Rachel Reeves let out house unlawfully

For example “A Tory MP has apologised and promised to repay part of a £5,822.27 expenses claim for his energy bills after it emerged taxpayers were paying for the electricity supply to his stables.

Nadhim Zahawi, a founder of the market research firm YouGov, said he was "mortified" to discover the error, which came to light after he was among politicians criticised over subsidised energy bills.

The Stratford-on-Avon MP claimed the most, with a bill totalling £5,822.27 to cover electricity and heating oil for his estate in Warwickshire.

In a statement posted on his website, he said: "Since last week's coverage of my energy bills I have been looking into them further and can confirm that all claims for heating fuel relate purely to my second home”.

There are different levels of sleaze imo. Some of the things ministers in the previous government were off the scale compared to what’s happened recently.

Jane43

shoppinggirl

Rachel Reeves seems to be very forgetful...She forgot to disclose that a benefactor had paid for her clothes; she forgot to disclose the free tickets for various venues and now this! Very worrying that she's "in charge" of the country's finances!

I am assuming you didn’t Google the facts before you posted. The facts are clothing was bought from a cash gift from a benefactor, Juliet Rosenfeld and the gift was declared. Everything was in accordance with the rules so there was no lapse of memory. She didn’t declare concert tickets given her but referred herself to the parliamentary standards committee over this.

From the Independent: "Sir Keir adopted a sanctimonious moral tone in promising that his government would observe higher ethical standards than the outgoing administration, and yet within days of taking office, he and several of his senior ministers, including Ms Reeves, found themselves mired in sleaze.

"He and his chancellor accepted gifts of clothes and concert tickets – which they admitted, in effect, that they should not have done when they announced that they would not accept such donations in future." QED!

Lathyrus3

MaizieD

However, ti reain credibility I do think she should accept and pay the amount of fine that has been levied on others together with the return of rent that the tenants are entitled to.

Would that be what any other errant landlord would be required to do if they had rectified their error by obtaining the licence within the period stipulated by the local council in their warning letter?

Or is it just a bit of special vindictiveness reserved for Rachel Reeves ?

I did really mean “the amount that has been levied on others”, I looked up some other cases to see what had happened to other landlords.

So nothing spiteful intended. On the contrary, I felt that to take the consequences without complaint would re-establish some integrity for her personally.

You have ignored my question

Would that be what any other errant landlord would be required to do if they had rectified their error by obtaining the licence within the period stipulated by the local council in their warning letter?

You still seem to be demanding something over and above the normal procedure as followed by the council whose rule it was.

I'm sorry, I just cannot follow your reasoning. She hasn't cause anyone any harm. She hasn't deliberately tried to evade payment of the licencing fee. She hasn't deliberately deceived anyone. So what is the crime that deserves more than the usual procedure?

MaizieD

^However, ti reain credibility I do think she should accept and pay the amount of fine that has been levied on others together with the return of rent that the tenants are entitled to.^

Would that be what any other errant landlord would be required to do if they had rectified their error by obtaining the licence within the period stipulated by the local council in their warning letter?

Or is it just a bit of special vindictiveness reserved for Rachel Reeves ?

I did really mean “the amount that has been levied on others”, I looked up some other cases to see what had happened to other landlords.

So nothing spiteful intended. On the contrary, I felt that to take the consequences without complaint would re-establish some integrity for her personally.

If you employ someone you expect them to do their job. If they don't you don't sack yourself, you sack them although its you that has to clear up the mess.

This continues to be a storm in a tea cup and distraction from more important issues. My opinion would be the same for a chancellor of any political party in the same set of circumstances, ie not partisan. RR hasn't received a covid fine, taken large sums of dosh to decorate 11 Downing Street with gold leaf wall paper, hasn't made false HMRC tax declarations etc, all more reprehensible. New information has come to light confirming this:

The lettings agency has now said publicly it was to blame for not applying for the licence and has apologised for the error. RR's husband then found emails between himself and the lettings agency to corroborate that, which have been published publicly.

Southwark Council has published a statement saying it only pushes for enforcement action such as fines only when someone does not apply for a licence within 21 days of being warned they needed one. The independent government ethics advisor reopened his examination of the case as new information came to light. He continues to advise no further action is required and that RR made an inadvertent error and has acted in good faith, not bad faith.

That's enough for me. I'm not holding my breath, but it would be far better for the country and the financial markets if RR can now be allowed to focus on her job and the forthcoming budget.

If a professional had told me (or my husband) in writing that they would do xyz I would expect them to do it.
If my lawyer says they will lodge abc with the courts I would expect it to be done.

On the most simple level, if my granddaughter's dancing school is given payment to put her in for a tap exam I wouldn't feel the need to check.

I think this is actually the fault of the agency (though her husband should have remembered he'd agreed to them doing it!).

I still find it utterly bizarre that trusting that one’s husband and a team of paid professionals to do a competent job is being considered to be a moral defect.

It’s not a moral defect to trust your husband. I don’t check everything DH does. It’s just that I doubt if I’d would be allowed that as an acceptable excuse if something I believed he’d carried out, personally or via a third party, turned out to be incorrect, especially if it involved finance.

Thanks to ai we can find out (instead of making up problems) what the landlord needs to show (this may alter from council to council):

Property Details:
Full address and description of the property.
Type of property (house, flat, etc.).
Number of bedrooms and total occupancy capacity.

Ownership and Landlord Details:
Name and address of the landlord or managing agent.
Contact details.

Safety Certifications:
Gas safety certificate (CP12) if gas appliances are present.
Electrical safety certificates or reports.
Fire safety measures, such as fire alarms, smoke detectors, and fire escapes.

Property Condition and Standards:
Evidence that the property complies with the Housing Health and Safety Rating System (HHSRS).
Details of repairs or improvements made to meet safety standards.

Licensing Conditions Compliance:
Any conditions attached to the license, such as limits on occupancy or requirements for smoke alarms.

Energy Performance Certificate (EPC):
Usually required to demonstrate energy efficiency of the property.

Management Arrangements:
Details of how the property is managed, including tenant arrangements and property maintenance plans.

Most of the country doesn't have Landlord's Licences. It was perfectly reasonable to expect the agent you have employed to deal with the letting to actually deal with the letting. Failure to do so is dealt with, by the council, by giving notice that it must be obtained within a certain number of weeks. This appears to be standard practice, presumably because a lot of people, including me, have never heard of these licences. Agents hired to let out the property, it appears, have not yet got their head around which councils require these and which don't, either.

Next we have the Right, the Far Right and the Extreme Right rubbing their hands with glee. This maybe a trivial error that can soon be put right and which obviously wasn't intentional but, rubbing their hands with glee, they now have another women to attack, to fill their front pages with a less than nothing story.

Meanwhile Kemi Badenoch (shouting "resign" at every opportunity) still sits in parliament after admitting to illegally hacking into a senior MPs web site, which, had she been prosecuted at the time could have led to a sentence of up to up to five years imprisonment.

There are rules you break inadvertently and can then put right, and those you know break the law. Just count up the laws the entitled right have broken and stop treating those you disagree with politically as if they are just there for your sport. One day you may find you need to ask these "enemies" to treat you as a human being.

Grantanow

The whole thing remains trivial.

What is questionable is the need for such licences. Presumably the intention is that licensed lettings are identifiable and therefore liable to inspection butchered are the requisite numbers of qualified inspectors coming from and how can Councils like Southwark afford to employ them?

Seems to me simply another tax on landlords some of whom will sell up rendering tenants homeless and a burden on the Council.

Together with the reforms on residential tenancies private landlords are going to have real problems, it all looks like a tenants free for all.

The whole thing remains trivial.

What is questionable is the need for such licences. Presumably the intention is that licensed lettings are identifiable and therefore liable to inspection butchered are the requisite numbers of qualified inspectors coming from and how can Councils like Southwark afford to employ them?

Seems to me simply another tax on landlords some of whom will sell up rendering tenants homeless and a burden on the Council.

Jeez. I don't even like the woman; she doesn't seem to have Labour principles and I think her forthcoming budget is going to be a disaster, but she doesn't deserve to be the victim of a political witch hunt over a minor error for which she wasn't responsible.

However, ti reain credibility I do think she should accept and pay the amount of fine that has been levied on others together with the return of rent that the tenants are entitled to.

Would that be what any other errant landlord would be required to do if they had rectified their error by obtaining the licence within the period stipulated by the local council in their warning letter?

Or is it just a bit of special vindictiveness reserved for Rachel Reeves ?

Yes she should be focussing on her job and not be brought down by accusations that she somehow deliberately avoided paying for s letting licence when she had employed an agent to sort out all the legalities etc.

Mollygo

MayBee70

And Mome has bought a multi million pound property even though she owes us taxpayers millions….but hey, let’s focus on Rachel Reeves shall we …

Yes Mone is bad news, but Reeves is in charge now and going to be dealing with our finances.
So yes, let’s focus on Rachel Reeves.

Yes, she is no longer Rachel from Accounts with her heavily embellished CV - she is Chancellor of the Exchequer!

I’ve been critical f Rachel Reeves upthread, but now if this is the total story, I place responsibilty on the agents fir getting the licence as was agreed.

However, ti reain credibility I do think she should accept and pay the amount of fine that has been levied on others together with the return of rent that the tenants are entitled to.

This would show some integrity and acceptance of responsibility.

Probably because we know that if it was us, saying we’d left it to our husband, would not have given us a get out excuse.

I know that that's how it looks. I even said so in an earlier post.

I note that she never once claimed that she had left it to her husband, she apologised for the omission and rectified it. She didn’t even say that it was the letting agent’s fault. She didn’t make any ‘excuses’ at all. So why on earth you are dissing her over a hypothesis is a mystery and seems rather obsessive.

I still find it utterly bizarre that trusting that one’s husband and a team of paid professionals to do a competent job is being considered to be a moral defect.

If that’s the way some poster’s husbands, and people who they employ to do any tasks for them, get treated my sympathy goes out to those victims of obsessive control…

Iam64

I wonder how many of us could withstand a daily Mail investigation into every aspect of our lives? This is a non story. Blowing it up into a resigning or sacking issue is pathetic

Look at the home and international news and then worry or get outraged

No idea how many of us, especially since we don't know what they’d be looking for or what spin they’d put on it.
E.g. As a child, I once deliberately missed the school bus.
DM spin? Teacher turns up late for school, whilst parents are fined for non attendance!
The difference is that we/our group didn’t say that we 😇 were going to cut out all the things the previous government was criticised for.

The problem lies with the Labour party and its organisation and oversight of Minsters, not with the Ministers themselves.

However, it is up to Ministers, if they are competent, to be very aware of the pits and traps that await them and to have set up systems to deal with them.

I would actually be much happier to know that a Minister, anyone, any party, had gone out with malice aforethought to break the law and make money, than have one that did it because they were slapdash and inefficient, which seems to be the case in all the recent cases.

I wonder how many of us could withstand a daily Mail investigation into every aspect of our lives? This is a non story. Blowing it up into a resigning or sacking issue is pathetic

Look at the home and international news and then worry or get outraged

^Why should she insult both her husband and the professionals by obsessively double checking everything they were doing? It is way beyond reasonable to argue that she should have been doing that.

Probably because we know that if it was us, saying we’d left it to our husband, would not have given us a get out excuse.

It’s so far beyond reasonable that it feels downright spiteful. Which, of course, it probably is… 🙄

Just read social media, any social media at the moment. Often seems that
Spiteful is the new be kind.

MayBee70

Lots of dead cat strategy going on these days.

Why do you think they are being planted? What's really going on?

The thing is you have to check and double check these days if you are in a position of power. The media are ready to look for dirt and dish it out. Reeves is unpopular in many areas and as I said she will be glad to go off the radar whilst bigger events take over the headlines.