By Bethany Ruby Rose
A notorious Essex landlord is enraging neighbours because of an untidy garden filled with rubbish that appears unsightly.
Mr Robert Earnest Crow is the owner of a nicely sized house that has been converted into several flats. A self-proclaimed humanitarian, mr.Crow claims to have taken people off the streets and put them up rent free at times. However, he has become very unpopular with neighbours in the plush Devereux Road in Southend On Sea where his property stands out because of a bitter history he has with the council and neighbours.
Crowe takes in the homeless, but has been knocked several times because of a system in which the council pays tenants housing benefits expected to be passed on to the landlord. This hasn’t always happened, and mr. Crow is a man with many issues against Southend council who are taking him to court this September for not keeping his property in good condition. A man in much debt, his mind is very troubled and it shows when one looks at the state of his property right from the outside.
His garden stands out negatively from other gardens on the same street, but the 69 year old claims it is in progress and that neighbours who don’t like it don’t have to look at it. ”At the end of the day, its my garden, if neighbours don’t like it, they don’t have to look at it. It is a work in progress, it will be cleared soon. You need to understand, I am an old man, I can’t do everything at once. The Council is trying to bankrupt me, everybody is trying to strip me of all my earnings, but still expecting me to pay fines”.
Crowe may feel ganged up against, but this is no excuse for not keeping his environment in good condition.One neighbour who didn’t want to be named told The Eye Of Media.Com: ”its not a good look, it affects the image of this street, and we don’t want that. He has this idea that everybody is against him, but a bit of consideration for us all will make things different”. Mr.Crowe is in plenty of debt, with court orders on a few of his properties over mortgage arrears. A £3,000 housing benefit over payment from the council was used to clear some of those arrears, leaving him with arrears in just three of his six flats.
He says Southend Council owes him rent for several of his tenants, but representatives of the council told The Eye Of Media.Com that some of his tenants do not follow up on requirements they are sent to complete their applications well.
Mr.Crowe’s Garden
Mr.Crow admits he has sometimes asked defaulting tenants to do work for him to compensate for owed rent, making his operations radically different from what is expected of landlords. By providing them with a fixed address he hopes to get these vulnerable people back on track and functioning in society. However, due to protocol in the council and the not so conventional manner in which Mr Crow has set up these arrangements, disagreements on exactly what he is owed and to whom it is owed has arisen.
Mr Crow is also claiming that the council may be “dragging their feet” when it comes to dealing with people of foreign origin. ” Almost every time a claim has been put in for someone foreign, Southend Council has taken forever to pay me for it, sometimes it appears they are looking for every reason not to pay me, meanwhile they are taking me to court to get me fined.” Southend Council strongly disagrees with his claims, although when one looks at the state of his property, it is not difficult to see why a council may want to withhold payment from him. However, he should be paid his entitlement for accommodating tenants, or not allowed to operate as a landlord unless he can keep his environment in order.
FINE
A fine of £37,000 was issued against mr.Crowe in 2016 at Chelmford Magistrates Court on account of fire and electrical safety issues that inspectors had with the property. He claims that as a fully qualified electrician he is more qualified than the council department managers to decide whether his home is fire safe. However, an independent voice is necessary on this matter, and The Eye Of Media.Com has asked mr.Crowe to provide evidence he is a qualified engineer if he wants any weight attached to this claim.
. It seems unclear at this point whether the property is a block of flats or an HMO (house of multiple occupancy), though he was fined £37,000 by Chelmsford Magistrates Court under an HMO. An initial legal consultation by The Eye Of Media.Com around March concluded that the property was not an HMO, but it was eventually decided that this many need to be confirmed by multiple sources , after a conflicting view was given by another source before . One thing for sure is that this landlord can do a bit more to improve his environment, and get on with his neighbours.
The fact that a Landlord has no say on where housing benefit is paid to and isn’t even allowed to
check the status of these applications, without permission from the tenant, is causing protocol to be
questioned. How can a landlord like Mr Crow help his tenants and keep his business going if he
cannot be sure that the forms and necessary documents have been correctly filed – or even find out
a time scale on when he can expect his first payment?
Should more not be done to help Landlords like Mr Crow, who take in vulnerable tenants, get more control of receiving their money if their tenants
claim housing benefit?Mr Crowe has promised to work on his garden and improve the untidy look and negative image it leaves.