The Advertiser provides an altogether different slant, on the Selective licensing of private rented housing issue:
Click on image above to enlarge, use back button to return here.
Been sent this photo of Sajid Bostan with Chief Inspector Rich Butterworth. Just in case readers wondered who we were referring to in the comments below:
Rotherham Politics 
What is councillor maharoof and councillor akhtar doing about the private landlord license, that is going to affect our community in Rotherham.
There are shame to our community, I will not post a vote to these people, there should understand the implications off approving the scheme inside Rotherham without informing the people of Rotherham.
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Has Cllr Rose McNeely been set up, I wonder? Are the tectonic plates shifting?
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maureen looks like a good landlady, but has she been to eastwood or has she seen the youtube video on eastwood ….flytipping .just what do landlords tell there tenants about rubbish and asb ? is the tenancy agreement on the back of a fag packet ?
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Our Councillor Rose is to blame. She is the one who has pushed this through.
Vote her out.
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The problem here in my opinion is allowing residential properties to be bought as “investments” in the first place. This has driven up house prices to the point where they are beyond the reach of many working families as they have to compete with well heeled “investors”.
On top of that many of these “investors” don’t give a monkeys about the effect it has on a nice street when the owner-occupiers get replaced by here today gone tomorrow tenants.
We should be making it as easy as possible for ordinary working families to buy their own home, when they do they aren’t just buying bricks and mortar they are buying into an area and they have far more reason to behave nicely and get along with their neighbours.
That means we should introduce a principle of one person one house and skew the tax system accordingly so residential properties no longer get snapped up to form part of someone’s pension portfolio and nice streets are not ruined through greed.
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Great post – spot on. Seems to me that many of the posters who against the scheme have a vested interest, i,e., they are private landlords who are coining it in through vastly inflated rents (many of which come from the tax payer in the form of housing benefits.
Time the government did something about these chancers who did their part, along with the bankers, estate agents and last government, to wreck this country. There should be a new tax on the income from rental properties – I wonder how much of this rental income is declared?
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Rotherham council is corrupt and so are it’s councilors the council finances are in a mess and the cupboard is bare as a result of they catastrophic blunders hence thinking of new taxes to fund thier private club. Jolly trips abroad councilors siphoning money in more ways than one. Selling doncaster Gate hospital, camera car and now selective licensing what next. These are revenue generators to cover thier blunders RMBC is like mafia running a racket
The problems highlighted are again the faliour of authorities to tackle the issues.
Antis social behaviour is for RMBC and Police to to deal with. landlords have no powers apart from politely asking tenants to refrain from certain activity beyond that they cannot police. Council officials should get off thier backside and out of thier air conditioned offices and do the job properly that they take salary and same for the Police
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This is conspiricy theory against Cllr Rose.
Well said Local lad.
Cllr Mahroof Hussain and Jahngir Akhtar are responsible for this as they are the ones who have approved signed and sealed this.
This consultation is a tick box excercise.
Mahroof and Jahngir are behind this and are encouraging Asian voters not to vote for cllr Rose.
If it wasnt for Cllr Rose Moofy you wouldnt be where you are now?
The meeting which is being held in Unity centre on 29 January 2014.
Will the so called councillors be attending.
I hear Sajid Bostan is arranging a meeting in Zaika fastfood in town this tuesday in protest against Cllr Mahroof and Cllr Akhtar.
Two faced Sajid cant be trusted.
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tenancy agreement for tenants ??
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cant quite understand why some people are so uptight about the landlord scheme ,unless your a bad landlord with something to hide ? surely £687 can be very swiftly recovered , am told a house down eastwood is £400 a month these days . am very surprised that cllr akhtar a hussain have voted for this scheme … are they not landlords themself ??
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Those cllrs who declared themselves landlords in the areas had no vote.
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“surely £687 can be very swiftly recovered”
This sum equates £52.84 per month. Are you suggesting the landlord absorbs this extra cost or the sum is recovered via increased rent from the tenant?
‘Swiftly recovered’ from where or whom? It is not just £687.00, it is £687 over and above existing expenses and overheads.
Maureen Johnson is right when she says this idea is bad.
As for RMBC’s claim the introduction of Landlord licences “will improve areas with high numbers of empty properties with frequent turnover of tenants with high levels of anti-social behaviour”…………. Really??
Do I have to spell out to RMBC how many licences they will need based on these criteria?
This proposal is another example of Labour’s We Have Screwed The Town’s Finances And Need Another Excuse To Raise Extra Revenue.
A knee jerk reaction by jerks.
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Colin, may I very politely suggest that you read the RMBC documentation.
“This sum equates £52.84 per month.”
No, it equates to at most a fifth of that.
The £687 is a one-off fee covering 5 years, and there are discounts available of well over £100.
” the introduction of Landlord licences “will improve areas with high numbers of empty properties with frequent turnover of tenants with high levels of anti-social behaviour”…………. Really??”
Well it has in other areas of UK where similar schemes have been introduced. As usual RMBC is quite late to the party in thinking of introducing such a scheme.
see: http://www.ehn-online.com/news/article.aspx?id=10582
“Do I have to spell out to RMBC how many licences they will need based on these criteria?”
No, it is all in the documentation.
“Another Excuse To Raise Extra Revenue.”
Hardly – it aims to be self-funding but raises no extra revenue for the council – see the documentation.
The documentation is here:
http://www.rotherham.gov.uk/info/10084/private_landlords/2546/landlord_licensing
(If the link to the Cabinet minutes doesn’t work for you, this will:
http://moderngov.rotherham.gov.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?CId=415&MId=12540&Ver=4 )
Whilst there is clearly a well-orchestrated campaign by landlords to reject the scheme, (see the two “letters to the editor” above) … and:
http://www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/rotherham-metropolitan-borough-council-stop-the-proposed-pilot-scheme-for-selective-licencing
In Newham – where the first scheme was introduced – in the consultation 74% of residents and 76% of private tenants supported the scheme.
Interestingly, the ” Thapy Feshi who runs estate agents Sensis in Eastwood” who contributor Eastwood Resident refers to, could possibly be the “Araf Fashi” who originated the Change.org petition, but only they would know of they are the same people.
RR
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@RR.
Thanks for the links.
I was wrong to forget the licence covers 5 years and not 1 year.( I’ll retire to my Man Cave and give myself a good thrashing if it will help :-(………………)
I did not intend my post to give the impression I support landlords wholeheartedly but I am concerned that landlords who care about their properties and tenants-and there are a lot of them-will be lumped into a scheme that stigmatises ALL landlords as EVIL, MONEY GRABBING BA***RDS.
While this thread focuses on Eastwood let us not forget Eastwood is not the Centre Of The Universe.
Local problems require local solutions and I don’t think the State should interfere.
Local Authorities have sufficient powers under the Housing Health and Safety Rating System. (The Housing Act 2004). to take enforcement action against bad landlords. So I don’t see the need for ‘Landlord Licensing’.
If LA’s do not take action against people who keep tenants in badly maintained and overpriced homes then everyone has the right to contact the local Environment Agency who will take action once a complaint is proven.
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Its interesting how you have quoted the council documentation here but failed to understand the documentation yourself. There is no example of any successful license schemes anywhere in the UK, its simply a manipulation of statistics. The license fee funds can only be used for the marketing and production of the physical license and nothing else. In order for a scheme to have any chance of working budgets must be identified within other council departments and that simply isn’t there.
Most councils are actually jumping on the band wagon of Newham council, but what they don’t tell you is that Newham had grant funding of £4 million pound to get their scheme of the ground and that was to tackle a very specific problem. Rotherham council have no budget at all to deliver anything and have all the powers they need to deal with any of the issues they have raised. In the last two years RMBC only exercised 8 compulsory management orders, if the Landlords in Rotherham are such a problem then what have they been doing for two years?
The truth is that the majority of issues that they are trying to tackle relate to tenant behaviour and neither the council nor the Landlord community have the appropriate powers to deal with it.
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Hi Anon
Interesting comments; you clearly know more about the subject than I do.
I agree that there are no successful licence schemes anywhere in UK, no scheme have been in operation long enough to properly evaluate. Only after a scheme has been run for its full five years is it going to be possible to fully assess its success; and even then there will be lots of confounding factors. It should be possible to get some indications of success or failure before then, but…
There was an article in Environmental Health News (6 December 2013) titled “Landlord Licensing drives up standards” but I can’t access it.
… and this an early report from Newham Council’s perspective: http://www.newham.gov.uk/Pages/News/Council-winning-war-against-rogue-landlords,-new-figures-show.aspx , but as we agree, these are very early days.
I wasn’t aware that Newham had had £4m grant funding. Interesting!
Do you have a web reference for this?
Newham has more than its fair share of problems, which one was the scheme intended to address, “sheds with beds”?
You say: “Rotherham council have no budget at all to deliver anything”.
I agree. According to RMBC the scheme will only fund:
– The cost of processing applications, including salaries, ICT infrastructure changes, financial services, postage, additional staff costs, equipment and training.
– The cost of monitoring compliance with conditions including a sample of Licensed premises inspections and annual Gas Safety Certificate checks.
– Tenant and landlord support activities including area meetings, drop in sessions and other publicity of the scheme.
– The expected number of applications for Licences (2,029) based upon the potential for exempt properties that will not be subject to licensing. These could be up to 20% of all privately rented properties.
I’ll look into these Compulsory Management Orders – I’d not heard of them.
RR
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colin , if you live in eastwood , have mates in eastwood , you would have some idea of what the place has become , the bulk of the problems are down to very bad landlords . radio sheff have been down in the area again last week to cover the bad landlord issue’s .its spot one what eastwood resident says about BAD landords not turning up to community meetings, these landlords dont care about people which have lived in the area for 40 years plus , most of the asian landlords have left eastwood years ago to “better themself” the only time you see them is to come to the local mosque or collect rent .as said before ,why is nearly all the comments against this issue coming form asian landlords ?? you try to get hold of a bad landlord in eastwood ..no chance . have you seen the problems in eastwood colin ?
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Yes is true Rogue Landlords organising secret meetings. At Zaika take away! So far they has managed to get some people together. These are Thapy Feshi who runs estate agents Sensis in Eastwood. This guy is close friends of Cllr Duck Dive moofy. But now stabbing him in the back. other person going is called macca. He owns carpet furniture shop in Eastwood. This man has owns nearly 70 houses in wellgate all over. He is also moofy close mate but is also going to this meeting. There thinks that by having this meeting their counsellor friends won’t find out. Also heard John Khan owner of Yorkshire accomodation estate agents is gonna be their. This guy is very close friends with ASBO. He writes for Asain news paper “Ilm” and after abso got done over by The Times he rote an article defending ASBO and slagging of the times. Now he seems to be two timing akhtar. Also in attendece are Imran Rasab and Toqueer The instructor and Shakeel from Broom the next wannabe labour councillor. These two faced landlords have no shame. They are only looking after there own interests. I have lived in Eastwood all my life and these people have made it a dump. There is anti social behavior, litter, prostitution, drugs and crime. These landlord who along with their councillor friends made a killing from renting their houses but now that the council want to put their foot down and help us poor residents they are kicking up a big fuss. These landlord were invited to attend meeting at Eastwood community accross Je James Cycle which we organised by my friend John porter. But these people never ever came once. This scheme is a good idea because these landlord don’t care about the condition of there houses or the people the give them too. About time rotherham council help ordinary people rather than there friends and relatives.
Eastwood Resident.
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Don’t Yorkshire accommodation, look after Akhtar’s rental properties?
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And Dont forget sajid Boston who is chairing this meeting sajid stop playing both sides we now you cant help it kid..
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I gather Sajid Bostan is not at all happy at the exposure he has had on here.
He will have to get used to it, skulking around threatening people, will not stop the truth from coming out in public!
Sajid is quite the oaf when being manipulated by Asbo and Moofy, time to grow up!
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Funny, I had learned of Sajid’s unhappiness as well!
If anything on here is untrue, Rothpol is always willing to post comments from those who may feel aggrieved, or feel their reputation has been unfairly impugned.
Alternatively they may wish to correspond by email with Rothpol and their complaints will be fully considered and acted upon, if this is deemed necessary.
I won’t be holding my breath waiting for the likes of Sajid to contact me, that is not his style, but then I may be wrong.
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Who said we control
1) The South Yorkshire Police
2) The Council
3) Rotherham Advertiser
4) Radio Sheffield
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The we would be Jahangir Akhtar and Mahroof Hussain, according to Sajid, who seems to act as their enforcer?
The statement re controlling everything, was made to me during the last telephone conversation I had with Sajid about a year ago! Pleasant chap, not!
He also described them as untouchable! I thought that was very revealing as to attitude. But in Rotherham in the 21st century. Unbelievable!
This state of affairs, simply must be challenged, it cannot be tolerated in our Town!
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I have to admire Rothpol for more excellent scrutiny, on this sorry state of affairs. Well done sir.
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Thanks for the appreciation, but any success is down to a collective effort, by quite a number of people now.
All Rothpol does is provide the space for others to get involved in scrutinising the activities of those who should serve us, but are in fact only self serving and exceptionally greedy!
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The meeting which is being held on tuessay in zaika is so that Sajid Bostan wants to become chairman of Rotherham Action Group.
This will help him to become councillor.
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Not long ago when The Bostans had butchers shop in wellgate he was sent down for GBH after beating up innocent customer who they sold out of date meat and was sent down for number of years to prison, when he came back he got his badge of honour thanks to asbo and moofy for taxis.
Before christmas 2013 he was in serious breach of his licence and thanks to moofy and asbo his on the road yet again.
His an oputunitist Pig. This photo will help him to get MBE like Moofy did not long ago.
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Anonymous, thanks for the info about Sajid Bostan’s previous, for a crime of violence! Further information from readers on this or other aspects of his character always welcome.
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Rothpolitics Rocks Rotherham Private Landlords there houses 9/10 are run down dumps. some landlords are desperate not to have an empty home they spread the word they have a empty property even some taxi drivers ask you Do you know anyone that wants to rent a house. = NO
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We should all remember the Rackman era of the 1960s, he was a man who bought properties in London that already had tenants in them then forced them out so the buildings could be sold for development. He used thugs to intimidate, turned off gas, electric and water supplies; it took years for him to be prosecuted. This is why some tenancy laws were brought in. The licencing of landlords is necessary because of rogue landlords, it is easy to go back to the Rackman period. However the real answer is for the Government to pass a law the allows councils to take over properties that have stayed empty for some time and to let them as council houses. But the most important answer is for councils to build council houses. UKIP leader Nigel Farage’s heroine Thatcher is the real culprit by allowing council tenants to buy the houses, not only people who own their own houses have respect for where they live council tenants and private tenants do also. Labour are also to blame for not rescinding Thatchers legislation, this Labour controlled council has a lot to answer for in allowing these run down areas to exist without doing any thing about it.
Dave Smith
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The licensing has been passed 6 weeks ago there is no consultation raving and ranting is all what we do
Landlords want the money and never keep an eye on the property and do they pay tax not really.
Council has no resources for Eastwood anymore
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Hope someone will let us know, how well Sajid Bostan’s plan works at his ‘secret’ meeting tonight, at Zaika fastfood.
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