09 | 0:21:11 | |
I'm just going into the like lovely three-bedroom house. | 0:21:11 | 0:21:14 | |
Paul hasn't set foot in this property | 0:21:14 | 0:21:16 | |
since buying it nearly a year ago. | 0:21:16 | 0:21:18 | |
Few months ago there had some issues with the roof there, | 0:21:18 | 0:21:21 | |
so we just replaced parts of roof. | 0:21:21 | 0:21:22 | |
I don't know what the stage is now, not been there, | 0:21:22 | 0:21:25 | |
but I think it's going to be OK, at least. | 0:21:25 | 0:21:28 | |
OK. Yeah. Finally here, yeah. | 0:21:34 | 0:21:36 | |
OK, kitchen. Yeah. | 0:21:36 | 0:21:38 | |
We need some decorating work to do. | 0:21:38 | 0:21:40 | |
There's the garden. Oh, garden is fine. | 0:21:41 | 0:21:45 | |
Some cleaning, maybe. | 0:21:45 | 0:21:46 | |
It's all OK. Nothing wrong with it, to be honest. | 0:21:48 | 0:21:50 | |
Yeah. | 0:21:50 | 0:21:51 | |
Oh, wow, a letter for me. | 0:21:53 | 0:21:54 | |
"Dear landlord, welcome to our home. | 0:21:56 | 0:22:00 | |
"Please put the dehumidifier | 0:22:00 | 0:22:02 | |
"in the bedroom first thing in the morning. | 0:22:02 | 0:22:05 | |
"Please be careful, the carpet is loose and it's easy to trip, | 0:22:05 | 0:22:09 | |
"especially for children. | 0:22:09 | 0:22:11 | |
"We hope you enjoy our home. | 0:22:11 | 0:22:13 | |
"All the best, Santos family." | 0:22:13 | 0:22:15 | |
Oh, wow! | 0:22:15 | 0:22:16 | |
Oh! Wow! | 0:22:20 | 0:22:22 | |
That's the bad boy! | 0:22:22 | 0:22:24 | |
When we purchased this house around a year ago, | 0:22:24 | 0:22:27 | |
everything was all right, | 0:22:27 | 0:22:28 | |
but then during the wintertime we had issues in the roof and we start | 0:22:28 | 0:22:33 | |
getting water inside to the property. | 0:22:33 | 0:22:36 | |
We replaced parts in the roof. | 0:22:36 | 0:22:38 | |
However, we still need to just redecorate with wallpaper, | 0:22:38 | 0:22:42 | |
it's all to do. | 0:22:42 | 0:22:44 | |
It's a nice sized bedroom, to be honest. | 0:22:44 | 0:22:45 | |
Master wise, it's very good. | 0:22:45 | 0:22:47 | |
While Paul's living in his tenant's home, | 0:22:48 | 0:22:50 | |
he'll have to survive on their budget. | 0:22:50 | 0:22:53 | |
63 quid! | 0:22:53 | 0:22:54 | |
As he's on his own, he's been given half their weekly amount. | 0:22:54 | 0:22:58 | |
OK. It's like being unemployed again. | 0:22:58 | 0:23:01 | |
That's one bill for restaurant with one pint of beer. | 0:23:01 | 0:23:05 | |
It's hard. It's very hard, to be honest. | 0:23:05 | 0:23:07 | |
Definitely not designer, | 0:23:07 | 0:23:09 | |
definitely not travelling around the world every day. | 0:23:09 | 0:23:13 | |
Paul's usual weekly outgoings are around £900. | 0:23:15 | 0:23:19 | |
I don't have a clue what to buy. | 0:23:19 | 0:23:20 | |
I just, you know, walk around and just see what I can find cheap. | 0:23:20 | 0:23:26 | |
"Deep delicious." OK. That's deep delicious. I want a thin and crispy. | 0:23:28 | 0:23:32 | |
I'm going to buy this and take the meat out. I'm not eat meat, | 0:23:32 | 0:23:36 | |
but still be better to pay £2 without meat, yeah? | 0:23:36 | 0:23:40 | |
Hi, boss, you all right? Yeah? | 0:23:41 | 0:23:42 | |
I used to live on very similar kind of money. | 0:23:42 | 0:23:45 | |
It is possible. | 0:23:45 | 0:23:46 | |
It's just a different way of life. | 0:23:46 | 0:23:48 | |
-The peppers was... -£1.59. -Yeah. | 0:23:48 | 0:23:51 | |
-£1.59. -That's fine. Yeah, that's fine. | 0:23:51 | 0:23:54 | |
To say, do I want to live on that kind of budget on a daily basis? | 0:23:54 | 0:23:58 | |
The simple answer is no. | 0:23:58 | 0:23:59 | |
-Thank you very much. -Thank you. | 0:23:59 | 0:24:01 | |
-Have a good day, yeah. -See you again. -Cheers. See you. | 0:24:01 | 0:24:03 | |
How's your food, Ben? | 0:24:06 | 0:24:08 | |
Mmm. It's great. | 0:24:08 | 0:24:11 | |
-Yeah? -Yeah, I like coloured cheese. | 0:24:11 | 0:24:14 | |
In Surrey, Ben's also living on his tenants' budget of £56 a week. | 0:24:14 | 0:24:20 | |
I mean, do you guys have alcohol and stuff like that? | 0:24:20 | 0:24:22 | |
I'd much rather spend money on food than I would on alcohol. | 0:24:22 | 0:24:25 | |
-Oh, cool! -Yeah. | 0:24:25 | 0:24:26 | |
Have you, like, got jobs over the summer? | 0:24:26 | 0:24:28 | |
I'm staying here the whole summer. | 0:24:28 | 0:24:30 | |
-Wow! -Yeah. It's because I didn't see the point in wasting the rent money | 0:24:30 | 0:24:34 | |
and I've got a job working as a... behind the bar at a pub. | 0:24:34 | 0:24:37 | |
And I've got a few other jobs, like events and stuff planned. | 0:24:37 | 0:24:40 | |
Wow! You are an entrepreneurial person. | 0:24:40 | 0:24:42 | |
The housemates, I think they're pretty awesome. | 0:24:43 | 0:24:47 | |
They seem to have all got some kind of summer job - | 0:24:47 | 0:24:50 | |
that's kind of a mature thing to do, | 0:24:50 | 0:24:52 | |
so they don't seem to be particularly spoilt, | 0:24:52 | 0:24:55 | |
let's put it that way. | 0:24:55 | 0:24:56 | |
So I'm a bit bewildered and confused | 0:24:56 | 0:24:58 | |
because I expected a different kind of household | 0:24:58 | 0:25:02 | |
and I did expect them to be out late tonight. | 0:25:02 | 0:25:06 | |
It's washing-up time. | 0:25:06 | 0:25:07 | |
-Shall we get out the way? -I think I might get into my pyjamas. | 0:25:07 | 0:25:10 | |
Oh, what time do you guys go to bed at? | 0:25:10 | 0:25:13 | |
-I'd normally be asleep by nine, nine-thirty. -Wow! | 0:25:13 | 0:25:16 | |
Impossible! | 0:25:16 | 0:25:17 | |
Students do not go to bed this early! | 0:25:17 | 0:25:20 | |
But the girls seem to be doing it. | 0:25:20 | 0:25:24 | |
200 miles away... | 0:25:32 | 0:25:33 | |
I feel like a stranger in someone's place. | 0:25:35 | 0:25:38 | |
It's just weird. | 0:25:38 | 0:25:39 | |
..the realities of tenant life are sinking in. | 0:25:39 | 0:25:42 | |
I can't really go anywhere because I don't have any money. | 0:25:42 | 0:25:46 | |
So I'm literally prisoner here. | 0:25:46 | 0:25:48 | |
There's a little smell in the room because of the wetness. | 0:25:57 | 0:26:00 | |
But after, like, half an hour I just forget about it | 0:26:00 | 0:26:05 | |
and don't feel it any more. Yeah? So, it's all right. Yeah. | 0:26:05 | 0:26:08 | |
There is some problem. | 0:26:11 | 0:26:12 | |
It's damaged this one, that's why. | 0:26:15 | 0:26:17 | |
It just needs to be replaced, all this. | 0:26:17 | 0:26:19 | |
Myself, being the tenant, | 0:26:19 | 0:26:21 | |
I'd take out these old dirty blinds and stuff, | 0:26:21 | 0:26:25 | |
clean up here basically, | 0:26:25 | 0:26:27 | |
replace the door handle in B&Q for £5 and then after if you don't | 0:26:27 | 0:26:30 | |
put this for, like, three days, all this wall be dry already, yeah? | 0:26:30 | 0:26:34 | |
So, are you saying they can do it themselves? | 0:26:34 | 0:26:37 | |
When I meet the family, I'm not going to be attacking them, | 0:26:37 | 0:26:39 | |
like blaming them or judge them in any way. | 0:26:39 | 0:26:41 | |
Maybe they just don't know things which I know, | 0:26:41 | 0:26:44 | |
so I'm more than happy to help. | 0:26:44 | 0:26:46 | |
That's why we provided discount in the rent. | 0:26:46 | 0:26:49 | |
Now the tenant paying £200 less. | 0:26:49 | 0:26:52 | |
From our perspective, we're losing more than them. | 0:26:52 | 0:26:56 | |
Two months after Olegario first complained about the mould, | 0:26:57 | 0:27:00 | |
Paul's team found a leak in the roof | 0:27:00 | 0:27:02 | |
and offered the family alternative accommodation. | 0:27:02 | 0:27:05 | |
I didn't like the house. | 0:27:05 | 0:27:07 | |
It's 25 minutes from my work. | 0:27:07 | 0:27:10 | |
So, they called me, said, "We'll reduce the rent to £400." | 0:27:10 | 0:27:15 | |
Three months later, the roof was fixed. | 0:27:15 | 0:27:17 | |
But the family are still waiting for the remaining damp | 0:27:18 | 0:27:21 | |
and their other complaints to be dealt with. | 0:27:21 | 0:27:23 | |
Is it normal to take so long when people report a problem? | 0:27:24 | 0:27:27 | |
So far, most contact | 0:27:28 | 0:27:30 | |
has been through Paul's business partner, Adam. | 0:27:30 | 0:27:33 | |
-What's that? -It might be a cellar. | 0:27:35 | 0:27:38 | |
Paul's asked him to come and take a look at the property for himself. | 0:27:38 | 0:27:41 | |
Oh, don't touch it! | 0:27:41 | 0:27:43 | |
Health and safety! | 0:27:43 | 0:27:44 | |
I'm not looking over there. | 0:27:46 | 0:27:47 | |
There might be some dead bodies! | 0:27:47 | 0:27:48 | |
-That's the cellar. -I'm just playing around now, but that's not safe, | 0:27:49 | 0:27:53 | |
definitely for kids. | 0:27:53 | 0:27:54 | |
Just remove that, put some grass in. | 0:27:54 | 0:27:57 | |
Who is that rubbish? It's ours? | 0:27:57 | 0:28:00 | |
Yeah. I think that's builders left. | 0:28:00 | 0:28:02 | |
So fence, | 0:28:02 | 0:28:04 | |
I mean, you need to take those three off probably and put a new one. | 0:28:04 | 0:28:08 | |
Which ones? No, the fence are... | 0:28:08 | 0:28:09 | |
These ones are OK. | 0:28:09 | 0:28:10 | |
Why you need to change them? We can't as well go too much into it, | 0:28:10 | 0:28:13 | |
because we already losing money on that property. So if we add another, | 0:28:13 | 0:28:17 | |
another, another cost, we're not increasing rent. | 0:28:17 | 0:28:20 | |
But bear in mind you want to increase value a little bit as well. | 0:28:20 | 0:28:22 | |
The fences and this type of paint, then, that's it, yeah. | 0:28:22 | 0:28:25 | |
I think I would worry first about my kids. | 0:28:26 | 0:28:30 | |
It's not safe, like, looking at the garden. | 0:28:30 | 0:28:32 | |
It's not safe. With garden, with full respect, | 0:28:32 | 0:28:35 | |
we should have done a better job. | 0:28:35 | 0:28:37 | |
Shall we go upstairs, then? | 0:28:37 | 0:28:38 | |
-Yes. -Yeah. | 0:28:38 | 0:28:39 | |
Carpet, is nothing wrong with it. | 0:28:39 | 0:28:41 | |
It just needs to be glued properly into the stairs. | 0:28:41 | 0:28:44 | |
-That's all. -Carpet. | 0:28:44 | 0:28:45 | |
I know it's not the top quality one. | 0:28:45 | 0:28:47 | |
It's good one. Don't worry. | 0:28:47 | 0:28:49 | |
It's not about quality, it's about that it doesn't fit properly. | 0:28:49 | 0:28:51 | |
That's all. So, let's see the main bedroom. | 0:28:51 | 0:28:54 | |
So that's the biggest issue in this property. | 0:28:55 | 0:28:58 | |
-Oh, yeah. -It's the wall here and the wet. | 0:28:58 | 0:29:01 | |
You can smell damp here. | 0:29:01 | 0:29:03 | |
There's no two ways about it. | 0:29:03 | 0:29:04 | |
Yeah, I can feel... I can feel it's very, very wet. | 0:29:04 | 0:29:08 | |
-But, yeah, it's not very healthy. -Yeah, the tenants are living | 0:29:10 | 0:29:15 | |
in these conditions since around March, yeah, so... | 0:29:15 | 0:29:18 | |
Or even slightly longer, yeah. | 0:29:18 | 0:29:20 | |
I'm not sure when they initially, you know, | 0:29:20 | 0:29:23 | |
said that there's something happening. | 0:29:23 | 0:29:26 | |
As far as I know, the property was very, very good | 0:29:26 | 0:29:28 | |
at that time when they moved in. | 0:29:28 | 0:29:30 | |
That's the reason they move in in first place. | 0:29:30 | 0:29:32 | |
But by the time, you know, went by, because there was the winter, | 0:29:32 | 0:29:36 | |
you know, the rain, et cetera, it just... | 0:29:36 | 0:29:38 | |
Property started to get worse, worse, worse, worse. | 0:29:38 | 0:29:41 | |
It's not safe. And doesn't smell right. | 0:29:41 | 0:29:45 | |
I'm not sure how did they survive? | 0:29:45 | 0:29:48 | |
If I were tenant, I'd probably look for other property straightaway. | 0:29:48 | 0:29:52 | |
But obviously they've got limited budget. | 0:29:52 | 0:29:55 | |
Like Olegario, | 0:29:57 | 0:29:58 | |
over six million people in Britain are living with mould and damp, | 0:29:58 | 0:30:02 | |
which can lead to skin rashes, eczema and trigger asthma attacks. | 0:30:02 | 0:30:07 | |
-Delicious! -Delicious! | 0:30:09 | 0:30:11 | |
Living in the apartment is providing welcome respite | 0:30:11 | 0:30:15 | |
for Olegario's family. | 0:30:15 | 0:30:17 | |
-We can... -Relax. -..relax. | 0:30:17 | 0:30:19 | |
-And chill out. -And enjoy - enjoy our family here. | 0:30:19 | 0:30:22 | |
Now I don't have to worry to clean the walls, | 0:30:22 | 0:30:25 | |
so I can let my daughters play around, no problem. | 0:30:25 | 0:30:29 | |
The girls, they are happy here. | 0:30:29 | 0:30:31 | |
And after two days away, | 0:30:33 | 0:30:35 | |
Olegario is more keen than ever to find a permanent mould-free home. | 0:30:35 | 0:30:39 | |
Good morning. I'm calling because I'm look for apartment to rent. | 0:30:39 | 0:30:44 | |
You can leave it with us. We have a lot of people | 0:30:44 | 0:30:46 | |
-that want to view this property. -A lot of people. OK. | 0:30:46 | 0:30:49 | |
-Thank you. Have a nice day. Thank you. -Bye-bye. Thank you. | 0:30:49 | 0:30:52 | |
The number of people looking for private rentals | 0:30:54 | 0:30:56 | |
in Greater Manchester has tripled over the past two years, | 0:30:56 | 0:31:00 | |
making competition for decent homes high. | 0:31:00 | 0:31:03 | |
This is Olegario Santos. | 0:31:03 | 0:31:06 | |
I'm calling up... | 0:31:06 | 0:31:07 | |
LINE GOES DEAD | 0:31:07 | 0:31:08 | |
They hung up the phone. | 0:31:12 | 0:31:13 | |
Sometimes this happens, yeah. They don't want to speak. | 0:31:13 | 0:31:17 | |
It's a nightmare, yeah, | 0:31:19 | 0:31:20 | |
because the house I live is big problem, | 0:31:20 | 0:31:25 | |
to try to find a house to rent is big problem. | 0:31:25 | 0:31:28 | |
So I don't know what I should do. | 0:31:28 | 0:31:31 | |
I don't want to live in the street with my daughters. | 0:31:31 | 0:31:35 | |
PUMP WHIRS | 0:31:43 | 0:31:45 | |
In Egham, it's not the sound of partying that's woken Ben up. | 0:31:45 | 0:31:49 | |
WHIRRING CONTINUES | 0:31:51 | 0:31:53 | |
When the water in this house is turned on, | 0:31:53 | 0:31:56 | |
there is a loud noise which you can hear. | 0:31:56 | 0:31:59 | |
This is a water pump for this house because the water pressure here | 0:31:59 | 0:32:04 | |
in this area is very low. | 0:32:04 | 0:32:07 | |
So really they should only have this switch on | 0:32:07 | 0:32:09 | |
when they're having a shower, otherwise they can leave it off. | 0:32:09 | 0:32:13 | |
And you can see that the amount of water coming out of this tap | 0:32:18 | 0:32:22 | |
is much less. This is good enough for washing hands, washing teeth, | 0:32:22 | 0:32:28 | |
going to the toilet, but it's not a good pressure for having a shower. | 0:32:28 | 0:32:31 | |
Why there's no water coming out? | 0:32:41 | 0:32:43 | |
There's literally no pressure at all on there. | 0:32:43 | 0:32:45 | |
I think it's because Ben's turned the water pump off, | 0:32:45 | 0:32:47 | |
to make sure there's no sound. | 0:32:47 | 0:32:49 | |
So I'm going to turn it back on. | 0:32:49 | 0:32:51 | |
He clearly wants us to just turn it on when we want to have a shower. | 0:32:53 | 0:32:56 | |
That's not a solution. | 0:32:56 | 0:32:58 | |
Obviously, we could live with just turning it on | 0:32:58 | 0:33:00 | |
if the taps had enough pressure in themselves, but they don't. | 0:33:00 | 0:33:02 | |
Now it's a normal amount of water coming out the tap, | 0:33:04 | 0:33:06 | |
it's not a trickle and the shower... | 0:33:06 | 0:33:08 | |
..the shower's back to being a fully pressured shower. | 0:33:10 | 0:33:13 | |
It just seems ludicrous. | 0:33:13 | 0:33:14 | |
That is so inconvenient and I'm not paying £433 a month | 0:33:16 | 0:33:21 | |
to have to turn a pump on whenever I want to wash up | 0:33:21 | 0:33:24 | |
or whenever I want to boil a kettle, like that isn't... | 0:33:24 | 0:33:27 | |
It's not how a household should work. | 0:33:27 | 0:33:30 | |
Student rents have soared by 20% in the last five years - | 0:33:32 | 0:33:36 | |
over double the increase than in the rest of the private rental sector. | 0:33:36 | 0:33:39 | |
Ben saw the potential early | 0:33:40 | 0:33:42 | |
and now owns eight student houses in this area alone. | 0:33:42 | 0:33:46 | |
Having spent some time with the students, | 0:33:48 | 0:33:52 | |
I'm very keen to see what's going on in some of the other houses. | 0:33:52 | 0:33:57 | |
See whether the students are getting some great value | 0:33:57 | 0:34:00 | |
from the letting agent, which I'm concerned about. | 0:34:00 | 0:34:03 | |
Most are traditional family-style homes, like this three-bed one, | 0:34:03 | 0:34:08 | |
which Ben rents to four students, each paying £437 a month. | 0:34:08 | 0:34:12 | |
-Hello. -Hi. -Hi, I'm Ben. | 0:34:14 | 0:34:16 | |
I'm your landlord. | 0:34:17 | 0:34:18 | |
Richard has lived here for two years, | 0:34:18 | 0:34:21 | |
but this is the first time he's met Ben. | 0:34:21 | 0:34:24 | |
-Have you had any issues? -We've had one or two. | 0:34:24 | 0:34:26 | |
-The major ones seem to have been sorted out. -Right. | 0:34:26 | 0:34:28 | |
So we've had a new boiler. | 0:34:28 | 0:34:29 | |
Oh, right. OK. | 0:34:29 | 0:34:30 | |
-That was put in. -Yeah, wow! | 0:34:30 | 0:34:32 | |
Yes, that is a new boiler. | 0:34:32 | 0:34:34 | |
The only thing to say is the decor wasn't built around it again. | 0:34:34 | 0:34:37 | |
Yeah. I'll speak to them about the decor. | 0:34:37 | 0:34:39 | |
It is a bit unsightly. | 0:34:39 | 0:34:40 | |
Was there anything else? | 0:34:40 | 0:34:42 | |
-The toilet flooded. And the estate agent did fix it... -Right. | 0:34:42 | 0:34:45 | |
..but the roof collapsed a bit. | 0:34:45 | 0:34:47 | |
-Oh! -Look up there. | 0:34:47 | 0:34:49 | |
Oh, yeah! So we need to do some redecoration there as well. | 0:34:49 | 0:34:52 | |
-Right. -Probably just one more thing. | 0:34:54 | 0:34:55 | |
The garden. We moved in it was a bit wild. | 0:34:55 | 0:34:58 | |
The grass was up to about here. | 0:34:58 | 0:34:59 | |
-Right. -And we didn't have any of the tools to deal with it. | 0:34:59 | 0:35:02 | |
Yeah. Did you report it? | 0:35:02 | 0:35:03 | |
Yeah. When we moved in we reported it. | 0:35:03 | 0:35:05 | |
They said they'd refer it to you. | 0:35:05 | 0:35:07 | |
No. I didn't get it. | 0:35:07 | 0:35:09 | |
Yeah. | 0:35:09 | 0:35:10 | |
-Yes. -I'm not sure they're too responsive. | 0:35:10 | 0:35:13 | |
I think the e-mails get lost. | 0:35:13 | 0:35:14 | |
Cos we're students | 0:35:16 | 0:35:18 | |
I think the estate agents think this is acceptable. | 0:35:18 | 0:35:20 | |
I don't think they take us too seriously. | 0:35:20 | 0:35:22 | |
If we come back with a complaint, | 0:35:22 | 0:35:23 | |
they'll take a couple of weeks to get back to us | 0:35:23 | 0:35:26 | |
and even then it's lucky if they do anything. | 0:35:26 | 0:35:28 | |
At the end of the day, it is the landlord's house. | 0:35:28 | 0:35:31 | |
And if the letting agent isn't doing anything, they need to sort it out. | 0:35:31 | 0:35:33 | |
University students are sometimes adults and sometimes kids. | 0:35:34 | 0:35:38 | |
They are naive and they're not street-wise | 0:35:38 | 0:35:41 | |
and the estate agent is using | 0:35:41 | 0:35:44 | |
their street-wiseness against them. | 0:35:44 | 0:35:46 | |
-INTERVIEWER: -Should you perhaps keep a bit more of an eye | 0:35:46 | 0:35:48 | |
on the letting agent as the landlord? | 0:35:48 | 0:35:50 | |
We have full maintenance with this letting agent, | 0:35:50 | 0:35:53 | |
and so we pay for that and that's what we should get. | 0:35:53 | 0:35:57 | |
Now, the whole point about having a full maintenance contract | 0:35:57 | 0:36:01 | |
is so I don't have to get involved. | 0:36:01 | 0:36:03 | |
It frees up my time to do other, more productive things. | 0:36:03 | 0:36:07 | |
All of Ben's student lets in this area are managed by an agency | 0:36:08 | 0:36:13 | |
that charge him 6% of his rental income. | 0:36:13 | 0:36:15 | |
-Hi there. -Hi. -Ben. You all right? | 0:36:15 | 0:36:18 | |
Postgraduate student Clem shares with two others | 0:36:18 | 0:36:22 | |
and has lived here almost a year. | 0:36:22 | 0:36:24 | |
-Any things that you think could be sorted out? -Yeah. Yeah. | 0:36:24 | 0:36:28 | |
Clem's rent is £650 a month. | 0:36:28 | 0:36:31 | |
So the main problem is the mould on the ceiling. | 0:36:31 | 0:36:35 | |
I don't know if you've seen any pictures of it. | 0:36:35 | 0:36:37 | |
-No. -That has been there since I pretty much moved in | 0:36:37 | 0:36:42 | |
and I've contacted the management throughout the year, really. | 0:36:42 | 0:36:45 | |
How many times have you contacted the management? | 0:36:45 | 0:36:47 | |
Probably two or three times maybe. | 0:36:47 | 0:36:50 | |
And one of the handymen that they employ | 0:36:50 | 0:36:54 | |
has said this has all got to come down. | 0:36:54 | 0:36:57 | |
But you said that this is probably the first time | 0:36:57 | 0:36:59 | |
-you've ever seen this. -Yeah, this is the first time. | 0:36:59 | 0:37:02 | |
That's not, that's not the impression I got from the handyman, though. | 0:37:02 | 0:37:05 | |
Cos he said that he quoted it towards the management people | 0:37:05 | 0:37:10 | |
and I don't know what the communication problem is in there, | 0:37:10 | 0:37:13 | |
but I would have thought... | 0:37:13 | 0:37:15 | |
Well, I would have thought that you probably would know about it | 0:37:15 | 0:37:18 | |
and do something about it. I'm paying £650. | 0:37:18 | 0:37:20 | |
It's not ideal to have lived with this for the whole year, really. | 0:37:20 | 0:37:26 | |
I actually don't think he has a problem with the mould | 0:37:26 | 0:37:29 | |
or any of the things. I think he has a problem that he's paying | 0:37:29 | 0:37:31 | |
a certain amount and he expected something different. | 0:37:31 | 0:37:35 | |
I mean, is he right to expect something different | 0:37:35 | 0:37:37 | |
for £650 a month? | 0:37:37 | 0:37:39 | |
I think it's average for this kind of area. | 0:37:39 | 0:37:41 | |
It's going to cost us to deal with that mould, so some of the rental, | 0:37:41 | 0:37:46 | |
the prices that the letting agents have put in is to deal with, er, | 0:37:46 | 0:37:51 | |
issues like that with the students. | 0:37:51 | 0:37:53 | |
Is a letting agent's job to get the maximum they can for the landlord? | 0:37:53 | 0:37:59 | |
No, it's the letting agent's job | 0:37:59 | 0:38:01 | |
to get us the maximum they can for themselves. So... | 0:38:01 | 0:38:04 | |
So if they can get... | 0:38:04 | 0:38:07 | |
rent out properties at a higher rates, then they'll do that. | 0:38:07 | 0:38:11 | |
Thank you. | 0:38:11 | 0:38:12 | |
I feel like he's passing the blame on a little bit. | 0:38:12 | 0:38:15 | |
I mean, he owns the house. | 0:38:15 | 0:38:16 | |
Surely he should know a little bit about it, maybe. | 0:38:16 | 0:38:19 | |
Oh, rain! | 0:38:28 | 0:38:29 | |
Although Paul is living in his tenants' home, | 0:38:29 | 0:38:32 | |
he's not missing an opportunity to spend time with his daughter. | 0:38:32 | 0:38:35 | |
So what was the story yesterday, Zoe? | 0:38:35 | 0:38:38 | |
I was playing with Lego. | 0:38:38 | 0:38:40 | |
What did you build? | 0:38:40 | 0:38:41 | |
-A house. -A house! | 0:38:41 | 0:38:43 | |
You might be a landlord in the future. | 0:38:44 | 0:38:45 | |
You never know! | 0:38:47 | 0:38:48 | |
-Are we here yet? -We are here. | 0:38:50 | 0:38:52 | |
Here, come on, for the garden. | 0:38:54 | 0:38:55 | |
Oh, what a big garden, yeah? | 0:38:58 | 0:39:01 | |
Yeah. | 0:39:01 | 0:39:02 | |
-There we go. -It's a mess. | 0:39:02 | 0:39:04 | |
You maybe fall down in the rocks. | 0:39:05 | 0:39:09 | |
So, yeah? | 0:39:09 | 0:39:10 | |
It's not beautiful. | 0:39:10 | 0:39:14 | |
No, it's not really best place, to be honest, to play with kids, | 0:39:14 | 0:39:17 | |
because there's so much rubbish around, yeah. | 0:39:17 | 0:39:19 | |
It's large, large garden. | 0:39:19 | 0:39:21 | |
So, it's a good place to be... to play around but not now, yeah. | 0:39:21 | 0:39:26 | |
Something was moving and I think it was a spider. | 0:39:26 | 0:39:31 | |
Oh, a spider! Let's go! | 0:39:31 | 0:39:33 | |
Spider! Come on! | 0:39:33 | 0:39:35 | |
Wow! This house has loads of toys. | 0:39:39 | 0:39:44 | |
I am going... | 0:39:44 | 0:39:46 | |
Oh, boing! | 0:39:46 | 0:39:49 | |
Just be careful on the stairs. | 0:39:49 | 0:39:51 | |
No, no, don't go to the stairs now. No, no. | 0:39:51 | 0:39:55 | |
-Oops, I broke a step. -It's not broken, it is just, er... | 0:39:55 | 0:39:59 | |
-excess of carpet, but come on. -Broken carpet. | 0:39:59 | 0:40:03 | |
Broken carpet. | 0:40:03 | 0:40:05 | |
What? | 0:40:05 | 0:40:06 | |
Ah! | 0:40:06 | 0:40:07 | |
She's very observant, to be honest. | 0:40:07 | 0:40:09 | |
She's sometimes more attention to detail than me. | 0:40:09 | 0:40:13 | |
This step is just too many cos it's actually going like this. | 0:40:13 | 0:40:21 | |
So this is the broken carpet. | 0:40:21 | 0:40:25 | |
When you are up the stairs, you are scared, | 0:40:25 | 0:40:29 | |
you hold the hanger and then you can go down. | 0:40:29 | 0:40:32 | |
The house, in the eyes of my daughter, she's just five. | 0:40:34 | 0:40:39 | |
Of course, I see now living here that, you know, | 0:40:39 | 0:40:42 | |
sometimes these small bits and pieces are just annoying | 0:40:42 | 0:40:45 | |
and they need to be fixed. | 0:40:45 | 0:40:47 | |
That's some sort of, like, you know, | 0:40:47 | 0:40:49 | |
learning child to understand the property more, yeah. | 0:40:49 | 0:40:53 | |
Whoa! | 0:40:53 | 0:40:55 | |
-Hi, Mama. -Hello, darling. | 0:41:05 | 0:41:07 | |
In Surrey, Tilly's mum has come to visit her. | 0:41:07 | 0:41:11 | |
-How was your drive? -Oh, very hot. | 0:41:11 | 0:41:13 | |
-But I brought you some goodies. -Oh, thank you. -All your favourites. | 0:41:13 | 0:41:16 | |
-Hey. -This is my mum, Bonnie. | 0:41:17 | 0:41:19 | |
-Hello. -Hi. | 0:41:19 | 0:41:20 | |
-How is it all going? -Great, great. | 0:41:20 | 0:41:23 | |
I notice you have brought me some food. | 0:41:23 | 0:41:24 | |
-It's not for you, actually, it's for Tilly. -Oh, right. | 0:41:24 | 0:41:27 | |
-I always bring her a hamper. -Oh. | 0:41:27 | 0:41:28 | |
To help her along. It's just a natural thing to do, isn't it, | 0:41:28 | 0:41:31 | |
-to look after your daughter? -Yeah. | 0:41:31 | 0:41:34 | |
Well, she's my second to go to university, but my first daughter. | 0:41:34 | 0:41:37 | |
So I was very sad when she left. | 0:41:37 | 0:41:39 | |
But you were in halls in the first year, weren't you? | 0:41:39 | 0:41:41 | |
-In halls, it's all there, set up. -It's all set up for you, yeah. | 0:41:41 | 0:41:44 | |
So moving in here was the hard one. | 0:41:44 | 0:41:46 | |
Initially finding the place. | 0:41:46 | 0:41:48 | |
Finding one with all your friends. | 0:41:48 | 0:41:50 | |
One you could afford. | 0:41:50 | 0:41:51 | |
Because they are paying out a huge amount of money, | 0:41:51 | 0:41:54 | |
not only for the rent, but for their uni fees. | 0:41:54 | 0:41:57 | |
You know, they are going to walk away from here | 0:41:57 | 0:41:59 | |
in a couple of years' time with a huge debt. | 0:41:59 | 0:42:01 | |
Thousands of pounds' worth. | 0:42:01 | 0:42:03 | |
So it's very important that the accommodation | 0:42:03 | 0:42:05 | |
they're living in and paying for is up to standard. | 0:42:05 | 0:42:08 | |
-That is what I feel as a parent. -Yeah. No, I agree with you. | 0:42:08 | 0:42:11 | |
I can't afford to pay Tilly's way through university. | 0:42:11 | 0:42:14 | |
I wish I could. That would be ideal. | 0:42:14 | 0:42:16 | |
But, unfortunately, that is not the case | 0:42:16 | 0:42:18 | |
-so Tilly has to use student loans. -Especially as you've got three kids. | 0:42:18 | 0:42:23 | |
Yeah, I've got three at university. | 0:42:23 | 0:42:25 | |
So that's not an option, I'm afraid. | 0:42:25 | 0:42:28 | |
If it helps, my kids are in the same position. | 0:42:28 | 0:42:33 | |
-And I think it's unfair for me to pay anything for them. -OK. | 0:42:33 | 0:42:38 | |
Probably because my parents didn't pay for me. | 0:42:38 | 0:42:41 | |
What my daughter did with her loan is she invested it | 0:42:41 | 0:42:47 | |
and she made money out of it. | 0:42:47 | 0:42:50 | |
-So was able to buy a house with saving... -Great. | 0:42:50 | 0:42:54 | |
Just a small flat for about 40,000 or 50,000, somewhere up north, | 0:42:54 | 0:42:59 | |
and then she got rental on that. | 0:42:59 | 0:43:02 | |
-You do know every trick in the book, don't you? -No, my daughter does. | 0:43:02 | 0:43:05 | |
-Right. -I'm not saying that every student can do that. | 0:43:05 | 0:43:08 | |
-But that was her mind-set. -Sounds like an exception. | 0:43:08 | 0:43:11 | |
Does it worry you, the amount you have to charge for the rent | 0:43:11 | 0:43:15 | |
on top of the fees they have to pay for uni? | 0:43:15 | 0:43:17 | |
Sure. I actually don't dictate the rent, it's the letting agents | 0:43:17 | 0:43:22 | |
-who do, and they're looking at... -Oh, really? | 0:43:22 | 0:43:24 | |
So you don't have a say in how much you charge? | 0:43:24 | 0:43:27 | |
No, I do have a say, but what I did is I outsourced everything. | 0:43:27 | 0:43:31 | |
But surely you could say, no, you are charging too much, | 0:43:31 | 0:43:35 | |
-if you felt... -I could... I could do that, yes. | 0:43:35 | 0:43:38 | |
Well, I am absolutely... petrified for her. | 0:43:38 | 0:43:41 | |
She's got to get a very good job to be able to pay this debt back. | 0:43:41 | 0:43:44 | |
-Yeah. -And I am very worried. | 0:43:44 | 0:43:46 | |
-VOICEOVER: -I sympathise with Tilly's situation. | 0:43:46 | 0:43:50 | |
When I went to university, I had a grant. | 0:43:50 | 0:43:53 | |
All my accommodation was paid for, so I think we had it much easier. | 0:43:53 | 0:43:58 | |
If I charged less rent, then I can't keep the upkeep of the house. | 0:43:58 | 0:44:04 | |
So although I sympathise with her, it's difficult for me to do anything | 0:44:04 | 0:44:09 | |
without jeopardising my own situation. | 0:44:09 | 0:44:12 | |
-Bye. -Bye, darling. | 0:44:12 | 0:44:14 | |
It's hard to think that someone is earning out of my debt. | 0:44:14 | 0:44:18 | |
It isn't a comforting thought to know that my debt could be lessened | 0:44:18 | 0:44:23 | |
did I not have to pay that certain amount. | 0:44:23 | 0:44:26 | |
I could ask for less of a loan from the government | 0:44:26 | 0:44:28 | |
if I didn't have do pay such a substantial amount. | 0:44:28 | 0:44:31 | |
-Lovely. -We're here. | 0:44:35 | 0:44:38 | |
Come on. Let's go. | 0:44:40 | 0:44:42 | |
After dropping his daughter back at her mum's house, | 0:44:45 | 0:44:48 | |
Paul is facing another night alone in the Santos family home. | 0:44:48 | 0:44:53 | |
I saw that they had loads of family pictures around, | 0:44:53 | 0:44:56 | |
so that indicates to me that they are very close | 0:44:56 | 0:44:58 | |
and a very traditional family and bond together to be a family... | 0:44:58 | 0:45:02 | |
..which I don't have, unfortunately. | 0:45:04 | 0:45:06 | |
And I think this is... It's because they're good people. | 0:45:07 | 0:45:11 | |
I'm thinking, to be honest, about my life. | 0:45:12 | 0:45:14 | |
Last many years I was focused too much in progress, travel, business. | 0:45:14 | 0:45:18 | |
While I just forgot personal life, need to find some partner, be happy. | 0:45:19 | 0:45:23 | |
-Oh, they look cooked, Ben. -They're overcooked. | 0:45:31 | 0:45:34 | |
Ben's also coming to the end of his time living as a tenant. | 0:45:34 | 0:45:37 | |
-How is it? -Cooked all the way through. | 0:45:37 | 0:45:41 | |
But the barbecue he's organised has brought further issues to light. | 0:45:41 | 0:45:44 | |
The garden has been a bit of a struggle for us. | 0:45:46 | 0:45:49 | |
When we moved in, it wasn't fantastic. | 0:45:49 | 0:45:51 | |
It's not finished yet and it is such a lovely garden, | 0:45:51 | 0:45:54 | |
it has such potential to be so beautiful. | 0:45:54 | 0:45:56 | |
The plan was to actually have it all ready for you. | 0:45:56 | 0:45:59 | |
The gardeners, we were told | 0:45:59 | 0:46:00 | |
they could only be here Monday afternoons. | 0:46:00 | 0:46:02 | |
OK. So when we first moved in, | 0:46:02 | 0:46:04 | |
obviously there was quite a few occasions | 0:46:04 | 0:46:06 | |
where someone would be woken up in the house, | 0:46:06 | 0:46:08 | |
a handyman, like, knocking on their bedroom door, | 0:46:08 | 0:46:10 | |
with no idea that they were coming. | 0:46:10 | 0:46:12 | |
Usually, it was a girl alone in the home, | 0:46:12 | 0:46:14 | |
and obviously that was quite scary. | 0:46:14 | 0:46:15 | |
And I kind of feel that there was a disregard | 0:46:15 | 0:46:18 | |
for safety from the letting agency. | 0:46:18 | 0:46:19 | |
We had no idea who was coming to our house, when, or why. | 0:46:19 | 0:46:22 | |
We've said to just come, | 0:46:22 | 0:46:23 | |
but it's this line between whether it's safe or not, and wanting | 0:46:23 | 0:46:28 | |
the garden to be done, and it's which one is a priority, I guess. | 0:46:28 | 0:46:30 | |
But even after you had said the gardeners are allowed here, | 0:46:30 | 0:46:33 | |
I was told by the agency that they couldn't be here. | 0:46:33 | 0:46:36 | |
And somewhere along the line, the ball is dropped somewhere, | 0:46:36 | 0:46:39 | |
which I think is the root of all the problems. | 0:46:39 | 0:46:41 | |
-Yeah. -It's that we're being told it's being communicated to you, | 0:46:41 | 0:46:45 | |
and you're being told that we're being communicated with. | 0:46:45 | 0:46:47 | |
-And we are not. -I suppose the simple option would be to just communicate | 0:46:47 | 0:46:50 | |
to one another rather than involving... | 0:46:50 | 0:46:52 | |
I know obviously you pay them the fees and stuff, | 0:46:52 | 0:46:54 | |
but, I suppose, if there is an issue, | 0:46:54 | 0:46:56 | |
maybe just communicate it to us and we can tell you what we think | 0:46:56 | 0:46:59 | |
there and then. | 0:46:59 | 0:47:00 | |
So do you think anything will actually come of this? | 0:47:05 | 0:47:07 | |
I don't know, I don't have much hope when he's just told us | 0:47:07 | 0:47:11 | |
to turn a switch off on the water pump, and that is what... | 0:47:11 | 0:47:13 | |
that is what the solution is for that. | 0:47:13 | 0:47:15 | |
I know for a fact that, if this was his house and he was living here | 0:47:15 | 0:47:18 | |
for the past year, all of these things would be fixed. | 0:47:18 | 0:47:21 | |
You know, some of the things that they pointed out | 0:47:24 | 0:47:27 | |
that the letting agent hasn't dealt with, I think, is terrible. | 0:47:27 | 0:47:31 | |
And think they've actually been over-patient, to be honest with you. | 0:47:31 | 0:47:34 | |
After a week living in his home, | 0:47:41 | 0:47:43 | |
Paul is about to meet Olegario for the very first time. | 0:47:43 | 0:47:47 | |
Currently, from a financial point of view, I'm making a loss, | 0:47:47 | 0:47:50 | |
because their rent is discounted, | 0:47:50 | 0:47:52 | |
which is, of course, not good for me. | 0:47:52 | 0:47:53 | |
Bye-bye. Mwah! | 0:47:53 | 0:47:55 | |
I think this is a good opportunity to speak to the owner. | 0:47:55 | 0:47:59 | |
If he does not understand the problem, | 0:47:59 | 0:48:01 | |
I don't know what I should do. | 0:48:01 | 0:48:03 | |
-Hello. -Como esta? How are you doing? -Nice, nice. | 0:48:05 | 0:48:11 | |
How has been the experience of you living in my house? | 0:48:11 | 0:48:15 | |
Of course, condition-wise, the place is not how it should be. | 0:48:15 | 0:48:18 | |
The most important for me is safety for my children. | 0:48:18 | 0:48:21 | |
The carpet on the step isn't safe. | 0:48:21 | 0:48:24 | |
But just in the one stair. | 0:48:24 | 0:48:26 | |
No, all. I have to fix it for myself. | 0:48:26 | 0:48:28 | |
Another thing worrying me is the garden, you know. | 0:48:28 | 0:48:31 | |
What do you think about the rubbish that you find there? | 0:48:32 | 0:48:35 | |
The rubbish, yeah. We need to clean the rubbish, definitely. | 0:48:35 | 0:48:38 | |
-It's not mine. -I know. Some of the rubbish was the builders. | 0:48:38 | 0:48:41 | |
From when they start the work in the roof. | 0:48:41 | 0:48:43 | |
-No, most of the rubbish I found when I moved on the first day. -OK. | 0:48:43 | 0:48:48 | |
The main bedroom, the walls is still very, very wet. | 0:48:49 | 0:48:54 | |
You don't think it is too long a time to do something? | 0:48:54 | 0:48:57 | |
It's actually a very quick time. | 0:48:57 | 0:48:58 | |
Wintertime, nobody really do any sort of work on the roof because | 0:48:58 | 0:49:02 | |
-it's rain. -But in November if you had given me that information, | 0:49:02 | 0:49:05 | |
I will take my decision from here. | 0:49:05 | 0:49:07 | |
So I will find another solution for myself. | 0:49:07 | 0:49:10 | |
-It's became worse, not less. -Yes. | 0:49:10 | 0:49:12 | |
-Like a dump. -This is bad for me as well because it's my property, | 0:49:12 | 0:49:15 | |
-so it's just...now it's more work. -Of course, yeah. | 0:49:15 | 0:49:18 | |
It's going to cost me now much, much more than I was previously, | 0:49:18 | 0:49:21 | |
-so I didn't know... -For me, it's too much time. | 0:49:21 | 0:49:23 | |
I don't know if you understand. I smell the problem. | 0:49:23 | 0:49:26 | |
I have a child, I live in the property. | 0:49:26 | 0:49:28 | |
I just want to show something what happened with my little girl. | 0:49:28 | 0:49:33 | |
Look. | 0:49:33 | 0:49:35 | |
-Oh, my gosh. -Yeah. | 0:49:35 | 0:49:36 | |
Do you think that was because of damp? | 0:49:37 | 0:49:39 | |
Yeah. | 0:49:39 | 0:49:40 | |
I didn't know that it's so bad. | 0:49:42 | 0:49:44 | |
100%, that's not perfect situation to be in. | 0:49:44 | 0:49:48 | |
It's just dangerous as well, so that's why we need to fix this now. | 0:49:48 | 0:49:53 | |
Despite the problem, I'm still very grateful. | 0:49:53 | 0:49:56 | |
It's very, very difficult to find a house to rent here. | 0:49:56 | 0:49:59 | |
I like to appreciate what you guys do for me. | 0:49:59 | 0:50:02 | |
I'm a foreigner as well in this country. | 0:50:02 | 0:50:04 | |
I was renting as well. | 0:50:04 | 0:50:05 | |
It was difficult to find any place to live because everybody said | 0:50:05 | 0:50:08 | |
I have no credit story, no work. | 0:50:08 | 0:50:10 | |
No full-time employment, you know, everything like that. | 0:50:10 | 0:50:13 | |
And they don't want to give you a property. | 0:50:13 | 0:50:15 | |
So in that way, we're trying to help. | 0:50:15 | 0:50:16 | |
I was quite upset when he showed me the pictures, | 0:50:19 | 0:50:22 | |
so it was the sort of effect of the situation in the property | 0:50:22 | 0:50:26 | |
was on his daughter, which I'm very, very ashamed of that. | 0:50:26 | 0:50:30 | |
I feel bad about that. | 0:50:30 | 0:50:33 | |
In the beginning, he was very defensive. | 0:50:36 | 0:50:38 | |
So I think when I show him the pictures of Jessica, | 0:50:38 | 0:50:42 | |
I think he tried to understand my problem. | 0:50:42 | 0:50:45 | |
I hope he fixes the problem. | 0:50:45 | 0:50:47 | |
But I only will believe when I see it. | 0:50:47 | 0:50:52 | |
After spending time in their tenants' properties, | 0:50:56 | 0:51:00 | |
the landlords are returning home. | 0:51:00 | 0:51:01 | |
A few things surprised me this week. | 0:51:04 | 0:51:06 | |
I didn't expect them to go to bed so early. | 0:51:06 | 0:51:09 | |
I learned a lot about the evolution of students, | 0:51:09 | 0:51:13 | |
where we now have loans instead of grants. | 0:51:13 | 0:51:16 | |
I just didn't realise how much of a worry it was to parents | 0:51:16 | 0:51:20 | |
as well as the students themselves. | 0:51:20 | 0:51:22 | |
Hugs, whatever. | 0:51:22 | 0:51:23 | |
-Hugs all round. -Can I get a hug? | 0:51:23 | 0:51:26 | |
Yes. Of course you get one, too. | 0:51:26 | 0:51:29 | |
As the Americans say, don't be a stranger. | 0:51:29 | 0:51:32 | |
-OK. -Bye, then. -Bye. -Bye. -See you soon. | 0:51:32 | 0:51:35 | |
I feel differently, which is something which is strange for me. | 0:51:36 | 0:51:40 | |
I didn't expect that. | 0:51:40 | 0:51:41 | |
This meeting yesterday realised me that, for him, | 0:51:41 | 0:51:45 | |
the most important thing is home. | 0:51:45 | 0:51:47 | |
He's not expecting private jet, you know, millions in the bank account. | 0:51:47 | 0:51:51 | |
He's just expecting basically | 0:51:51 | 0:51:54 | |
a good, nice house for his family and stable job. | 0:51:54 | 0:51:57 | |
They now will decide if any changes need to be made. | 0:51:59 | 0:52:02 | |
An experience like that allowed me to be able to see the other side. | 0:52:04 | 0:52:08 | |
Many families in this country are coping on quite similar money | 0:52:08 | 0:52:13 | |
and they have to feed the children, they have to pay the bills. | 0:52:13 | 0:52:17 | |
This makes me feel very, very sorry. | 0:52:17 | 0:52:19 | |
Very... | 0:52:19 | 0:52:21 | |
Very unhappy about the situation which I created. | 0:52:21 | 0:52:25 | |
Both sets of tenants | 0:52:49 | 0:52:50 | |
have been staying with their families over the summer, | 0:52:50 | 0:52:54 | |
while the landlords have been working on their properties. | 0:52:54 | 0:52:57 | |
I'm very curious to see what he has done. | 0:52:58 | 0:53:01 | |
Yeah. It will be interesting to see. | 0:53:01 | 0:53:03 | |
What do you expect now? | 0:53:05 | 0:53:06 | |
I don't know. | 0:53:07 | 0:53:09 | |
Keep positive. | 0:53:09 | 0:53:11 | |
Yes. | 0:53:11 | 0:53:12 | |
Here we are. | 0:53:15 | 0:53:16 | |
I really want to see if we got a new hob. | 0:53:20 | 0:53:22 | |
Oh, how exciting. | 0:53:22 | 0:53:24 | |
No more fire hazards. | 0:53:24 | 0:53:25 | |
I am very, very happy with the new hob. | 0:53:25 | 0:53:27 | |
-Yeah. -Like, that was such a health and safety hazard, | 0:53:27 | 0:53:30 | |
and we were ignored about it for so long. | 0:53:30 | 0:53:33 | |
Yeah, yeah. Happy days. | 0:53:33 | 0:53:35 | |
Oh! "Tilly and housemates." | 0:53:38 | 0:53:39 | |
"Dear Tilly, Poppy and Georgia, | 0:53:41 | 0:53:43 | |
"thank you for letting me stay with you. | 0:53:43 | 0:53:45 | |
"With regards for a pump, we're doing our best to find a solution. | 0:53:45 | 0:53:48 | |
"The cost for the materials plus work | 0:53:48 | 0:53:49 | |
"will cost between 5,000 and 7,000. | 0:53:49 | 0:53:52 | |
"I would be happy to do this, but there could be some disruption | 0:53:52 | 0:53:55 | |
"with the workmen coming in and out of the house | 0:53:55 | 0:53:57 | |
"and a loss of water service for two to four weeks. | 0:53:57 | 0:53:59 | |
"Please do let us know if you would be happy with the disruption | 0:53:59 | 0:54:02 | |
"and I will authorise the works." | 0:54:02 | 0:54:04 | |
At least he's looking into it and it would cost him a lot, | 0:54:04 | 0:54:06 | |
so I do appreciate that he'd put that much money into it. | 0:54:06 | 0:54:09 | |
Wow! Look at the stairs. | 0:54:16 | 0:54:20 | |
The carpet is new. Now it's safe to walk here. | 0:54:20 | 0:54:23 | |
I love this. | 0:54:28 | 0:54:29 | |
Wow. It's dry. | 0:54:30 | 0:54:34 | |
It smells fresh. | 0:54:35 | 0:54:36 | |
Oh, wow! I love it. | 0:54:37 | 0:54:39 | |
I did all the work to make sure the property is safe now. | 0:54:39 | 0:54:42 | |
We replaced the whole bedroom walls, where the mould previously was. | 0:54:42 | 0:54:47 | |
We painted and decorated. | 0:54:47 | 0:54:49 | |
I was hoping to spend about £2,000 maximum in the beginning, | 0:54:49 | 0:54:53 | |
but I spent 8,000. | 0:54:53 | 0:54:54 | |
Wow! | 0:54:56 | 0:54:57 | |
I don't believe this! | 0:54:57 | 0:54:58 | |
Really? | 0:54:58 | 0:55:00 | |
Oh, my God. | 0:55:01 | 0:55:03 | |
I never expected this. Totally different. | 0:55:04 | 0:55:08 | |
In the kitchen, we replaced all the units. | 0:55:08 | 0:55:11 | |
As well we replaced the floor. | 0:55:11 | 0:55:13 | |
But I go the extra mile just because Olegario's life is tough already | 0:55:13 | 0:55:19 | |
and, as a landlord, I don't want to make his life even harder. | 0:55:19 | 0:55:23 | |
Wow. I never could imagine a kitchen like this. | 0:55:23 | 0:55:27 | |
Never. | 0:55:27 | 0:55:28 | |
Oh, it is looking different, Tilly. | 0:55:31 | 0:55:33 | |
Look, lots of little plants. | 0:55:33 | 0:55:34 | |
Well, I'm quite impressed. | 0:55:35 | 0:55:37 | |
It's so much prettier. | 0:55:37 | 0:55:38 | |
-Yeah. -It's looking much more accessible. | 0:55:38 | 0:55:41 | |
Wow. That's much better. | 0:55:41 | 0:55:43 | |
Oh, look, they've done a little feature around the tree. | 0:55:43 | 0:55:46 | |
It looks very pretty. Very thoughtfully done, I think. | 0:55:46 | 0:55:49 | |
-Yeah. No, I like it. -Huge improvement, Tilly. | 0:55:49 | 0:55:52 | |
We are going to have a cracking garden. | 0:55:52 | 0:55:54 | |
My mistake was to assume that the letting agent | 0:55:56 | 0:55:59 | |
was working to my standard, and they weren't. | 0:55:59 | 0:56:03 | |
And so I need to get rid of my letting agent very, very quickly. | 0:56:03 | 0:56:07 | |
There's definitely improvements being made in all areas. | 0:56:08 | 0:56:12 | |
Even if it's not quite there yet, things are being looked into, | 0:56:12 | 0:56:15 | |
things are starting to get sorted. | 0:56:15 | 0:56:17 | |
It's quite a nice feeling | 0:56:17 | 0:56:18 | |
to feel like we have been listened to this time. | 0:56:18 | 0:56:20 | |
From my perspective, if I am providing a service, | 0:56:22 | 0:56:26 | |
I have a responsibility to my customers | 0:56:26 | 0:56:29 | |
to give them the best service that they believe | 0:56:29 | 0:56:32 | |
that they are entitled to and that I believe I can give. | 0:56:32 | 0:56:37 | |
Wow! | 0:56:40 | 0:56:42 | |
Oh, wow! | 0:56:42 | 0:56:43 | |
I never could expect a garden like this. | 0:56:44 | 0:56:47 | |
Zizi, you like it? | 0:56:47 | 0:56:49 | |
-I like it. -Wow! | 0:56:49 | 0:56:52 | |
Being the tenant for a few days in this property, | 0:56:52 | 0:56:56 | |
I actually realised that the landlord could make a difference, | 0:56:56 | 0:56:59 | |
could help instead of just being the property owner. | 0:56:59 | 0:57:03 | |
To be a landlord is not just to make a profit and money, | 0:57:06 | 0:57:09 | |
it's as well social responsibility to provide a home to my tenants, | 0:57:09 | 0:57:14 | |
not just a place to live for them. | 0:57:14 | 0:57:16 |