Millions of tenants ‘experience illegal landlord or agent behaviour’

Done a survey have you?

Very bold statement Mark. There are many exceptionally good, professional people/agents out there. These comments help no one.

Mad Mark off again. Is he Polly in disguise?

And you are right, you can go in after the 24hour limit.
And that is legal.

Withholding access is not illegal- in fact, that is a tenant's legal right. If you maintain a good relationship with your tenants this is very rare. We look after around 250 tenancies and I cant remember the last time we were unilaterally denied access.

Yeah, you have to give 24 hours notice, but if the tenant says "no" then you cannot go in. The tenant has a 'legal rite' to quiet peace and enjoyment, the landlord does not have a legal right to enter if the tenant says no.

Good Grief, this is the problem. Tenants don't illegally withhold access, they have every legal right to deny access. Build a good relationship with your tenants and you will stand a much better chance at being granted access. At the risk of stating the obvious but Housing Law supersedes anything you write in a tenancy agreement - and housing Law dictates that a tenant has every right to deny access.

I congratulate you on picking up on a reasonable point. Unfortunately, others seem unable to conceive the of the need for Shelter.

I'm having trouble currently liaising with a group of professionals who are unable to understand that in an environment where there are none, literally anything can happen. Nobody would believe some of the stories that I've come across. They are so far outside the range of normal human behaviour that they seem impossible.

On Shelters home page:
Your donation could help end Aida’s nightmare

Aida has lived in her one-bedroom flat for 16 years. She moved in when she was a student nurse with her four-month-old daughter.

Today she’s living in the same flat with her four children.

Her sons don’t have enough room to play, and her daughter has just completed sixth form but doesn’t have any space of her own. The flat also has a mould problem and a rat infestation.

Aida has done everything in her power to get a bigger and safer flat. But due to a lack of social homes families like hers can’t be rehoused.

She describes their situation as an ‘unending kind of nightmare’.

I describe it as when you live in a one-bed flat and have a child already, what do you not want? Yes, a second child. And when you live in a one-bed flat and have two children, what do you not want? Yes, a third! And when you have a mould problem, 3 children with no space of their own and a rat infestation, what do you absolutely not want? Yes, a 4th child. That's 5 people living in a 1 bed flat.

Aida didn't do everything in her power to keep her legs shut and has created a problem for herself and yet she wants someone else to solve it by giving her money. It's nice to see who Shelter want to help.

@ Roger Mellie
It never ceases to amaze me that people in overcrowded homes keep having children. Why? Not only does it make the overcrowding worse, it adds to the CO2 emissions that we are told is killing the planet.

No mention of the father of her children or did Aida have four immaculate conceptions?

The problem I see in this poisonous thread is that whilst the majority of landlords are fair and reasonable, they cannot conceive how bad the small minority actually are. Small landlords, who have been clobbered by changes in taxation regimes and legislation changes, it seems to me, are being assailed on all sides, to the point they must be seriously considering exiting the rental market.

Denigrating Shelter as you have merely belittles you and shows how very little you know.

I'm speaking as someone who has previously built a significantly sized portfolio of property in County Durham from scratch but now work commissioning care for some of the country's most vulnerable people.

As such, this puts me in direct contact with social care funding in the supported living area, which resembles the Wild West following the deregulation of the care industry.

The typical model here involves rents that are not controlled and can be seen at least twice normal levels, service charges which are over twice to three the cost of the actual services, linked to a self serving charitable institution solely for the purposes of avoid tax, which are controlled by the same entity that provides the care - an arrangement that itself is contrary to the law.

Profits can be vast. Just last night I was reading the accounts of one such organisation and they were making £4.5m on a turnover of a shade over £10m. It's hard to deny that some of these organisations are anything other than criminal enterprises, who flout the law in all aspects of their business. Typically, they practice a frauldent deception to attract new clients with promises of specific levels of service, which they have no intention of delivering, only to provide minimal services when the client has signed their tenancy.

Some of these people will not issue a tenancies but instead a license to occupy, giving them the power to evict even the most vulnerable of people overnight. Some housing associations are not housing associations, they just say they are, contrary to the law.

When it comes to how far they will go in these places to conceal mistakes, it's simple. They will do anything at all, including driving people to take their own lives. They will take everthing from them, their partner, their home and their possessions.

These are people that depend on Shelter, that benefit from them. The "Top Brass" include busy professionals who donate their time and expertise for no payment because they understand the need, often through personal family experience.

Having somewhere to live is a primary human need and some of the most vulnerable require specific types of accommodation. How many properties do you rent that are specifically for wheelchair users? Even married couples who are wheelchair users?

I'd suggest you quietly remove or edit this message because it makes you appear a thoughtless, uncaring bigot.

@ Roger Sharp
You are referring to Housing associations and care homes - not professional landlords. Perhaps if Shelter and Polly Bleat stopped, to use your phrase, denigrating proessional landlords, we may regard them differently.