Kentish Express Ashford & District
‘It flies in face of human rights law’
Property tycoons have divided opinion after excluding ‘battered wives’ and other groups from renting their homes. reports.
Homeless charity Porchlight was quick in its response to letting criteria issued by controversial landlords Fergus and Judith Wilson.
“In our view it’s illegal and is flying in the face of human rights law,” said chief executive Mike Barrett, a man who has worked in housing and social care for nearly 30 years.
His anger at the property tycoons, who at one time are thought to have owned around 1,000 homes in Maidstone and Ashford, was echoed by many readers of KentOnline.co.uk when the original story broke last week.
It revealed that in December the couple released a list of letting criteria to would-be tenants, outlining 11 types of people they will not allow to rent their properties.
While Mr Wilson justified it as a “sensible business plan” it prompted readers to describe him as “laughable” and a “buffoon”, while an MP has said his rules are “unpalatable”.
Some parts of the list seemed reasonable for a landlord expecting a reliable rental livelihood – no low income workers, none on zero hours contracts and none on housing benefit.
Indeed, some KentOnline read- ers said they “make him right” and proclaimed: “His property. His rules.”
In other places, however, the criteria lurched towards the bizarre – banning plumbers – and in other areas it provoked outrage: prohibiting families, single parents and “battered wives”.
Porchlight boss Mr Barrett, whose Canterbury-based charity supported nearly 5,000 homeless people last year, questioned the legality of the list and raised concerns over Mr Wilson’s suitability as a landlord.
He said: “He is showing he’s not fit to be a landlord and the local authority should do everything it can to enforce the laws against him.
“This harkens back to the discrimination that was happening in the 1960s.
“It’s a symptom of today’s housing market that landlords think they can pick and choose in this way, but it should be their moral duty to give everybody a fair chance.”