By Gavin Mackintosh-
Notorious Essex landlord, Robert Earnest Crowe stands to loose his property in Southend Essex over a £4,000 Council Tax bill.
The 68-year-old landlord who owns a £700,000 6 bedroom property has long been considered a liability in the area for the unhygienic state of his property, and his poor choice of tenants.
Crowe who claims to be a humanitarian accommodates the homeless and has many times taken on the homeless them without receiving an initial deposit, a is the standard practise. His unorthodox approach to being a landlord has come at a great cost, because Mr.Crowe usually ends up with tenants who lag behind in rent, thereby causing him to be in arrears on his Mortgage.
Crowe was charged £4,336 by Southend Council for self-contained flats but insists that the charge is wrong because of a previous fine of £40,000 imposed on him by Chelmsford Magistrates Court based on his property being a House of Multiple Occupancy(HMO). Branded a rogue landlord by his local council, he has presided over a property that is for the most part, unhygienic and without proper facilities in some aspects of the building.
In 2016, Chelmsford Magistrates Courts slapped the hefty fine on Mr.Crowe, after Southend Council filed in a suit against him for accommodating tenants in an HMO property that lacks proper facilities and posed a danger to tenants. The Eye of Media.com was alerted to his infamous property by some of our readers in the area after a number of his former tenants left his property complaining it was infested with mice and was basically uninhabitable.
DEFENSIVE
When theeyeofmedia.com confronted Mr.Crowe with the allegations against him, he became defensive, accusing the council of subjecting him to a sustained campaign to close him down. Why the council may want to close him down is not difficult to see; we found his kitchen in a terrible state during our visit, though he has since got someone to clean it up.
Mr.Crowe resisted our photographer when he tried to take pictures of the dirty kitchen, stating:
”You can’t take any pictures here without my consent” he insisted. This was during our first visit there, but upon our return on last Friday, he had completely got somebody to clean the kitchen and wash a pile of dirty plates that looked very unsightly.
VICTIMIZATION
Mr.Crowe says he has been charged Council tax that should be for other tenants and says he won’t pay the charge. ”Why should I pay this, I don’t live in these flats, he protested. The courts fined me nearly £40,000 for an HMO, now the Council are trying to fine me £4,000 for self contained flats. This is ridiculous, this is victimization. This is a corrupt operation happening here, an angry Mr.Crowe said. This property is either an HMO or self-contained flats, the council and the courts must make up their mind which it is”, he fumed.
TheEyeOfMedia.Com has contacted the Council for clarification of the discrepancy.
Crowe allowed theeyeofmedia.com access to a chat with his tenants but got into a mini disagreement with us when we insisted on a private chat with them. Eventually, he permitted us to have a chat insisting that we had no right to take any pictures of his property without his permission. He threatened to sue if we did.
Three of his tenants we spoke to were not complimentary about their landlord. One called him a ”moany man”, and another referred to him as the worst landlord in the country”.
GRATEFUL
However, a final tenant was grateful he had been taken off the streets with no money but admitted he gets harassed for money all the time. Crowe says the council have deliberately refused to pay housing benefits for some of his tenants in an effort to see him bankrupt. The unorthodox landlord also gave us names of particular individuals in the Council he insists are bent on obstructing his business, allegations that are difficult to verify.
Crowe seems to have a heart for the homeless but has struggled to keep his environment in top shape and be on the good side of the Council. He must pay Council Tax, like everybody else, but the Council have a duty to show him that any charges they present him with are fair.