Burnley housing chiefs call in ‘bounty hunters’ (From Lancashire Telegraph)
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Burnley housing chiefs call in ‘bounty hunters’
11:25am Thursday 21st July 2011 in News
‘BOUNTY hunters’ are chasing down absentee landlords in Burnley who let their properties become rundown eyesores.
Since Burnley Council began using the services of FinderMonkey, a specialist people-finding company, the number of prosecutions for environmental crimes has rocketed.
In 2010/11 the local authority brought 208 prosecutions for environmental crimes, which is almost double the 112 in the previous year.
It currently stands fourth in the Environment Agency’s list of councils which prosecute most often for such offences.
Absentee landlords are often based out of town and rarely visit their properties to carry out necessary maintenance work.
In April Hampshire-based Paul Higgins Drysdale, dubbed ‘Burnley’s most inconsiderate landlord’, was prosecuted for neglecting houses in Albert Street and Todmorden Road.
He ignored two litter abatement notices and was fined £1,050, with £420 court costs.
Council solicitor Jonathan Jackson said he hoped the latest scheme would boost people’s confidence in the authority’s ability to deal with complaints and enforce legal action.
He said: “Many absentee landlords have property in the most run down areas, and it is residents in these neighbourhoods that are seeing the benefit of this work as more back yards are cleared up and more offenders are brought to court.”
Every year FinderMonkey traces more than 5,000 people, including long lost relatives and missing tenants.
As part of the initiative in Burnley, investigators provide the council with information which is then distributed to council tax, revenues, housing and planning officers.
They use the information, which includes up-to-date names and telephone numbers, to collect outstanding fines and bills.
Boss John Arko said: “We use the same techniques when looking for fine defaulters and absent landlords as when we’re reuniting family members or searching for missing tenants.
“Sometimes it takes just a few hours but searches going back several years or decades can take weeks of research involving painstaking manual checks of historical records.
“It’s very rare that we fail to find the person we’re looking for and even in extremely complex cases dating back several decades we can usually provide a definitive name and address.
“If we don’t find someone we don’t charge.”
Comments(3)
useyourhead
says...
11:50am Thu 21 Jul 11
Troy McCLur
says...
9:48am Fri 22 Jul 11
People think that Landlord's are flush with cash and are just being lazy by not doing up their properties. In reality, they are struggling to afford the mortgages, they can't afford to do the properties up and that means they can't get tenants and they can't sell the properties. Many of the run down properties will eventually get repo'd and these broke Landlords will go bust. Many of the wrecked properties have already been repo'd and the banks that repo'd them will be processing them for sale / auction.
At the end of the day, you can't tar every Landlord with the same brush. Yes some are bang out of order and should be banned from being Landlords, but some are just honest hard working people that wanted to improve their future and their kids future by getting into property investment. Call them blind, call them unlucky, but you can't call them evil for having a go at making a bit of cash and getting ahead.
It's a tough old world out there and we all have to tackle it in our own way. Unfortunately life is expensive and we all have to find ways of doing the best we can. So let's not condemn every single Landlord who lets their properties slide, because it's not as simple as it looks on the surface.
In terms of the Councils out there, they are part of the reason why Landlords go out of business, because they impose ultra strict unwavering rules which end up taking the profit out of the business especially when it comes to collecting Council Tax. They don't give any extensions of time, they just go straight to a kangaroo court and get judgements and then send evil Bailiffs out, not just to the Landlords out there but to single Parents and couples who are completely broke.
I think they need to take the foot off a bit and give people a chance to get straight instead of ruling with an iron fist. They are actually hurting the local economy through their overly strict rules and enforcement. Give Landlords a chance and give the local people a chance you nasty Councils!! Oh and on a final note, I have witnessed at first hand the medievel tactics used by the Bailiffs and I have even seen an occassion when the Police turned a blind eye when the Bailiffs illegally charged in a door. I heard the Policeman saying "I don't know what you are talking about... THEY JUST STEPPED IN".. I will never forget that incident and I am stunned that 'Sherriff of Nottingham' tax collecting incidents still go on in this day and age which absolutely devastate, traumatise and upset families. So - there we go.. rant over.. Councils - back off a bit and stone throwers - think of the reality that's going on out there... it's not as simple and straight forward as it seems on the surface. Peace out ;-)
retired one says...
11:44am Thu 21 Jul 11