The UK #HousingCrisis & the growing problem of #RogueLandlords. Read my full article here at syhawkes.uk

All too often in our modern society we have many British people who are trapped in rundown and unmaintained accommodation rented from unscrupulous and greedy private landlords in all areas of our country.

Whilst it is an admirable act to provide private rented accommodation to people, it is absolutely disgraceful to offer accommodation if the property is unmaintained and in a major state of disrepair. These kind of private landlords are making exceptional profits from the rental income they receive from local councils and hard working people and they invest absolutely nothing back into their properties for the effective long term upkeep and maintenance standards of them.

In fact my own landlord who is the director of Worcester Lettings & Developments is one of the top receivers of housing benefit in the City of Worcester. Last year official statistics and research conducted by The Daily Mirror discovered that Worcester Lettings & Developments received a grand total of £147,026 throughout the last financial year. 

This kind of selfish greed just destroys the tenants lives who are made to live in such properties and these issues can have serious ramifications on a persons wellbeing both physically and mentally, which is completely abhorrent and morally wrong on every level.

Across the UK there are now more than 9 Million people in privately rented accommodation, which includes over 1.3 Million families with young children. Unfortunately in many areas of Britain it is extremely difficult for anyone on benefits to be able to rent accommodation in the private sector. There are often a select minority of Private Landlords in all towns and cities across the UK who are willing to accept tenants on housing benefit. 

The very real problems that we have in the UK right now are that Homelessness and tenants living in poorly maintained & inadequate housing are all contributing towards a national housing crisis.

When I make mention of Private Landlords who fail to keep their properties up to standard and consistently shirk their responsibilities to their tenants, it is important to remember that this is the case for some and not all private landlords. Mainly some of these dodgy private landlords that I speak of are mainly renting properties to people in receipt of housing benefit. It seems that they have a loathing contempt for anyone who depends on benefits and they must see it as acceptable to ignore maintenance issues as their main focus is to extract as much rental income from the property as possible without putting a penny back in as investment towards the long-term upkeep of their entire property portfolio in some areas of the country.

It is completely unacceptable and downright disgraceful for any businessman to make a business which in essence makes exceptional profits from other people's suffering and misfortune. The only people who ever pay the price for such corrupted behavior are the tenants themselves and all too often we are seeing people's Physical & Mental health being degraded when they are stuck in poorly maintained properties in the private sector. 

Unfortunately U.K. Legislation is currently protecting these breed of rogue landlords as although they are duty bound to keep their properties to certain standards of maintenance, the law allows them to evict tenants who follow official protocol and report these issues to the council for action to be taken. The law should be in favour of the tenants who are often made to pay the ultimate price of their physical and metal health living in such situations of squalor on a day to day basis. 

In my own situation I am currently renting a one bedroomed flat in a not so affluent area of Worcester from a landlord who I have since found to be one of the worst landlords in the city. The flat I'm currently renting has major maintenance issues including but not limited to, a leaking roof which has made the bedroom in the property completely inhabitable. The leak is coming from the roof because the property has a flat roof construction with no felt or insulation of any kind in place. This causes water to leak into the corner wall of the bedroom and the surrounding walls which you can see from the photos in this article. In the winter months this causes the temperature inside the property to plummet and last winter these conditions almost claimed my life.

In addition to the roof leaking there are a number of other issues with the property including a blocked kitchen drain, leaking toilet, huge gaps in the fitting of the Windows and a total of just one radiator in the property that actually functions.

As you can see in this photo the blockage of the drainage system in the Kitchen is causing bucket loads of water to leak from the waste pipe which is supposed to be for a washing machine. It is impossible to have a washing machine in the property because of how this pipe is blocked. This means that for all my laundry requirements I have to take my clothes to a local launderette to be washed and dried.

I have notified the landlord about these issues on several occasions now and each time I am consistently fobbed off by the landlord who says he will get the maintenance guy round. I have only ever seen this maintenance guy on 2 occasions the first being when I viewed the property in the Summer of 2014. At this time the severe maintenance issues were not apparent to me as the weather was dry and the issues must have been masked over in order to get a tenant moved into the property. The second time I saw the maintenance guy was when he came round to have a look at the leak in the roof in Winter last year and at this point he simply looked at the roof and stated "Oh it's not as bad as I thought it would be, I'll let the landlord know", this was the last time I saw the maintenance guy. Although he does spend a lot of time parked outside the landlords property in his pretty little blue van that the landlord bought for him, he apparently doesn't actually do a great deal of work. I've seen him in the local newsagents on a number of occasions buying 40 cigarettes at a time and just going and sitting in his van outside the landlords well maintained property on Tolladine Road, Worcester and doing absolutely nothing whilst the landlords tenants are suffering in delapidated Properties with maintenance issues completely unaddressed. 

This is part of a wider problem in the U.K. right now and seems to commonly prevail in Worcester amongst private landlords who rent properties to people in receipt of housing benefit. It increasingly seems that these landlords find it acceptable to degrade and punish their tenants for being on housing benefits. They see it as acceptable to ignore maintenance issues and force their tenants to live in states of severe disrepair whilst they reap the profits from their tenants suffering and get to go to sleep in a warm bed each night with a nice well maintained roof over their heads. I really don't know how these landlords are able to sleep at night knowing full well the misery and suffering  they are causing their tenants, I suggest that these people lack any sort of empathy or common respect for people and they most certainly lack a good heart.

I am all for good business ethics and I will always wholeheartedly recommend a good business when I come across one as you can see from my review articles posted on this website. However when there are rogue businesses in operation who make exceptional profits from the suffering of others, this is something that I am firmly against and I will use every opportunity I have to speak out against bad business ethics and corruption which nobody should tolerate in this country as it is abhorrently disgraceful.

After the Emergency Summer Budget here comes another £20 Billion of Public Sector cuts

The Chancellor George Osborne has today declared that Councils around the country must find an additional 25-40% of cuts to key public services.

It is almost as if this is a deliberate move to destroy the livelihoods and wellbeing of the British people, which it will i'm in no doubt it will do in the long run. I find it wholely unacceptable at a time when these MP's are getting pay rises in their own salaries in addition to to the hefty expenses and multiple homes they are entitled to for destroying the lives of the poorest and most disadvantaged people in our country. The cuts will always hit the poorest hardest as the world solely revolves around capital wealth nowadays and cuts to public services will penultimately mean job losses which adds to the demand for welfare. 

The question we really must ask these politicians is do they think it is acceptable to take taxpayer funded pay-rises, increased expenses in addition to being provided with a lovely warm, well maintained home paid for by the taxpayer .

On the opposite side of this inequality spectrum we have families who are struggling so much to be able to put food on the table. Where will this all end and how many more British people's lives must be lost. What we must do is to unite in a common belief for the greater good and have righteous policies that will create a more financially equal society which can never happen under a Conservative administration because they do not have the right ethics and they completely lack morals, a sense of what is right and wrong, and no hearts....are these really who the British people want in leadership of our country or is there more behind that £80 Million the Tories had to fight their election campaign. 

Time will tell us the eventual outcome but one thing for sure is this country can ill afford another of Tory rule and you can be sure to keep posted and up to date right here. If you like reading my blog posts then you are more than welcome to subscribe by email to be notified about all my future posts.