it's like a shower. yes! and greedy landlords cashing in. iam richard bilton from bbc panorama. sir, are you a slum landlord? and should you be a landlord at all? tucked away in south london is a housing estate like thousands across the country. these are the streets and tower blocks that make up the bampton estate. 290 homes, hundreds of lives. as a place, it's a nice place to live. it's very mixed. it's got people with money, it's got people with no money, but it's got a bit of a community. i have lived here for 20 years. it might look a bit rubbish at first, but it's nice. it's peaceful. for the most part, - the community is nice. when anything does go wrong, we all band together. - but it's an old part of london that'sjust been left. - we are going to look at how this estate ended up how it is today. nationally, we have a housing crisis. what's happened in places like this helps explain why. the bampton estate was built in the �*60s. it was part of a drive to eradicate bad housing. and there's all this dampness that was on this wall here. as soon as you touch it, it all crumbles off. and these beams appear. they won't last much longer. there is dry rot. slums were demolished and millions of council homes were built in their place. the idea was to provide decent homes at cheap rents. it now gives me great pleasure in declaring bampton towers open. when you look back, you see photographs of the tenants moving in, often there were grand opening ceremonies, local dignitaries were there. people were moving from slums and they came to buckingham palace. by 1980, about a third of the population are living. in council homes. so it's a massive part of a history that affects nearly every family in one way or another. we are going to take you through the policies that have changed our housing estates. all the homes here were originally owned by the local council, lewisham. the first big change was in 1980. margaret thatcher introduced the right to buy. this is a very special day/ it is my great pleasure to hand this over to you as a token. ever since, council tenants have been allowed to buy their homes at a discounted price. the policy has been hugely popular. come on, you show me this fire. the thing is, there was a problem. they were being sold, but not replaced. it's about 2.8 million homes have been sold through right to buy since it started across the uk. that is effectively the privatisation we have seen to there are lots of good things about right to buy and it's good to encourage people into owner occupation, but ultimately governments have not invested in regeneration. as time goes by, if you don't do enough year after year, eventually it catches up with you, and that's what's happened now. everybody along here was friends and doors open. do you know, it was like a family. avril moved into her council house on the bampton estate in1971. everybody always had nice flowers, everything was clean. it was a lovely place. in 1984, she bought it for £15,000 and she lived here with her husband and their children. so this was your place and now it's... ..1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 places. gee whiz! how did they get six? how did they get six places in there?! she sold it for £85,000 in 1988. today, it's in the hands of a private landlord. and it's been converted into six tiny bedsits. while we're chatting, one of the new residents turns up. do you live in here now? i've got this room in the front. you live in the bathroom? where is the bathroom? every room has its own bathroom, shower, toilet. she lives in your old bathroom. oh, my god! that's why they fit six then, isn't it? yes, every room is somebody�*s home. another resident who doesn't want to be identified agrees to show avril around. he now lives in what used to be her kitchen. 0h, itjust stops here. oh, my god! this was our kitchen, which was... yeah, the toilet's there. yeah, the whole...the whole thing was our kitchen. so there's a little tiny shower in there and a toilet. can you recognise any elements of this room from when you were here? no, no, of course not. there's nothing the same — nothing. the rent for this one room and a shared kitchen is £960 a month, all paid by housing benefit. do you like it here? your old kitchen is this gentleman's home and he pays 960 quid a month. i think it's disgusting. absolutely disgusting. what was once a family home is now six bedsits and a lucrative business. it's estimated that 40% of the council homes sold in london are now owned by private landlords. ifeel very sad it's ended up like this, because...it�*s horrible. you'll make me cry in a minute. it is horrible. is it that upsetting for you to see to see it? mm. it was lovely...and now it's not. it's not progress, is it? they say everything's progress, but it's not. some of those who bought their old council homes have stayed. in the tower blocks, anthony and gloria also took advantage of right to buy. in 2003, they paid £53,000 for their two—bedroom flat. you're from sri lanka then? yes. which part? kandy. so who are all these people? this is my daughter, she is going to university. she's at university? yeah. myself, my wife. the flagship policy of a0 years ago still has a price today. the selvarajahs own their flat, but the council still owns the building. so when repairs are carried out, antony and gloria have to pay their share. so you've got these new windows. there they are. so when did they come in then? two weeks ago. two weeks ago — so these are brand—new. brand—new. antony and gloria didn't have a choice. the council replaced the windows and is refurbishing the whole tower block. and now, they've got their bill - £27,000. i don't know where i'm going to get this money. where are you going to get that money from? i don't have any relations, no friends can do this one for me. what can i do? no place to rent. only the council can solve this problem. it's an absolute consequence of right to buy. the whole building with need maintenance over a period of decades, people need the financial means to fund that improvement. it's a huge burden. when the final estimate arrived in january, antony was recovering from a stroke, and it's now too late to object. heuo. — i'm mrs selvarajah. i'm a leaseholder, - but i have a bill of £27,000. i'm a pensioner. i won't be able | to pay that bill. the council says owners were consulted and can pay in interest—free instalments, but if the selvarajahs can't find the cash, they may have to sell their home. i want to check i'm going to pay that much moneyl before i know definitely if i can afford, - i have to sell back. so i want to find out both. i want to decide - what i am going to do. i am very sure i can't pay back the money. i antony is determined to stay. this house, i won't sell it. all my memories are here. i'm a 76—year—old man. my wife is 70. who is going to listen? so, a0 years on, right to buy is still a big issue here because it fragmented the estate between tenant and owner. and then there's the second big moment that changed the estate — when the council transferred the houses that it still owned to a housing association. the housing association is called l&q and it's managed the houses here since 2010. like most housing associations, l&q is not for profit and should run the estate in the best interests of tenants. there was a place that has got associations, which at that time were seen at that time as fairly locally based, grassroots organisations with a social purpose. would be flexible and more nimble, more responsive. just better managers and providers of social housing. across england, housing associations now manage 2.5 million properties. that's a million more than local councils. the idea of the community—based small housing association began to fade, and we now get very big enterprises — 100,000 homes. these don't look like the same kind of small, community—based organisations any more. l&q is the second biggest in the country. but we spoke to almost all of the 51 l&q tenants on the estate, and 11 told us they were unhappy with the housing association, but didn't want to appear on camera. tenants have complained about damp and mould in their homes, about communal lighting that doesn't work or broken heating systems, general disrepair. they say l&q simply doesn't fix the problems. 0ne tenant on the estate says they've been complaining to l&q for eight years. their grandson filmed the house for us. this collapsed and my nan�*s bed was directly below. very luckily, by her feet. she slept at the other end of the bed and it collapsed on her in the early hours of one morning. two years after that roof collapsed, the home still hasn't been repaired and the mould is still there. this is the bathroom. this one was less affected, but less affected than the rooms i've been showing doesn't mean much. the housing ombudsman who checks out complaints has just started an investigation into l&q's persistent poor performance with damp and mould complaints. but it's notjust the tenants. some of l&q's neighbours are not happy either. you notice what you've got on your plate? yeah. what does it say? it says le petit prince. jen glynn owned her property, but l&q owns the one next door. in 2018, when that neighbour got a new roof from the housing association, jen got a problem. l&q's work on her neighbour's property blocked off jen's gutter. with nowhere to go, the water flooded into her home. it was happening on both sides. that's the volume from when it was raining. every time there was heavy rainfall, it would be between 5 and 7 litres. coming into the property? it was coming into the roof so there was no place to go. the water would go down here and then had nowhere to go. jen lived with the leaks for five years. jen lived with the leaks for three years. it ruined our lives to the point we thought we would be scared to go on holiday, because we thought, "what's going to happen if it rains? what's going to happen to the flooring?" l&q has now fixed the gutters and the leak has now stopped butjen is dealing with the consequences. a few months back, this crack appeared, that ceiling board, this has completely detached from the roof. the water has caused it to bow in the middle. how do you feel about it all? honestly, it doesn't make me angry. itjust makes me really tired, and it's sad because i have gone through anger now, itjust feels a bit relentless. l&q told us it has completed almost 2,000 jobs across the estate, including refurbishment to windows, doors, roofs and gutters, and their property survey found all but two met the decent homes criteria. 0n the home with mould problems, l&q said it has made repeated attempts to carry out repairs but has not been granted access. i think it's fair to say there have been cases where things have gone wrong and haven't been handled as they should have been, but i think it is really important to say a lot of those issues, whilst not excusing them, do relate back to the lack of investment over the years for maintenance and repairs, and actually complaints don't necessarily need to be a bad thing, as long as the organisation is learning from them. it was hoped housing associations would improve social housing, and build more homes, but government grants have been reduced over the years, and far fewer homes have been built. we brought in the housing associations but they never did nearly as much house—building as did the councils before them, so there was a big deficit there. the houses on the ground are split between housing association and privately—owned, but the mix of the estate is even more complicated, because the flats and the tower blocks, they are still run by the council. some on the estate have remained council tenants. hi, it's richard from panorama. joseph, how are you? joe's landlord may be the council, but his problems are just the same. this is your bed. blimey, that's not very good. is this next to where you sleep? yeah. he has rented this flat from lewisham council for 26 years. how long has that been there? more than 2, 3 years. have you told the council? i told them, sir. i told them, richard, i told them. he is repainting after a visit from the council's workmen. they have finally come out after two years of complaints about mould. they have replaced some plasterboard, butjoe thinks that they haven't done enough. all these places was really mould, black. so the council effectively just painted over it? yes. and you are painting over it again? again. joe said the council only did the work after he got a solicitor involved. because the council were not responding, you went to a lawyer? they said they are going to fight on my behalf to get £1,500, then, from there, they would take the fees. so the council paid out £1,500 in compensation. the majority went to the company, the lawyers, and you got a small amount? were you happy with that? no, not at all. it's a shame, that i had to use a lawyer before they would come out to see what had really happened to my room. last year, lewisham council had a budget of £1 million for repairs like this. but almost £750,000 went on legal fees and compensation. so there is not much left to fix problems. the council pipe is broken. so that's just pouring down. that's like a shower? yeah, like a shower. remember anthony and gloria, the homeowners with the new windows and the tower block? two years ago, the council failed to repair a leaking pipe on the floor above them. the leak gradually got worse, and it ended up like this. water pouring from the seventh floor, through the flats below. anthony and gloria lived like this for three weeks, and they say they finally left for a hotel when the fire service told them the flat was dangerous. but if it was their pipe, did they give you any compensation? no compensation, no money at all. they were taking money from me, in counciltax, and the maintenance charge. i am paying for nothing. what was that like, living like that? it's a hell. hell? hell, yeah. if i think like that, still i can cry. even now? even now. i was so stressed. lewisham council apologises for the disruption caused, but says the leak was stopped when it was reported, and that homeowners are able to claim costs via their own insurance. it says it is working to identify properties with damp and mould, and that an additional £1 million will be spent fixing them this year. it wants to ensure public money is being spent on repairs, rather than legal fees. so the people here live with a patchwork of policies and problems. but there is another issue. this estate was built to get people away from bad housing, but slum landlords have moved back in. this is fifield path, the row of terraces where avril used to live. most were sold under right to buy. more than half are now rented out by private landlords. michael has been living in this room for five years. and you can see where they patched it up. it has always been leaking. so i had to move the bed forward. why? because the water was dripping on my head. how many times have they been round? to do the roof, about five times. different people. his rent of £910 a month is paid by housing benefit. one of six tenants in another carved—up former council house. this landlord owns the property, with his wife. we think they are getting around £60,000 rent a year from michael's house alone, and most of that comes from housing benefit. this isn't the only property landlord has on the street. he has three more of these former council homes and they are all divided into six little flats. so from those 2a tiny bedsits, he is getting around £250,000 a year in rent. one of his properties is avril�*s old council house. remember, she paid £15,000 for it. now it's in the hands of a private landlord, the government is paying around four times that in housing benefit every year for the same property. i think itjust feels absolutely wrong, really morally indefensible, to think hard—earned taxpayer money is going in to subsidise poor—quality conditions in very small properties, where you have too many people living in a space, when they really be should be able to expect to live in a decent home. this is an absolute disgrace. it was to get rid of those slum landlords that in the first place we created the social housing, the council housing, so the wheel has turned full circle back to where it came from, and this is like the days of victorian slums of yesteryear. so mr zwiebel is getting hundreds of thousands of pounds from the taxpayer for housing people in rooms like this. what kind of landlord is he? well, mr zwiebel has history. a few years ago, he illegally evicted one of his other tenants. her property was damp and in disrepair but rather than fixing it, he waited until she went out and then got the locks changed. landlords, and anyone controlling the property, have to pass a fit and proper person's test to rent out houses like this. we think mr zwiebel would have found it difficult to pass the test, if the council knew about his dodgy past. when we wrote to mr zwiebel, he said there were a number of inaccuracies in our letter. but he wouldn't say what they were, and he wouldn't answer our questions. so i went to ask him in person. mrzwiebel, sir, i'm richard bilton from bbc panorama. we wrote you a letter. sir, are you a slum landlord? and should you be a landlord at all? should you tell the council about your illegal eviction? sir, would you just talk to us about those properties, because they seem unfair? sir, we would like to know how you could charge £1,000 given your track record? that is such a real shame, because it would have been great to hearfrom mr zwiebel. we don't think he told the council about that illegal eviction, and it would have been great to hearfrom him to get his side. that was his opportunity. but once again, when it comes to those properties, he chose to say nothing. lewisham council say they are now investigating mr zwiebel. the government says it's investigating £11.5 billion in affordable homes and that new legislation will force landlords to fix damp and mould. 0n the land opposite michael's bedsit, the council is building a block of flats. it's the latest chapter on the bampton estate. it's over—55s can move in there. what difference would it make to your life, if you could get in there? i would have a lot more room, wouldn't i, and we could have family and friends. it would be brand—new. i can't see the roofs leaking. so it would be ideal, really. the flats will be offered at what are called affordable rents — they're almost twice as high as council rents. that's because councils don't have enough cash to build cheaper social housing. ultimately, we need policy that deals with the short and the long term. we do need to build more social housing, there's just no getting away from that. we need to see a really serious commitment and it needs to be backed by funding from government. a0 years of housing policy have left our estates in crisis. we are absolutely going backwards, because the cost of private rentals is far higher than the social equivalent, so people are paying more to live in worse conditions. the system isn't working. the bampton estate has seen government policies come and go, but people are still living in unfit homes. this is bbc news. i'm lisa—marie misztak.

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