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Property Guardians & tangled webs (Camelot. Again)

03/01/2017

There is a bit of a thing unfolding in Bristol involving property guardians, Bristol City Council and Camelot, one of the larger property guardian firms, upon whom we have had cause to remark upon several times in the past.

Several former nursing homes, owned by the Council, were standing empty. The Council went with Camelot to put in property guardians (and apparently gave maintenance responsibility to Camelot too – though I’d want clarification on the details of that). This is not, in itself, a surprise any more.

But it appears that the wagon is rapidly losing wheels…

The guardians were/are apparently paying rent of about 80% of market rent. They were also apparently given individual, lockable rooms by Camelot (I am being cautious as this is from a newspaper report). They were allegedly then left for some three years with no functioning hot water and saw showers removed after guardians complaining of electrical issues with the showers. Fire doors were also allegedly removed by Camelot and left in a main entrance of one home. (Source)

And then, it appears that at least one of the properties, with some 17 guardian occupants, was such as to be a licensable HMO. (We know Camelot have form on unlicensed HMOs). But the problem is that the properties are council owned. And the council are the enforcing authority for HMO licensing. So it appears that Bristol City Council agreed to the creation by Camelot of at least one unlicensed HMO – and this with potential issues about the condition of the property.

It was apparently only after guardians raised the issue with the Council in 2015 that Camelot applied for an HMO licence, and the council then sat on that application for a year. (Source). Once the licence was granted, a council inspection found breaches of its terms.

Now it turns out that Camelot served notice on the guardians in that HMO, but they are defending a possession claim. (Or perhaps Camelot have purportedly served notice – we have seen Camelot’s problems with compliant notices before and I have just seen another London based example in the last few days)

Now, I don’t know if the guardian defendants are legally represented – though trying to argue that they are tenants of the council would suggest not  (after all, Bruton v London & Quadrant would be on point) – but it does sound like there might be arguments over a status as tenant rather than licencee (as we’ve noted before, Street v Mountford – separate, designated, lockable rooms and so on).

According to the Bristol Post:

Camelot advertise accommodation in the homes as ‘rooms to rent’, issue each property guardian with a key to a locked door to specific areas of the building, and charge different amounts of money depending on the size of the rooms occupied.

If true, none of this is straightforwardly consonant with a licence to occupy.

Apparently the county court has agreed that the defence is at least arguable and has adjourned for full hearing in February. We will hopefully see what happens.

And of course the history does not reflect well upon the council at all.

I was wondering what one could do about a council that encouraged, or assisted in the creation of an unlicensed HMO in one of its own properties. I suspect that might well be judicially reviewable, if it could be shown that the likely occupancy level was either known or ought to have been know to the council. After all, the council cannot lawfully encourage, assist, or permit the creation of an unlicensed HMO in properties under its control.

But regardless of the guardians’ specific case, this whole matter does illustrate that the spread of property guardian firms is meeting an increasing insistence that they comply with their legal obligations. And that the use of property guardian firms by councils should and must not be considered as separate from the council’s obligations to maintain and enforce property standards.

 

Giles Peaker is a solicitor and partner in the Housing and Public Law team at Anthony Gold Solicitors in South London. You can find him on Linkedin and on Twitter. Known as NL round these parts.

2 Comments

  1. alan

    If the Council is a Registered Provider of Housing and is the person that should be the HMO license holder then the property is exempt from licensing. If not then Camelot should be person in the firing line as their due diligence should have alerted them to the fact that it should be licensed.

    I think the main issue is a Council giving a company a property in a poor condition knowing it was going to be let to tenants/licensees and thus condoning the use of ‘unfit’ housing.

    Reply
    • Nearly Legal

      Camelot should have been the licence holder (and ended up being so), but the council apparently agreed to Camelot using the properties for guardians where it was clear that this would amount to a licensable HMO, but failed to require licence at all, until effectively pushed into it.

      Reply

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  1. Property guardianship in Bristol 'has run its course', says cabinet member for housing | The Bristol Cable - […] without Camelot having the necessary ‘house in multiple occupation’ (HMO) license. “The history does not reflect well upon the…

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