Oh Dear. This is Embarrassing.

As we have noted, building a property portfolio has been popular amongst Labour councillors.

As a rule, they tend to observe the regulations that they initiate. 

But as the BBC discovered, (and others have reported), not all of them do.

Former leader of Redbridge Council and now the MP for Ilford South, Jas Athwal has a portfolio of 15 properties in the Redbridge area. While he was leader, Redbridge Council instituted a landlord licensing scheme, not unlike that introduced in Newham. All of this sounds very good.

Unfortunately, the then leader of the council failed to register as a landlord under the council’s licensing scheme.

By Roger Harris -  https://members.parliament.uk/member/5227/portrait, CC BY 3.0,

That might not be so bad, an administrative oversight so to speak.

But on top of this, the BBC revealed that in one block owned by Athwal, (who had described himself as the “tenants’ champion”), half of the residents had problems with black mould on the ceiling and an infestation of insects. One of his tenants had seemingly been threatened with eviction by the letting agent if he complained.

The BBC article continued,

“Andrew Boff, a Conservative member of the London Assembly who has also visited the flats, is calling on the Labour Party and Redbridge Council to investigate.

"I’m deeply concerned," said Conservative Andrew Boff, who has also visited the flats, spoken to residents and took pictures of the mould.

"I worry that there are people who are Jas Athwal’s tenants who are now frightened to speak for fear of being evicted."

"We’ve heard this time and time again about how the threat of eviction is used to excuse poor maintenance of properties," he added.

“He has called for the Labour Party and Redbridge Council to investigate Mr Athwal.”

That must be something of a turnup for the books, a Labour landlord MP being called out by a Tory. Rather embarrassingly, Athwal was found to have tweeted the following.

Hoist by his own petard, so to speak.

The BBC noted that some 60 MPs receive income from property rentals, just over 9%. Some 13 Newham councillors also receive incomes from rented properties a little over double the percentage of MPs.