AIBU to refuse a tenant's vulnerable guest staying in my HMO?

[Poster555]

NC for this. I know landlords aren’t always popular here.

I own and manage a few HMO’s in a nearby city. All legal requirements fulfilled, and normally have long term tenants.

I woke this morning to a host of missed calls.
One of the tenants, who has been fine for several years, invited his friend/ relative to stay for a temporary period as she was having issues with her landlord.
He did not discuss this with me or the other tenants.

Tenants are of course allowed visitors, including overnight for a day or two ( longer if they are visiting from abroad, etc. it’s pretty flexible).
The Tenancy Agreement is very clear that visitors visit the person, and they should never be left unsupervised in the property or given a key.

Around 6 weeks ago I was at the property for a routine treatment. The visitor was there alone. I had to ask her to leave as harmful chemicals were being used.

I had a chat with the tenant later and he explained it was a one off emergency.

It later transpired after complaints from other tenants and some unexplained damage that she was living in the property.

That was a problem. She had no primary address elsewhere and her presence took the property into the next level of HMO, meaning it needed to be registered.
The penalties for not registering when required are severe.

I told the tenant he needed to tell her to leave.

He did so and was met with a lot of resistance, but eventually she went, only to return in the early hours some days later. He felt he had to let her in.

He asked for my help to get her to leave. She refused, saying the council had told her that I’d have to get a court order to evict her.

Legal advice was that he invited her in and once he told her she was no longer welcome we could change locks when she was out.

She actually went out without a key and whilst she was gone he put her belongings in a locked shed outside, offering to open it when she needed.

That was about a week ago. I thought it was sorted. The calls in the early hours were from my tenant and the police asking if I would agree to her staying the night.

I would have said no and fortunately as they couldn’t reach me she was not allowed in.

This woman clearly has problems. I’d say she is vulnerable, but the same council that was advising her not to leave my property, whilst refusing any sort of practical assistance, would also be the ones taking action against me for running an unlicensed HMO.

The tenant is being bullied by so called friends to let her stay. He is under a lot of pressure but I’ve had to tell him that if he lets her stay I will have to take steps to evict him.

I have told him that I will speak to any official bodies that are trying to pressure him, and to the ‘friends’
I wasn’t expecting to speak to the police at 2-3 am though. Apparently they weren’t happy with me and thought the tenant should be able to take her in.

OP, I remember you saying in an earlier post that other members of your tenant's friendship group were pressuring him to let her stay.
Why haven't any of them taken her in? Why does it have to be your tenant?

I am still not sure of the exact relationship between my tenant and this woman.
He sometimes refers to her as his cousin so maybe they think she’s his responsibility as family.
It’s also possible that they know what she’s like and would prefer not to have her living with them.

To be fair, I had the police calling me late at night to ask (convince) me to let my ex stay with me! "Because I was the only one he knew in the area and he had nowhere to go". In all honesty, I think they just didn't know what to do with him and perhaps they have to follow some sort of safeguarding than putting you on the streets with nowhere to go?
I don't know but I was shocked by it too.

Why are the police still contacting your tenant and you when they said they had added a note to the file to say she will not be admitted to the property as she has lied about the address being hers?

I’d be asking the police how many other random private citizens they are calling to demand they house this woman with no right to stay there?

I think OP has gone above and beyond really (although predictably still demonised for daring to provide people with shelter)

Reading this thread makes me wonder why more LL don’t just sell up and put their money in Gilts (excellent yield right now !). I can’t see how it is worth the hassle of being an unpaid social worker.

So you're a non-profit landlord? Ok.

And your son's friend staying with you is not nearly the same.

I can only speak for myself, but whilst I plan to sell up when possible, I don’t want to ask any of my tenants to leave.
If I do have a property become vacant because the tenant chooses to leave I will sell at that stage rather than re let.

@GarlicSomething Yes, I also lived in bedsits and house shares for a few years, there's nothing inherently wrong with them as an affordable option. As you say, at least stringent rules exist nowadays.

Second post nails it.

So not a random homeless person. A homeless teenager that your son already knew. Wonder what is parents think?

You really are NOT helping anyone with this unreasonable behaviour and messed up "principles". Run a homeless shelter if you want - legally and with all that it entails.
Otherwise, what you are doing is facilitating exploitation and abuse of the homeless. You might also open the door for your tenants to be victimised. What if your tenant is cuckooed? What if a vulnerable woman is only allowed to stay as long as she provides sex? You prevent people from accessing structured, meaningful, multi-focal help: benefits, therapy, medications, help with addictions, etc.
What about other tenants and their rights? What about neighbours? It can't be pleasant or safe living next to someone running an unlicensed shelter.

Unfortunately, I DO live next to a supported accommodation HMO, where landlord keeps his eyes closed for an easier life. I can't even begin to explain what his "principles" and his kind heart (lol!) towards homeless have done to my life. Not a single person - tenant or visiting - would fall outside the categories of abuser/victim/both. To allow it to happen is despicable.

Just as well you don’t work with anything to do with the law, then, isn’t it?

It is a very, very different landscape now from the olden days of house shares.
Most HMOs (apart from very few cases catering to a specific market in expensive neighborhoods) house tenants with complex problems -immigration status, addictions, repeat homelessness, mental health problems, criminal history. Why? The "poverty market" is making landlords rich. It pays better than any other option outside of wealthy areas ever could!
There are literally hundreds of HMOs in my immediate area. Less than 10% house students or professionals starting out. The rest are the complex cases. Those so called strict HMO regulations don't even touch the sides of what is going on. Crime, drugs, rubbish and properties in severe decay with awful living conditions.

Then report them, @JapanesePotWeed. There are rules.

FYI, courtesy of Google:

Types of HMOs

• Standard HMO: A regular house or flat shared by friends, students, or working professionals.
• Large HMO: A property where at least five tenants live, forming more than one household and sharing facilities. These require a mandatory license from the local council.
• Bedsits: Buildings converted entirely into non-self-contained rooms where basic amenities are shared.

@JapanesePotWeed People with those problems existed before the current form of HMO's though and in a less regulated environment.

Not quite. There are more people ( so greater number of the vulnerable) in the same territory, who all need to be housed within housing stock that is not keeping up in numbers. Inner cities take the absolute beating brunt of HMOs which makes the problem overwhelmingly concentrated.
And the industry of housing those with needs was MUCH better regulated before it was passed into private hands. All oversight was lost. There still is a marked difference in conditions provided to those in Council run shared accommodation vs conditions in private operated HMOs.
Council would NOT allow anyone vulnerable to stay "off the books" if I am to speak of the topic in hand. Just as they wouldn't allow most of what is going on if they were still providing the service!

@GarlicSomething Yes, I do report at those times when I'm prepared to compromise my safety by single-handedly giving information on OCGs, county lines, street prostitution, the vulnerable abusing the vulnerable, drug addled criminals on release breaking into my home. I've reported banned breed dogs in HMOs, drug dealing by asylum seekers, inhumane living conditions, gardens that resemble a skip...
As I say...once my cup has overfloweth and I'm ready to take the consequences as not doing anything is equally unbearable and unsafe.

Anyway. The OP is doing the right thing, exactly what a decent landlord should do!
It is a personally sore topic and reading some glib statements relating to words "HMO" and "visitors" and "homeless" clearly was a bit of a trigger.

Got to page 3 to find something like 12 posts and an unnumbered quantity of quoted posts from one person who was not the original OP. Gotta admire her rhinoceros hide in parading her dogoodery.

Most people would call it a sleepover!

Of course she is abusing our hospitality. She is wasting a load of police time. She is an unemployed homeless alcoholic who is causing problems for the OP the tenant & the police. She is offering no benefit to British society & should be deported back to her home countrey.

A small one bed flat in our house was rented for £2k a month until recently. Now it's for sale.

Those types of homes - supported accommodation with an enhanced rate of housing benefit - have always existed, I worked in them twenty years ago.
The difference is that now, regular house shares usually have to be registered as HMOs with the council, to ensure there is adequate communal space and fire safety, and NIMBYs like you assume that every one of them is going to be used to house criminals/asylum seekers/people who should be in hospital. And they keep getting blocked, when many of them are just affordable places to live!

I am slightly concerned that (the tenant) might turn out to be the ‘weak’ link in keeping her out

I'd have thought it pretty obvious he already is, @Poster555; after all it wasn't the other tenats who lied to you about her staying and kept letting her in even after you told him to stop

NIMBY 😅
20years ago the majority of supported housing units were still ran by the Council. That has changed. And it is a change that is helping no one.
Every single HMO around me was converted from a family home for student use around 20 years ago.We are very close to a University. Within the last 5-7 years the landlords moved the students out and the addict population in. Most recently it's the asylum contracts gaining popularity. Poverty and neediness is a huge and very profitable business!
There are streets where over 40% of ALL houses are private Supported Accommodation. That number does not include other HMOs, like those under Asylum Contracts. I live on a street that is exactly like that - a large majority ( in excess of 70%) of 138 terraced properties are converted shared houses with transient tenants.
I am a victim of poverty exploitation system that drains whole areas of social capital and diverts all other resources towards those who service needs. The needy must remain needy or the business plan falls apart.

You might as well go on a Victorian slum and call a resident there a NIMBY for wanting to see an improvement in their surroundings.

I am slightly concerned that (the tenant) might turn out to be the ‘weak’ link in keeping her out

She is probably giving him sexual favours.