Question

Nuisance and Anti-social Behaviour (England) | Tenant Relations and Dealing with Complaints (England)

CANNABIS USAGE

10 Apr 2018 | 3 comments

We are the landlords of a number of apartments within a renovated building that are accessed via a communal area. Unfortunately over the last few months there have been reports of a strong smell of cannabis from within the communal area and from outside our rental properties. We have sent letters out to all our tenants informing them of this and that due to the nature of this issue it will be closely monitored. However please can you advise what steps we as landlords can take should we experience any further problems?

Answer

3 Comments

  1. guildy
    guildy on 10/04/2018 at 8:10 pm

    It’s an offence to allow the use of drugs in a rented property under section 8, Misuse of Drugs Act 1971.

    8 Occupiers etc. of premises to be punishable for permitting certain activities to take place there.

    A person commits an offence if, being the occupier or concerned in the management of any premises, he knowingly permits or suffers any of the following activities to take place on those premises, that is to say—
    (a)producing or attempting to produce a controlled drug in contravention of section 4(1) of this Act;
    (b)supplying or attempting to supply a controlled drug to another in contravention of section 4(1) of this Act, or offering to supply a controlled drug to another in contravention of section 4(1);
    (c)preparing opium for smoking;
    (d)smoking cannabis, cannabis resin or prepared opium.

    Therefore, you do need to act (as you are already doing).

    If the letter you’ve sent doesn’t work, your only other realistic option is to serve the section 21 two months notice. Perhaps just service of the notice will be enough for them to stop but if not, you would need to seek possession through the courts.

  2. Dobie
    Dobie on 11/04/2018 at 9:27 am

    Thank you for your comments. The problem is we do not know who the culprit is and which flat the smell is coming from, however we will continue to monitor the situation and hopefully resolve the problem.

    • thehesp
      thehesp on 15/04/2018 at 6:27 pm

      Hi
      I had a similar problem but as I am talking about only one property with a Mother and Daughter living there I knew where the problem was and they were both a bit of a problem.
      I reported this to the police and they did not want to know in fact the policeman in question said how did I know what cannabis smelled like? and did I use it ? so they were of absolutely no use what so ever but I would still try getting a policeman to knock on all the doors and say there has been a smell of cannabis and that should stop the culprit and you have been seen to do something while not evicting anybody

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