Re: Should it be a criminal offence to sub-let a council hou : Wed Jan 04, 2012 3:00 am  

My bet is that this is another one to add this to the anti-drug legislation mountain.

I wonder how many sublets are for agricultural reasons?

Re: Should it be a criminal offence to sub-let a council hou : Wed Jan 04, 2012 1:00 pm  

It's an offence of sorts to sublet ANY house you rent without the landlord's consent.

The reality though is if you do sublet your house, you won't go to prison for it, and it's hard for the landlord to actually take as much action as he should probably be entitled to.

At the end of the day it's illegal and undesirable because the landlord has the right to know who is occupying HIS property. But then again, everyone in this day and age has a right to a roof over their head, don't they?

It could also be said that subletting a council house is a worse offence than subletting a private rental because council houses are social, rather than business, projects, so it stands to reason that no-one should make money from them.

I'm torn if I'm honest. Surely there should be one rule across the board, and what applies to council property should apply also to private rented property. But given that the two serve essentially different purposes, it could also be said that any risk you take with buying property to rent out should also extend to taking a risk on who occupies it.

Re: Should it be a criminal offence to sub-let a council hou : Wed Jan 04, 2012 1:06 pm  

ROBINSON wrote:

It's an offence of sorts to sublet ANY house you rent without the landlord's consent.

The reality though is if you do sublet your house, you won't go to prison for it, and it's hard for the landlord to actually take as much action as he should probably be entitled to....

First question then ... what action(s) is/are the landlord limited to?

Re: Should it be a criminal offence to sub-let a council hou : Wed Jan 04, 2012 1:25 pm  

El Barbudo wrote:

ROBINSON wrote:

It's an offence of sorts to sublet ANY house you rent without the landlord's consent.

The reality though is if you do sublet your house, you won't go to prison for it, and it's hard for the landlord to actually take as much action as he should probably be entitled to....

First question then ... what action(s) is/are the landlord limited to?

There's always the baseball bat and several mates approach, but that's not exactly legal.

You're really limited to serving notice on the tenant and pleading ignorance that the tenant has in fact sublet the place.

Re: Should it be a criminal offence to sub-let a council hou : Thu Jan 05, 2012 12:59 pm  

Robbo wrote: IMO It should be a criminal Offence. I don't think theres any laws yet in place but according to THIS ARTICLEthere soon will be. On reading that, my first thought was why are people earning more than £100k a year in council houses anyway?

Robbo wrote: IMO It should be a criminal Offence. I don't think theres any laws yet in place but according to THIS ARTICLEthere soon will be. On reading that, my first thought was why are people earning more than £100k a year in council houses anyway?

Re: Should it be a criminal offence to sub-let a council hou : Thu Jan 05, 2012 1:10 pm  

Big Graeme wrote:

Simply, yes. In fact I thought it already was an offence.

Taking your scenario, it should be a lot easier to transfer tenancies between council areas.

it is already an offence, it's a breach of tenancy, think it may be civil as opposed to criminal though.

and you can, in theory, mutually exchange between council areas, the problem is that the allocations policy vary widely between areas.

Re: Should it be a criminal offence to sub-let a council hou : Thu Jan 05, 2012 1:11 pm  

Scouse Pie2 wrote: Robbo wrote: IMO It should be a criminal Offence. I don't think theres any laws yet in place but according to THIS ARTICLEthere soon will be. On reading that, my first thought was why are people earning more than £100k a year in council houses anyway? because you are only assessed once, and once you're in, you can stay regardless (ask Bob Crow)

Scouse Pie2 wrote: Robbo wrote: IMO It should be a criminal Offence. I don't think theres any laws yet in place but according to THIS ARTICLEthere soon will be. On reading that, my first thought was why are people earning more than £100k a year in council houses anyway? because you are only assessed once, and once you're in, you can stay regardless (ask Bob Crow)

Re: Should it be a criminal offence to sub-let a council hou : Thu Jan 05, 2012 1:13 pm  

Standee wrote:

and you can, in theory, mutually exchange between council areas, the problem is that the allocations policy vary widely between areas.

But it is a bloody nightmare to do, there is no reason why outside of the major metropolitan areas we can't come up with an exchange system that works.

Re: Should it be a criminal offence to sub-let a council hou : Thu Jan 05, 2012 1:19 pm  

Big Graeme wrote:

Standee wrote:

and you can, in theory, mutually exchange between council areas, the problem is that the allocations policy vary widely between areas.

But it is a bloody nightmare to do, there is no reason why outside of the major metropolitan areas we can't come up with an exchange system that works.

I can give you a bl00dy big reason, politics.

It's been tried before, I worked on it in Glasgow to set up a city wide scheme to be able to transfer between different providers and it all worked fine until various comittees involved and then it collapsed.