By Gavin Mackintosh-
Southend Council have taken drastic steps to reclaim a £3,000 benefits over payment they made to an Essex landlord. Robert Earnest Crowe, a 69 year old notorious landlord from Southend Essex, received the huge over payment in March, in a shocking blunder that now means he must repay every penny of it.Crowe should have been expecting £3,000 in backdated payment, but instead received £6,000 in his bank account.
The notorious landlord who has debts that includes mortgage arrears for each of the five flats of his £700,000 house in a plush part of Southend On Sea, then spent a lot of the money clearing over half of the mortgage arrears before using the rest to stay on top of his mortgage and buying food shopping to last the month. The Eye Of Media.Com also heard that he splashed on expensive designer suits and shoes, and treated some of his tenants and two female friends of his to restaurants in Southend and Leigh On Sea, taking cabs back and forth.
He told The Eye Of Media.Com that he believed the extra payment of £3,000 was to cover owed benefits for other tenants that had recently moved into the property, as well as tenants who had moved out but not paid rent for a while due to awaited benefits. However, Crowe became distressed when Southend Council stopped benefits for one of his tenants since April 2018, and another tenant who applied for benefits since March has received nothing despite residing in mr.Crowe’s property since then. Heartbroken mr.Crowe contacted The Eye Of Media.Com , asking us to investigate the council, which he described as a ”rogue council”, despite him having the title of rogue landlord for a few years now.
AD: Capeesh Restaurant
”You guys really need to come and investigate these lot properly, he said. They are real rogues. They call me a rogue landlord, but they are the rogue council. They are trying to bankrupt me, they know I have a mortgage to pay and court fines, but now they are stopping all my money. How ridiculous, how am I meant to survive?
Southend Council contradicted themselves about three times by initially telling The Eye Of Media.Com that they had paid mr Crowe for the entire three months he was talking about, and asked him to check with his bank to see if they had made an error. After we pursued the matter by asking mr.Crowe to get bank statements to send to the Council, a senior person at the council admitted the money had been taken from overpayments and said the information had been contained on a different screen from that which our initial source from the benefits department had stated.
Two of mr.Crowe’s properties currently have a court order against it, meaning that if he falters on his mortgage one more time, the lenders can take the property from him. Southend Council told The Eye Of Media.Com that they are entitled to recover all overpayments by taking them from benefits that would normally be given to the recipient of any benefits. A payment plan would normally appear to be the rational way to resolving the issue, but the council say they don’t operate that way and that stature allows them to take everything at once.
AD: Oysterian Sea Food Restaurant And Bar
As things stand, mr.Crowe will not be receiving any further benefits from the council for one or two tenants until they have recovered the extra £3,000 overpayment. Mr.Crowe says he will be issuing eviction notices to the tenants in question with immediate effect.
AD: Heritage And Restaurant Lounge Bar