Britain's biggest landlord's bans 'battered wives' from his properties

[roseshippy]

He's a right twat.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4095412/Defiant-property-tycoon-69-BANS-single-mothers-battered-wives-plumbers-families-children-tenants.html

[LouisvilleLlama]

Whilst I admit it's shitty can we not do the whole selective criteria for outrage thing? It's any different people, although I agree it's really stupid, I feel adding in all the different banned criteria makes it even more so:


A property tycoon has banned single mothers, battered wives, plumbers and low income earners from becoming tenants.
Fergus Wilson, a landlord, defended a document posted online which revealed the latest 'letting criteria' which he has issued to a letting agent.
The 69-year-old set out 11 stringent rules for those who will not be able to rent his properties, which also includes families with children, pet owners, smokers, single adults and workers on zero hours contracts.
He's even banned plumbers from renting out his properties as he believes they overcharge him while carrying out simple repairs and adding extra jobs

[woman12345]

And it's illegal:
in breach of Sex Discrimination Act 1975 and ECHR.

[LassWiTheDelicateAir]

I don't really see this a feminist issue.

I'm a landlord. I own 2 flats neither of which are suitable for families, although one I did let to a family as I was confident they would pay the rent.

I can't , because my house insurers won't allow it, take any tenant who is not a student or in full time employment. Neither of the companies who insure my flats will insure them if the tenants are on housing benefit. That might seen unfair but private landlords are not providers of social housing.

Like most landlords I specify no pets and no smoking. That's tough on people who want to smoke and/ or have cats. I have cats; one of them pees in my house. My choice, I can live with that. One of my tenants, in breach of her tenancy agreement, had 2 cats in a flat which had no direct access to a garden. They peed
all over the place and I had to pay a lot of money to have the original Victorian doors which her cats scratched sanded and varnished, and for professional cleaning of furniture, which she refused to pay for. Had she agreed to make good the damage caused by her pets it would have been fine.

This landlord seems a pretty vile person as he is setting arbitrary rules and apparently not abiding by his obligations as a landlord to maintain his property.

Most landlords will assess tenants on their individual ability to pay rent and whether they will not cause damage to the property, subject to the constraints imposed by insurers which , aside from the large corporate portfolio landlords, most landlords can't ignore.

We have a problem, a major problem, with housing in the UK.

The Scottish Government sets far higher standards which landlords in Scotland have to meet than in England and Wales to the extent that the first flat I bought for me to live in would now not meet acceptable standards to let it out.

Due to the, in one way brilliant piece of, social engineering of Thatcher in allowing the purchase of council houses we have this problem.

Oh I as a good little champagne socialist was hugely against this ; never having lived in a house which wasn't owned by either my family or me. Her policy allowed social mobility on a level which had almost never been seen before.

The problem is that those houses were not replaced and publicly owned housing stock is now subject to ghettosiation.

This man is horrible. However setting that aside we need a far greater building programme of publicly owned housing.

[KickAssAngel]

I think that specifying single mothers and battered wives makes it very clearly sex discrimination.

Of course, he sounds like a total idiot anyway, but it is illegal to ban certain groups of the population, and that includes refusing to do business with women.

[LassWiTheDelicateAir]

No pet owners, no smokers, no benefits, no children, no single adults isn't.

He says no single mothers or single fathers but as he also said no families with children or single adults it seems a pointless addition to exclude single parents.

[SenecaFalls]

No battered wives makes it a feminist issue. Violence against women is the core issue of feminism for me.

[0phelia]

He didn't say "No wife beaters" did he.
Wife beaters welcome, just not your wife.

I totally agree with you Lass, re Thatcher's right to buy being good in theory (and earned them a lot of working class votes) but in practice has lead to a crisis. In fact, fewer and fewer people own homes now, especially since buy-to-let mortgages came about (thanks again Tories). The next UK generation will be generation rent.

This landlord is horrible. Hopefully found breaking the law in some way.

[SallyGinnamon]

Having read the list there aren't many people left for him to let to!

[00100001]

How would he know if they were battered wives though?

[OccasionalNachos]

exactly Borders - couples who are at least moderately high earners. Who are probably the most likely to be able to buy a home, not rent.

[Minesril]

Anyone who buys a family home as a buy to let and then doesnt rent it to a family is a scumbag.

And i cant even comment on the battered wives thing. I hope this guy rots in hell.

[NellWilsonsWhiteHair]

I can't, because my house insurers won't allow it, take any tenant who is not a student or in full time employment. Neither of the companies who insure my flats will insure them if the tenants are on housing benefit.

As an aside to the main point of the thread, this interested me: what would the position be in the case of a tenant in full-time employment who is also in receipt of supplementary HB, as is the case for a significant and increasing proportion of the population?

[specialsubject]

I was told that might be possible for the insurers I had at the time the question came up. (If you can disentangle that...)

Btw single men under 55 have zero chance of any council accommodation on our area. Women are accepted.

Discrimination everywhere, triggered by shortage.

[WellErrr]

I just can't believe how many MNers read the Daily Mail. No wonder they're always here, every other bloody thread links to them.

[NotCitrus]

Hope this guy finally goes under, after wailing for years about how hard it is for a landlord who owns almost all the private rental housing in certain parts of Kent. Keeps saying he'll sell up and quit but never does, just gets into the 'news' every year or so. Hope he does run out of tenants.

Nell the farcical situation atm is that HB is paid directly to tenants so that the tenant doesn't have to tell the landlord they are claiming it, so that the landlord then doesn't have to tell their mortgage lender. Actual policy. Which then gets cocked up even further when the council doesn't believe the tenant's accommodation has the number of rooms it does so writes to the landlord saying please clarify so we can progress their HB claim...

IME you can find insurers for buildings etc quite easily even if tenants are on benefits, but won't be able to insure against loss of income if you have to evict them. It's the mortgage lenders who are ridiculously inflexible - finding ones who would let me rent out parts of my own home has been hard enough, but again not to people on benefits, despite acknowledging that they can only require that you get proof they were not on benefits when they move in.

[ChocChocPorridge]

I thought I'd read a few years ago that this couple were selling up all their housing stock - but perhaps that was just whining and they didn't really do it.

He also includes 'no plumbers' so he's clearly more than a little bit odd.

[ChocChocPorridge]

Oh, sorry Not - I just repeated a small part of what you said, which was pointless of me...

[juliascurr]

best argument for council housing