Council tenant fined £100k and evicted for using flat as Air BnB let.

[alex_]

That wasn't the point I was making though, was it?

No you seem to be equating legal ( but cunty ) with illegal and cunty.

 

[Lurdan]

I found Westminster Council's press release about this case. It uses the word fine in it's headline and that's been picked up in the press reports but in fact the £100,974.94 is an all imposed under an Unlawful Profits Order.

Since I suspect most people aren't familiar with this relatively recent change in the law let me bore you a little.

Unlawful Profits Order were introduced in the Prevention of Social Housing Fraud Act 2013 which made unauthorised sub-letting a criminal offense. In fact the act introduced two new criminal offenses :

You will have committed the first offence if:

• you have broken a term of your tenancy agreement by subletting all of your home. Subletting part of your home also counts, but if you are a secure or flexible tenant it only applies if you didn't get your landlord's written consent, and
• you no longer live in the property as your only or principal home, and
• you sublet the property knowing that you were breaking your tenancy agreement.

The second offence is similar to the first one. The main difference is that for the first offence it is enough for someone to know that subletting is against their tenancy agreement, the second offence requires the person to have acted dishonestly when subletting. This generally means that if you have made money from subletting your home then you're likely to have acted dishonestly. This is a more serious offence and carries greater penalties.

I'm guessing this alt-landlord was done for the second offence.

If a court finds you guilty of the first offence of unlawful subletting, you can be fined in the magistrates' court. There is no maximum fine.

You can be tried for the second offence of unlawful subletting and acting dishonestly at the magistrates' court or the Crown Court. At the magistrates' court, you can get up to six months in prison or a fine, or both. At the Crown Court the maximum penalty is imprisonment for two years or a fine, or both.

(All from here). So although the press release doesn't say so it's possible he was fined as well. If he'd been imprisoned I'm sure it would have been mentioned.

Details of Unlawful Profits Orders here on the CAB website

The maximum amount that can be paid is based on the total profit minus any rent and service charges that you paid during the time when you sublet your home. Interest is added if the amount due is not paid on time.

It's important to note that in addition to applying for Unlawful Profits Orders when taking criminal proceedings against tenants, Councils and Housing Associations can also apply for them when taking civil proceedings against them for subletting - i.e. standard breach of tenancy proceedings.

Under a subsequent regulation in 2014, local authority officers were given the power to require information from a list of specified persons inc. banks and utility companies. They can seek that information in respect of tenants and also members of their family. Obviously these powers could be invoked wherever there is 'reasonable suspicion' that someone has done, is doing or even "intends" to sublet. Which might well include cases where a simple change in circumstances is observed : a lawful lodger, a regular cohabitee or where one party to a joint tenancy has moved out. This could lead - particularly the latter case - to other complications.

Lastly to clarify my hard line stance against this particular arsehole I'm not breaking out the champagne because the court has been involved and has imposed this massive penalty. Nor am I calling for the courts to act this way in other cases. (I'd be quite happy to just hang the fuckers). I am perfectly well aware the judicial system is there as an agent of class rule and that it acts arbitrarily and unfairly in many cases and, as has been pointed out, fails to act in many others. In that sense I can see that a case could undoubtedly be made that this guy has experienced heavy handed state oppression. So while I wasn't actually planning to attend the next anarchist bookfair, if someone wants to organise collection buckets on his behalf I will certainly consider going along and tossing in something appropriate.

 

[cantsin]

Compare this to the fine issued to the last slum landlord you can remember being dragged through the courts. Trick question, slum landlords never end up in court. Fergus Wilson, found to be openly discriminating against potential tennants on racial grounds, was fined (checks notes) nothing. He was however politely asked to stop doing it in future, and a crack team of nobody was assigned to ensure he sticks to this requirement.

Letting out a council flat on AirBnB is a shit thing to do for sure, but it's way down at the bottom end of the scale when it comes to the kind of fuckery that exists in the property market.

100 % - people just hustling, trying to get a bit of the circus-spectacle action constantly blasted at them 24/7, nothing to do with the grotesque, systemic, everyday farce of the UK housing situation

 

[Mation]

I knew someone (genuinely not me ) who rented out their social housing flat for an extended period, at exactly the social housing rent amount (so they - the 'landlord' - made no profit at all). They knew they'd need the flat later and so wanted to keep it, but had a (good) reason to move away for a couple of years.

Wrong?

 

[marty21]

I knew someone (genuinely not me ) who rented out their social housing flat for an extended period, at exactly the social housing rent amount (so they - the 'landlord' - made no profit at all). They knew they'd need the flat later and so wanted to keep it, but had a (good) reason to move away for a couple of years.

Wrong?

You can do that with the Landlord's permission for up to 12 months , we don't call it sub-letting , we give permission for someone else to live there , provided you make sure the rent is paid . Beyond that is discretionary, if someone wants to do it for longer , are they still using the flat as their principal home? Unlikely.

 

[Proper Tidy]

Plenty of homeowners let their property out without telling their lender though, despite it being a breach of lenders covenants. I don't think social housing tenants on secure lease should be held to higher ethical standard - I know reality now with pressure on social housing but we should maintain idea that social housing isn't charity or benevolence. Obviously airbnb bloke is a pisstaking prick but I don't morally object to tenants making a few quid now and again or getting rent paid without disclosing to landlord if they can't live there for a while any more than when somebody with a mortgage does it

 

[Mation]

You can do that with the Landlord's permission for up to 12 months , we don't call it sub-letting , we give permission for someone else to live there , provided you make sure the rent is paid . Beyond that is discretionary, if someone wants to do it for longer , are they still using the flat as their principal home? Unlikely.

Doesn't quite answer my moral question, but acknowledged for the information

 

[cantsin]

edit error

 

[equationgirl]

Plenty of homeowners let their property out without telling their lender though, despite it being a breach of lenders covenants. I don't think social housing tenants on secure lease should be held to higher ethical standard - I know reality now with pressure on social housing but we should maintain idea that social housing isn't charity or benevolence. Obviously airbnb bloke is a pisstaking prick but I don't morally object to tenants making a few quid now and again or getting rent paid without disclosing to landlord if they can't live there for a while any more than when somebody with a mortgage does it

Depends how long you intend letting it out for. Some mortgage lenders aren't interested if it's a year or two, any more than that and they require a) to be informed and b) that the mortgage is switched to a buy to let.

Social housing is a bit different though, it's in short supply in most areas and personally I don't think it's fair that surrounding tenants are constantly disrupted by partying Airbnb tourists.

 

[Lurdan]

I knew someone (genuinely not me ) who rented out their social housing flat for an extended period, at exactly the social housing rent amount (so they - the 'landlord' - made no profit at all). They knew they'd need the flat later and so wanted to keep it, but had a (good) reason to move away for a couple of years.

Wrong?

As bad cop on this thread I'd say - it all depends.

Let me situate where I'm coming from. I've been both poacher and gamekeeper. I've been a council tenant for 35 years. For over 25 of those I also worked in the estate office of a small housing estate. The block was owned by the Council, but the tenants had a local management agreement, and I was employed by them. When I started there was no leaseheld flats. When I finished over two thirds of the estate had been bought under RTB, half had changed hands, sometimes more than once, and half (not the same half) was being sublet in every form and permutation you could imagine. With every kind of annoying issue as leaseholders got 'creative' with their properties or their sub-letting arrangements. I worked on the estate long enough to see children at the time I started grow up and have families of their own. And I also got to see an unusually strong and close community destroyed by RTB and it's consequences, up close, and in slow motion. On the tenants side there wasn't an enormous amount of sub-letting but I think I can say I saw instances of every level of rule bending, piss taking and on up to (happily rare) examples of outright cuntishness. I have, understandably I think, very strong views about some of these matters. But my perspective is also based on having to think about the rights and wrongs of things in specific terms involving actual people.

In the case you describe frankly I wouldn't be especially concerned about the ethics of such an arrangement. But with some provisos. If the sub-tenant started annoying the neighbours, being anti-social, using the flat for 'bad stuff' then I'd take a different view, particularly if the real tenant was too far away to help sort their 'flat-sitting lodger' out. If the real tenant's circumstances changed and the intention to return ceased but they just let the situation drift on, or even just vanished, leaving their both their 'lodger' and whoever was managing the property in a difficult position again I'd not be very happy. (I wasn't when it actually happened). The essential point is that this isn't just a matter of what the tenant does in setting up the arrangement. They are also responsible for what their 'lodger' does subsequently. And for dealing with whatever is entailed by any of the circumstances changing.

Legally of course, as I bored on above, there are very clear risks. And I doubt that many housing officers would be as relaxed as me about it in practise.

 

[Proper Tidy]

Depends how long you intend letting it out for. Some mortgage lenders aren't interested if it's a year or two, any more than that and they require a) to be informed and b) that the mortgage is switched to a buy to let.

Social housing is a bit different though, it's in short supply in most areas and personally I don't think it's fair that surrounding tenants are constantly disrupted by partying Airbnb tourists.

All mortgage lenders are interested if you let your property out for any period of time. It's a standard covenant that you can't. There is no one year or two rule, formally or informally. Whether a lender would make you convert to a commercial BTL basis would depend on wider circumstances not just how long it will be let for.

There is no difference between disruption caused by tourists in a neighboring property which is socially let or privately owned. It is all disruption. So why hold the tenant to a higher account?

 

[Dogsauce]

Depends how long you intend letting it out for. Some mortgage lenders aren't interested if it's a year or two, any more than that and they require a) to be informed and b) that the mortgage is switched to a buy to let.

Mine had in the terms that there was a £200 charge for having a tenant (not sure if it was for vetting or just opportunistic pocket-filling). I nearly always had a friend lodging with me but never bothered telling them, some were there just a couple of weeks (waifs/strays/relationship breakdowns) and I’d have been pretty skint paying that for everyone who’d ever lived there.

 

[equationgirl]

All mortgage lenders are interested if you let your property out for any period of time. It's a standard covenant that you can't. There is no one year or two rule, formally or informally. Whether a lender would make you convert to a commercial BTL basis would depend on wider circumstances not just how long it will be let for.

There is no difference between disruption caused by tourists in a neighboring property which is socially let or privately owned. It is all disruption. So why hold the tenant to a higher account?

Things may be different between England and Scotland, where I gained my experience. I had a friend who used to let his flat for the duration of the Edinburgh festival, and he certainly didn't tell them about any short term let's.