Paul Shamplina
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Latest property news
‘Tech makes it easier for rogue tenants to fake referencing documents’
Tech makes it easier for rogue tenants to fake referencing documents, a leading eviction specialist has claimed.
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Products & Services
Rogue letting agent case kicks off new Channel 5 eviction documentary
Channel 5 is to launch a new documentary series on the rental sector including one case in which a long-standing and notorious rogue letting agent in Essex is featured. Called Bad Tenants, Rogue Landlords and starring eviction specialist Paul Shamplina of Landlord Action, its first episode looks at a tenant placed by rogue agent Carter Stones based in Ilford, Essex. The company, which is no longer trading and was dissolved via compulsory strike-off in September last year, has some eye-watering reviews on the allAgents.co.uk website. This includes one renter who lost £4,200 after paying a deposit and the first month’s rent for a property to Carter Stones. The firm was investigated by the BBC last month and recently expelled from both the redress and deposit protection schemes it belonged to. Harrowing tales Channel 5’s first episode of Bad Tenants, Rogue Landlords is to be screened tomorrow Thursday 5th April at 8pm and will feature harrowing stories of poor behaviour by both landlords and tenants including a bedsit fire in a poorly-maintained property in NW London and problems with squatters for a landlord in Cheshire. The episode kicks off with the Carter Stones case. It involves a tenant placed by the…
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Latest property news
No-fault eviction numbers declined by 5,000 last year, official figures show
The government’s recent efforts to end unfair ‘no-fault evictions’ appears to be working after the most recent figures from the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) revealed a sharp decline in their use. There were 29,611 accelerated possession cases or Section 21 ‘no-fault evictions’ last year, the MoJ figures show, nearly 5,000 fewer than the year before. Evictions expert Paul Shamplina of Landlord Action says the slump in no-fault evictions is largely due to the Deregulation Act 2015, which came into force in October that year. It has made no-fault evictions much more difficult and protected tenants against unfair retaliatory evictions when they report legitimate complaints about a property. Correct paperwork The act requires that tenants are served the correct paperwork when they start a tenancy including providing a copy of a property’s EPC, Gas Safety certificate, proof that the deposit has been legally protected and the government’s ‘How to Rent’ booklet. If this paperwork is not served correctly, evictions are much more difficult. Paul Shamplina says this has stopped a lot of landlords using accelerated evictions, often because they aren’t aware of the legislative requirements and then, when a tenant stops paying the rent – which make up 73% of evictions…
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Charity
The charitable ‘Rumble’ returns for the fourth year
Having raised more than £58,000 for local charities across the last three events, ‘Rumble with the Agents’, the white-collar boxing event set up by Landlord Action’s founder, Paul Shamplina, returns.
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Latest property news
BBC Panorama to put no-fault evictions under spotlight tonight
The darker side of the rental sector is to come under the spotlight this week when the BBC’s Panorama programme looks at Section 21 no-fault evictions. This is to include comments from Landlord Action’s Paul Shamplina that the increase in their use is in part down to the government’s recent tax changes, and that banning Section 21 evictions would only compound the current housing shortage, not help alleviate it. Due to be broadcast today at 8.30pm the programme is to look at whether tenants should be better protected from this type of eviction process, and why so many landlords employ it. No fault evictions The issue has been high on the political agenda for some time – no-fault evictions were effectively banned in Scotland on December 1st last year, and the Labour party has said it will introduce similar, more secure tenancies in England and Wales if it gains power at the next election. The most recent research into no-fault evictions by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation shows that the number of tenants evicted each year was 10,000 more in 2015 than in 2003, and that this increase is “almost entirely” down to the more frequent use of Section 21 notices.…
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Latest property news
Council advises tenant to break back into vacated property and await eviction
The desperate state of the public housing provision has been revealed after a suburban London borough is alleged to have advised a tenant in receipt of benefits to break back into a privately-rented property they had vacated. Housing staff from Havering are said to have advised the tenant to break back into a property they had vacated because they would only be considered for further housing provision until they had been legally evicted and were technically homeless. In the first case of its kind experienced by eviction specialist Landlord Action, a single mother in receipt of benefits renting a flat in the centre of Romford in Essex agreed to vacate the property after falling behind in rent and being served notice, only to return to the letting agent involved and demand the keys back. When the letting agent involved refused, the tenant informed them that the council had advised her to find a locksmith and break into the property, advice she followed the following day after it was discovered she had moved her possession back into the two-bedroom, first floor apartment and changed the locks. “I went to the property the next morning to ensure everything was OK but my…
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Latest property news
Hamilton Fraser buys Paul Shamplina’s Landlord Action
TV star Paul Shamplina’s tenant eviction solicitor firm Landlord Action has been bought by a subsidiary of Hamilton Fraser, the Hertfordshire-based landlord insurance group. The Landlord Action legal team, along with Paul, will relocate from their current offices in Edgware to Hamilton Fraser’s HQ in Borehamwood. Paul started up Landlord Action in 1999 as the UK’s first fixed-fee tenant eviction firm and so far has processed some 35,000 tenant cases. The award-winning company, which played a role in persuading the government to make some forms of squatting a criminal office in 2012, gained Solicitors Regulation Authority status four years ago. The acquisition makes Hamilton Fraser unusual in the property industry, mainly because it now has so many fingers in the property pie. This includes offering landlord insurance as well as professional indemnity insurance to landlords and agents. It also operates one of the three government-approved deposit protection schemes, called mydeposits. Hamilton Fraser also operates Client Money Protect while its subsidiary HF Resolution, which it has used to buy Landlord Action, operates one of the industry’s redress schemes, PRS. Nightmare tenants Paul has been a busy recently. As well as being a brand ambassador for Hamilton Fraser and running Landlord Action,…
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Latest property news
Boxing event raises £18k for Noah’s Ark Children’s Hospice
A charity boxing event held in association with Landlord Action and sponsored by Hamilton Fraser raised £18,000 last week for Noah’s Ark Children’s Hospice. The sell-out Rumble with the Agents evening featured six boxing matches watched by guests who enjoyed a three-course dinner at the Holiday Inn hotel in Finchley Central, North London. Organised by Landlord Action’s and TV star Paul Shamplina (pictured, far right), the audience included a range of property professionals including sales and letting agents, developers and industry suppliers as well as representative from the charity. A raffle was held by former Tottenham Hotspur captain and 16-times capped England player Gary ‘Mabbsy’ Mabbutt (pictured centre left), who oversaw lively bidding for sporting memorabilia including a signed Arsenal shirt from 1971, a signed Anthony Joshua boxing glove and an original 1996 World Cup final ticket signed by Geoff Hurst – which sold for £750. Mabbutt is an ambassador for the Noah’s Ark Children’s Hospice, which is the chosen charity of Tottenham Hotspur FC. The boxing matches were fought by ten participants with little or no previous boxing experience but who had undergone a regime of training and coaching before the bouts. All ten come from property industry backgrounds. The…
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Latest property news
Landlord Action says rogue tenants are targetting free-to-list websites
Campaigning group Landlord Action has published an extraordinary warning about free-to-list advertising sites, suggesting that landlords should not to use them to find tenants because they are being targeted by rogue tenants. The comments follow last night’s Channel 5 TV show Nightmare Tenants, Slum Landlords featuring Landlord Action founder Paul Shamplina. In the episode aired last night at 9pm, Shamplina met London landlord Vicki McNaught who he says used a well-known free-to-list site to find a tenant for her property, although this is not mentioned in the episode. She says she subsequently regretted it after the tenant stopped paying his rent soon after moving in. Landlord Action says Vikki (pictured, left) listed her property with the site because it was a cheaper alternative to using a letting agent. She says that initially she was “delighted” to secure a professional tenant with a public-school background and a City job, and his girlfriend. Vikki, who was owed more than £3,000 by her errant tenant, says that people like this are more likely to target free-to-list sites because they hope they will be subjected to fewer checks. “In the future, we’d always go through an agent – although even this has no guarantee. It’s…
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Features
Legal advice: How to recover rent arrears
Sheila Manchester spoke to Danielle Hughes, Solicitor in The Dispute Resolution Team at Kirwans law firm to find the best ways for letting agents and landlords to legally deal with non-paying tenants.
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