By Gabriel Princewill-
The Environmental department of the Royal Borough Of Greenwich has sent a false report to a traumatized landlady in response to a dramatic intervention by Plumstead Mp, Clive Efford.
Plumstead Mp, Clive Efford, was dragged into the deep dispute between the Plumstead landlady , Greenwich Council, and a defaulting tenant who lost his cool and assaulted her, damaging her eye socket and hospitalising her in the process. Efford was contacted by the woman in question, and the Plumstead Mp responded by inviting her to his office for a discussion. A letter to the Environmental Health Office of the Royal Borough Of Greenwich followed the meeting, in which they were asked to address the growing feud.
The Eye Of Media.Com also added our weight to the landlady complaints once notified, by contacting Clive Efford to resolve the dispute in his constituency. Efford eventually wrote to The Royal Borough Of Greenwich, asking them to address the dispute that cost both tax payers and the landlady a lot of money.The woman, whose identity has been concealed, complained of victimization by the Environmental Health Office Department of Greenwich Council .
She contacted The Eye Of Media.Com out of desperation, alleging harassment from their Environmental Health Officers over repairs to damages caused by a violent ex tenant convicted by the Magistrates Courts for assaulting her.The duty to repair ultimately falls on the landlady, but not at the beck and call of a violent brute with a lapsed tenancy agreement, and no money to pay even for his own electricity.
Broken glass of front door
The Eye Of Media.Com was provided with a copy of the sympathetic, but highly erroneous mail on a number of fronts. The mail expresses a commendable degree of empathy for the landlady who was battered to pulp by her violent former tenant, 48 year old Christian Nwala. Two writers from The Eye Of Media.Com who met and spoke with the landlady, said she appeared so ”distraught and traumatized by the experience that she could develop mental health problems as a result”.
CCTV Image Of Damaged Room Window
The email to the landlady was signed off by Carole Zelenka- the Head Of Environmental Health Services at the Royal Borough Of Greenwich. It states that it has been treated as a complaint about the service under stage 1 of the council’s complaints procedure. Whilst expressing sympathy for the landlady’s plight and feeling of harassment, the mail presents the borough as one committed ”to delivering high quality services”, adding that ”it is regrettable that you feel you have cause for complaint”.
”I am sorry to read that you have suffered harm as a result of your landlord/tenant relationship with Mr Nwala. Based upon the information you have provided I believe you have taken the correct courses of action to report his behaviour and obtain the necessary convictions. I also believe that you have followed a lawful course of action to evict your tenant using the powers available to you under the Housing Act section
”Separate to this, again under the Housing Act 2004, and regardless of your relationship with your tenant, as a landlord you have a duty to maintain your property in a condition that meets legal requirements. 141 Garland Road was inspected in 2017 and assessed as not meeting those standards and requiring improvement. The word tenant is used either disingenuously or incompetently, because the Environmental Health Department have been told by The Eye Of Media.Com that the tenancy agreement of mr.Nwala had expired and he had not paid rent for 14 months.
STATUTORY NOTICE
Zelenka points out that a statutory Improvement Notice was served on the landlady in respect of works relating to adequate fire precautions required to the property on 25th August 2017. The works specified that the works be completed within 12 weeks from 27th September 2017. The landlady was further advised to complete the works within six weeks of her notification, according to the mail. Fast forward to 2018, and the Council say the works had still not been completed. They would have been expected to properly investigate the cause of the damage, given the tense climate in the property.
More disturbingly, in responding to complaints raised by a man convicted of attacking the woman, and referring to him as a tenant when he factually was not, the Environmental Office of Greenwich Council rendered themselves either incompetent, unprofessional, or both. More is expected from Council heads, or indeed highly raked personnel of public bodies. More especially, after the facts and the context of the law had been presented to them.
The Eye Of Media.Com was not initially aware the landlady had been issued a notice since 2017 to conduct repairs. When questioned about the failure to respond to the statutory notices, the landlady claimed her former tenant and attacker was culpable for majority of the damage in the property, caused during frequent rages of anger when confronted over rent arrears. .
ERRONEOUS
Once the council were aware violent Nwala had a lapsed tenancy agreement and had not paid rent for 14 months, statements of fact made to the contrary should be seen as either shamefully erroneous or deliberately falsified. We will be less cynical and conclude the former, but state that this logically questions the credibility of the rest of her comments that are premised on this unarguable fallacy. She continues:
”I am sorry but the fact that there may have been failure to pay rent in respect of the property being occupied cannot be taken into account when seeking to ensure that notices served are complied with. Neither can this be taken into account when defects within a property are reported to us. Of course we are happy to advise both landlords and tenants on their rights and responsibilities but any actions between the parties must be civil actions of the sort you have duly taken”.
Another notable failing here is that Ms Zelenka patently fails to understand the real issue at hand, and parliament’s will with respect to the Housing Act, 2006. She expresses the complaint of the aggrieved landlady to be based on his failure to pay rent. This is a grosse underestimation of the problem, tantamount to negligence, incompetence, or both. Failure to pay rent doesn’t necessarily render one a none tenant, but having a lapsed tenancy agreement atop being in rent arrears for 14 months invalidates any claim of being a tenant, or any right to raise issue about repairs with a council.
How can a landlord be advised of rights and responsibility if heads of environmental departments are unclear about those rights and responsibilities themselves? There is a thin line between enforcing the duty of a landlord/landlady, and endorsing none existent rights of a defaulter living on borrowed time before being evicted. Drawing a fine balance is one of the intricacies that sometimes accompany complex cases, but all council heads should be thoroughly grounded in the application of the law within their professional domain.
FALLACY
Ms Zelenka repeats the fallacy of misusing the word ‘tenant’ further a few more times:
”Finally, your tenant reported to the Council that the ceiling of a room he was occupying had collapsed on 15 June 2018. The council has a duty under the Housing Acts to respond to complaints from tenants regarding the condition of the property they are occupying and an inspection was duly carried out. Mr Moses Barrie, Technical Officer, contacted you directly regarding this matter and you agreed a course of action to remedy the defect caused by a leak from the shower room above.
”You subsequently arranged for remedial works to remedy the leak and you were at the time unable to complete works to Mr Nwala’s room for the reasons detailed above. We trust these works are now completed and we will check they have been remedied when we visit to determine compliance with the statutory notices.
”The council has taken into account the difficulties in your relationship with this tenant in our approach to ensuring compliance with the statutory notices to date. We have maintained appropriate contact with you without escalating the case for non-compliance to legal proceedings or issue of civil penalty to date. This has been done in accordance with our service standards and enforcement policy”.
UNWISE
The landlady had unwisely provided accommodation to shameless Nwala, at the request of a mutual friend, one she regrets until this day. Nwala paid rent for the first two months but failed to meet his rental obligations for the subsequent 14 months, leading to the frustrated landlord confronting him for her rent arrears. Her painful error in failing to abide by the usual rules of engagement between landlord and tenant proved immeasurably costly to her. Although she successfully pursued a criminal prosecution in which mr.Nwala was convicted, he got away lightly with a suspended sentence of 26 weeks suspended sentence.
The Eye Of Media.Com is in the process of referring the light sentence handed to mr.Nwala to the Attorney General for consideration. Nwala had no previous convictions and was given 25 week suspended sentence. His clean record is no testimony to the presumed status ascribed to most criminal defendants with no history as being if good character. Nwala, of Nigerian decent, has been in the Uk for under 5 years, and therefore hasn’t been long enough in the country to test his character. He tripped at one of his first tests.
The mail signed by the head of Environmental Health Council is highly flawed at best, disingenuous at worst. Their staff , Moses Barrea pursued a course of conduct somewhat synonymous to harassment when he relentlessly pursued the landlady for repairs at the request of the criminal defaulter who was not a tenant at the time in question. He understood the full story, and even if he were to be pardoned for acting under the instructions of his superiors, we explained the true outlook and context of his behaviour. He has no excuse for his behaviour, and we have asked the landlady to send us pictures of Barrea if he shows up at her property again, so he can be shamed.
The Royal Borough Of Greenwich Council have distanced themselves from the whole fiasco, and told The Eye Of Media.Com : ”We did not authorise mr.Barrea’s actions in relation to the landlady in question. He is an environmental health officer and operates under that jurisdiction”. The Environmental Health Services of the Royal Borough of Greenwich has declined all approaches for comment.
Photograph: Gov.Uk