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Written by rosalind renshaw

Labour MP Graham Jones has demanded an “urgent statement” from housing minister Grant Shapps “on the crisis of rogue landlords in the private sector”.

Speaking in the Commons, Jones referred to the C4 Landlords from Hell programme, whish showed one landlord, who was operating as a charity, boasting that he could break the law and would sort out his tenants with a baseball bat.

Jones said: “Tens of thousands of people are trapped with poor or rogue landlords in the private rented sector.”

Replying to him, Sir George Young said that he would draw his remarks to the housing minister and ask whether there is any action that he should be taking in the light of the Landlords from Hell programme.

Graham Jones is the MP for Hynburn in Lancashire, where a group of private landlords recently successfully overturned the local council’s decision to introduce selective licensing.

Jones was opposed to the landlords’ move to have the selective licensing regime thrown out.

He has gone on record as saying: “Given the chronic state the sector is in … it is more regulation and intervention that is required, not less.”

Comments

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    Rogue tenants must be dealt with too. The law needs to change. However there is no similarity of argument. Landlords at some point choose to take a business risk housing rogue tenants.

    In Hyndburn, if you want s house the only rented option is a poor landlord because that's the nature of the market. Within which there are rogue landlords. Decent people are made to suffer unnecessarily and the market is broken.

    • 19 July 2011 08:03 AM
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    How I agree with the last post by 'Tony' !

    You never hear about the small landords going bust because of rent arrears. Getting money back from tenants in arrears is like pulling teeth. Even if you can find them no-one in authority wants to help you - it's just you and taking your chances with some judge who always seem to take the tenants' side.

    The good landlords never get a mention in the media and are just lumped in with the rogues who are simply crooks and they can be found in any business.

    • 12 July 2011 20:43 PM
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    The solution to the problem of rogue landlords is to directly tackle those identified as such, and not to impose ever more pointless and unwelcome bureaucracy onto those landlords who are doing a good job. There are many very good landlords who only have one property as a retirement fund, or are "accidental landlords" with a property they can't sell who have respect for their tenants and provide a good service, but many of these are leaving the sector as a result of the increasing number of hoops they have to jump through to continue doing what they have been doing well for years without government intervention. Good properties, and landlords are being lost to the sector while rogue landlords continue to ignore or avoid legislation without redress.

    • 12 July 2011 11:40 AM
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    How about crooked freeholders & rouge managing Agents.

    • 12 July 2011 09:58 AM
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    It would be fantastic if, just for once, Labour politicians like this one would campaign to defend landlords' rights, for example to improve the ability to retrieve debts. At the moment, a tenant can avoid paying rent with impunity simply by being self-employed and hiding assets in someone else's name. Even when the tenant is evicted, the landlord cannot do an attachment of earnings order, there's no asset to attach a CCJ to, and even bankruptcy is useless as there are so few penalties attached. I've even been told by a debtor tenant that I'd be doing him a favour if I paid to make him bankrupt, as this would wipe out all his debts after a year!

    • 12 July 2011 08:48 AM
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