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Old May 2nd, 2017 #1
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Post UK DM article: Will a greedy landlord turn the house next door to you into an overcrowded immigrant slum

How proud Lorraine Barter was when she first moved to her imposing townhouse in Southampton. It was, after all, situated on a street described as the jewel in the city’s Edwardian crown.

The road’s 54 properties were lived in by respectable middle-class families. The front gardens were trimmed and tidy. Cars were parked considerately and children played on the litter-free streets.

Fast-forward 32 years, however, and Harborough Road is virtually unrecognisable. Gone are the freshly painted doors and sparkling windows. Instead, there’s a scene of filth and degradation: takeaway wrappers and cigarette butts litter the pavement; a sofa has been cast on to the street; a pink thong has been draped on a fence; a black high heel lies next to a pile of vomit.

The once-salubrious neighbourhood has been transformed beyond all recognition because of one thing: the family homes are now designated as Houses of Multiple Occupancy (HMOs), meaning they have been broken up into bedsits and rented to multiple inhabitants.

Each bedroom, dining room and lounge is turned into a separate, often single-room, dwelling. Three-bedroom homes like Lorraine’s can sleep six inhabitants sharing kitchen and bathroom facilities.

Amenities are stretched to breaking point with pressure on parking spaces and rubbish collections. There are also problems with antisocial behaviour and noise. No wonder families living next door to these properties have banded together to create ‘No to HMO’ groups.

But it appears the problem is only going to get worse. This spring, changes came into force which stripped landlords of tax breaks on their mortgages. It will mean more will be tempted to turn their properties into HMOs, rather than renting to one family, as they can charge more to make up the lost income.

It’s also seen as a fail-safe option by landlords in times of economic uncertainty. One tenant out of six finding themselves unable to pay rent is much less problematic than a sole tenant falling on hard times.

Lorraine’s house is now one of just six on her road that’s still a family home. The other 48 have been split into bedsits for students at nearby Solent University. The surrounding roads tell a similar story. A staggering 80 per cent of houses in the area are no longer family homes.

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So, are there restrictions on turning a family home into an HMO? Surprisingly few.

It is difficult to know how many HMOs there are in Britain. Data has not been collected since 2004, when local authorities were no longer required to carry out surveys of housing stock. The last survey showed that of 22.8 million UK households, 483,000 were HMOs. The figure will be far higher now and many go under the radar.

When they first started to spring up in the late Nineties, there were no regulations at all. But after pressure and campaigning from angry residents, the Labour government made it a requirement for all HMOs to have planning permission.

This was changed under the Coalition in 2010 for HMOs with fewer than five occupants. Now only councils that apply for an ‘Article 4’ order can require HMO planning permission. In practice, this is rarely applied.

Large HMOs, with five people or more, must obtain a licence, which costs £800 and makes sure properties are inspected and adhere to fire regulations. There are 60,000 large HMOs registered in the UK, but of course there are unscrupulous landlords who convert houses without permission.

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Things first started to change in the late Nineties

Along with students, migrants are another main occupant of HMOs. Former librarian Sheila Sullivan’s life was made a misery after seven townhouses on the quiet estate where she lives in Harlow, Essex, became HMOs for migrant workers. She put an end to it by pressuring the council into applying for an Article 4.

‘I lived opposite one until a few years ago. It was very hard,’ says Sheila, 70. ‘Noise was the main problem, plus all the cars. There was nowhere to park and they would be racing around at night.

‘There would be groups of men sitting outside all day and night: smoking, drinking alcohol and taking drugs. There were regular police raids and fights.




read full article at source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...#ixzz4fvpEodwI


Comment:

The UK Government has been facilitating this process for decades. It wants an over-populated England in order to maintain the "housing crisis" which is what is backing the finance sector. If mass-immigration stops, the prices for housing will fall. It's an impossibly absurd situation the finance sector and government have colluded together to create. They'll keep on going until we're all living in cages like animals.
 
Old May 2nd, 2017 #2
jaekel
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Join Date: Nov 2012
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That's the point I've been trying to make with people.
Markets have to adjust on pricing.
Many people cannot afford housing these days here in the states. Instead of letting the housing prices fall to real world levels, proportionate to the declining incomes from the global trade, they come up with ideas like this article to keep inflated prices. It's a spiral to the bottom. In China, they have bunk houses for single men, like army barracks. No privacy. And when they go to work in the factories it is filled up with a house full of men who just got off work. That is the direction we are going in if we don't get Nationalism moving. It is our only hope.
 
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