He is by no means typical of private sector landlords, but he is far from alone in his villainy. Raja, murdered by two men whom Hoogstraten had ordered to harm him, was himself a notorious landlord with more than 100 convictions for breaches of housing and safety legislation and who frequently acted as managing agent for Hoogstraten.
Tim Lynch and his family suffered for 11 years at the hands of Raja and his son when they were managing agents for the Lynch home, owned by Hoogstraten. Eight adults and two young children lived in the house, watching their conditions deteriorate, for years. Hazards included widespread damp, mould throughout the house, electric sockets hanging off the walls, raw sewage in the basement, gas and electricity cut-offs and overflowing drains. The final straw was when cowboy builders threatened to knock through a brick wall into the bedsit where the children slept with their parents. In 1993, a campaign by Brent Private Tenants' Rights Group finally persuaded Brent council to put a control order on the house, taking its management away from Hoogstraten and the Rajas.
Many of Hoogstraten's properties were houses in multiple occupation. In the early 1980s, he acquired a property off the Edgware Road consisting of leasehold flats. One of the leaseholders, a single woman in her fifties, was in her garden one day when Hoogstraten and a henchman approached her. They told her to "get out" of the garden and spat in her face. This was the beginning of a series of harassment incidents that made her life such hell that in the end she fled from her home.
Many private tenants in Brent have been at the receiving end of appalling management behaviour by Hoogstraten and his managing agents. A 1988 Granada TV World in Action programme on Hoogstraten said his ways of "winkling" tenants out included "everything from taking off the roof to making sure they met with a nasty accident".
Nearer my home, a group of tenants in a block of properties near Holland Park, most of them women, endured a campaign of harassment involving intimidating visits from Hoogstraten and his henchmen, heating cut-offs in midwinter, the removal of tenants' belongings and the installation of stooge tenants. In 1986 the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea compulsorily purchased all five properties owned by Hoogstraten in Holland Park and sold them to housing associations.
We hear a great deal about neighbours from hell, and I do not underestimate by one iota the impact of antisocial behaviour on tenants' quality of life. Yet landlords like Hoogstraten remain common enough to cause untold misery to tens of thousands of tenants. More common still are landlords whose indifference to their responsibilities leaves tenants in deeply unsatisfactory or even dangerous conditions.
We desperately need to see a flourishing private rented sector. We need to support the many good landlords out there, and bring more players to the table – and yes, landlords do deserve protection from tenants who abuse their position. But a package involving registration for houses in multiple occupation with incentives for responsible landlords willing to improve their property is now well overdue. Villainy apart, it is worth remembering that 6% of the population live in houses in multiple occupation, yet they represent a staggering 28% of all deaths by fire – enough to make the need for action urgent.
Although I had never previously anticipated becoming the modern equivalent of a granny knitting by the guillotine, I find I am looking forward to Hoogstraten's sentencing, due on 2 October, with something approaching pleasure.
Source
Housing Today
Postscript
Karen Buck is MP for Regent's Park and Kensington North
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