News from the Residential Property Investor, the bi-monthly magazine for RLA members other artilces from the June / July 2000 issue RPI news archive

PressWatch - June / July 2000

Wallington tenant John Norton-Smith has been sent for sentencing after admitting paying his rent partly in forged £20 notes. Landlord Spencer Cullen spotted notes he had been given had identical serial numbers and handed them into the police who arrested Norton-Smith. He claimed he had been given the notes by a friend who had died the same evening leaving him uncertain what to do with them.

A Nottingham man has been sentenced to 60 hours community service after admitting a stream of abusive night-time calls to the former landlord. James Hunt, who had two previous convictions for abuse of the telephone system, had claimed justification for his action in lack of notices for possession his lodgings and allegedly being invited by his landlord to commit an illegal act.

Every time Jonathan Butlin went out he noticed something strange happened. Food or money disappeared, curtains were moved or the cooker got dirtier. After 10 days he got fed up and called the police - who promptly found a lodger, recently evicted for non-payment of rent, living in the loft. This month Wiltshire magistrates gave the 21 year old six month's probation and ordered him to pay £177 compensation. 'I don't expect to see any of the compensation after the way he didn't pay any rent', said Butlin. 'I haven't had another lodger since this bizarre episode and can't see me ever doing so'.
 

other artilces from the June / July 2000 issue

• New market
• Landlords protest as HB system 'falls apart'
• Friction continues over asylum seeker housing
• Bright future forecast for rental market
• PressWatch
• Record increases in house prices
• Insurance barometer signals cyclonic storms
• In brief