Reeves Should “Quit and Be Prosecuted” After Breaking Law by Renting Out House Without Licence
Rachel Reeves broke the law and could be forced to hand back tens of thousands of pounds to tenants after renting out her family home without a licence, with the Tories call for her to quit and be prosecuted. The Mail has more.
The Chancellor is struggling to contain a furious backlash over the blunder uncovered by the Daily Mail, despite Keir Starmer desperately trying to prop her up.
Ms Reeves failed to obtain a landlord licence when she placed the property in Dulwich, south London, on the rental market last year as she moved into 11 Downing Street.
Southwark Council has vowed to crack down on unlicensed letting, with its website advising tenants that they can get money back.
It appears that could be up to £38,000 in the case of Ms Reeves – who has enthusiastically backed similar landlord licences in her own Leeds constituency.
But despite previous cases going to court, Sir Keir insisted the matter is closed within hours of the news breaking.
He said further investigation is “not necessary” after receiving an apology from Ms Reeves and consulting his independent ethics adviser, Sir Laurie Magnus.
Downing Street declined to say whether she had broken the ministerial code during a bad-tempered briefing with political journalists today, but denied there had been a “stitch-up” to avoid panicking the markets.
Ms Reeves was ruthlessly mocked for the blunder in an AI-generated video branding her a “rent queen” this morning – reminiscent of memes about Angela Rayner’s failure to pay stamp duty.
The Chancellor – who is less than a month from delivering a Budget that could seal the fate of the Labour Government – suggested that the letting agent had not advised her of the need for a licence.
In a round of broadcast interviews, Shadow Chancellor Mel Stride warned that Ms Reeves’s position is “untenable”.
Ms Reeves put her four-bedroom detached house on the market for £3,200 a month last year, and her register of interests states she has received rental income since September 2024.
Southwark Council, the local authority, requires that private landlords in certain areas – including the one where her house is located – obtain a “selective” licence to rent out their property.
But last night she admitted that she was unaware of the licensing requirement and, following inquiries by the Daily Mail, applied for the licence. …
Shadow Foreign Secretary Priti Patel said: “Labour run Southwark Council boasts of ‘cracking down on’ and having a ‘zero tolerance approach to rogue landlords’ and have prosecuted landlords for renting unlicensed properties.
“Rachel Reeves has made thousands from renting without following the licensing laws. Southwark Council must now take action on Rachel Reeves and prosecute her.”
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said the revelations were “very serious”.
“If the Chancellor, who has spent months floating punishing tax hikes on family homes, has at the same time seemingly been profiting from illegally renting out her house, that would make her position extremely tenuous,” she said,
“The Prime Minister must launch a full investigation. He once said ‘lawmakers can’t be lawbreakers’.
“If, as it appears, the Chancellor has broken the law, then he will have to show he has the backbone to act.”
Worth reading in full.
It’s just an inadvertent mistake of course. Labour’s problem is that in opposition it frequently called for Tory ministers to resign over similar unintentional minor infractions of the law – including when Reeves herself called for then-Chancellor Rishi Sunak to resign in 2022 for unwittingly finding himself being handed a slice of cake. So the party is now being hoist by its own petty petard.
Stop Press: Following a “review of emails sent and received by the Chancellor’s husband, new information has come to light”, a Downing Street spokesman has said. “This has now been passed to the Prime Minister and his independent adviser. It would be inappropriate to comment further.”
Stop Press 2: Southwark council has said it will not take any action against Rachel Reeves for breaking housing rules as landlords are only subject to fines if they fail to apply for a licence within 21 days of receiving a warning letter.
Stop Press 3: Gareth Martin, the owner of Harvey and Wheeler, the lettings agency used by Rachel Reeves, have given his take on what went wrong:
We alert all our clients to the need for a licence. In an effort to be helpful our previous property manager offered to apply for a licence on these clients’ behalf, as shown in the correspondence. That property manager suddenly resigned on the Friday before the tenancy began on the following Monday.
Unfortunately, the lack of application was not picked up by us as we do not normally apply for licences on behalf of our clients; the onus is on them to apply. We have apologised to the owners for this oversight.
At the time the tenancy began, all the relevant certificates were in place and if the licence had been applied for, we have no doubt it would have been granted.
Our clients would have been under the impression that a licence had been applied for. Although it is not our responsibility to apply, we did offer to help with this.
We deeply regret the issue caused to our clients as they would have been under the impression that a licence had been applied for.
Stop Press 4: Reeves has written again to the Prime Minister updating her story with the “new information” and taking “full responsibility”.
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“But despite previous cases going to court, Sir Keir insisted the matter is closed within hours of the news breaking.
He said further investigation is “not necessary” after receiving an apology from Ms Reeves and consulting his independent ethics adviser, Sir Laurie Magnus”
In other news, thieves caught stealing jewellery from The Louvre Museum have said sorry and French police have stated that an investigation into where they have hidden the treasure is no longer necessary.
No doubt there are many laws I don’t know about, but it’s good that I don’t have to comply with them; or not, as the case may be.
If the repayment is a penalty it will not be tax deductible so she must pay tax on the full income.
The reasons I would support the full weight of the law being applied are:
1 Why would anyone else be exempted from The avoidance of law by Lammy must not be repeated.
2 The left impose unreasonable unjustified laws so they should comply with more rigour. They believe in it!!
Especially as her posts, reproduced above, reveal her to be a more than enthusiastic supporter of such licences! She can hardly play the “I didn’t know” card when she has promoted it in her own constituency. I had never heard of such a licence but I have never rented out a property.
Hear, hear!
Imagine if a senior Tory or someone from Reform UK (Gasp.) had done the same, would it be brushed aside by Herr Starmführer “… further investigation is “not necessary”. ? I think not.
14 years of him huffing and puffing over the evil government and all their flaws would indicate you are spot on.
Gosh! Starmer would almost be whacking off at the dispatch box if it was a Tory or Reform. He would certainly go full on Two Tier Kier.
Yet another example of this appalling Government’s congenital hypocrisy.
Reeves ‘Should quit’. Chances of her doing so – less than zero. No sense of honour, and snout firmly in trough.
Reeves ‘Should be prosecuted’. Chances of that happening – less than zero. Spineless Starmer and his legal chums would not consider it.
I don’t think in all my lifetime I have ever been saddled with such an utterly useless, utterly contemptible excuse for a government. I knew they were going to be bad, but my goodness – it’s apocalyptically bad.
Probably get the Hero of Socialist Labour Award.
[sarcasm]
Rental licensing is a bit of a money making exercise by greedy control-freak councils, supported by Ms Reeves.
That’s actually the real point – why is it necessary at all?
No one is discussing the obvious obscenity that this story has revealed to us. Ms Reeves (and presumably her extremely well paid FDA husband) were living in this house as their primary residence, while we taxpayers fund her constituency home. Now she has moved rent free into 11 Downing Street, for which she pays a nominal benefit in kind tax, capped at 10% of her £140,000 salary, so 40% of £14,000, which is £5,600 per annum. So, with an income of £23,000 after 40% tax on renting her property, she is about £17,500 in pocket on the arrangement each year plus any profits she is making on her constituency home increasing in value. Pretty nice bonus paid for by us taxpayers.
Of course she will resign; she never tires of telling everyone that she’s not afraid to make difficult decisions, however painful the consequences.
It is well established that ignorance of the law is no excuse. Someone cannot escape their liability simply by claiming they were unaware of the law in question. If this excuse were allowed then anyone could claim to be unaware of the law they were accused of breaking. It would become a standard plea in every court case. There are exceptions, of course, but the general rule applies.
I think the exceptions are in the penalties – not the actual offences.
Despite originally saying she was not aware of the need for a licence the subsequent correspondence shows she was notified of it by the estate agent. In her position if I subsequently realised that I had not got the licence I would have followed up with the agent. This is either incompetence or deliberate avoidance, or maybe she is so preoccupied with the upcoming budget that she forgot. But her husband isn’t…
I think the appropriate terminology is “doing an Athwal”.
If I were her tenant I’d be weighing up whether making fuss and claiming rent back and pissing off my landlord would be in my interest given that at this rate my landlord may well want her home back quite soon – so I’ll be out either way.
So in her letter she writes she didn’t know it was necessary to have a licence but has in the past enthusiastically pushed for landlords in Leeds to have them.
F*** off, Rachel. Having had the displeasure of you as my MP when I lived in Leeds West for 14 years, and having tried to communicate with you in writing several times, I happen to already know you’re a lying scumbag with delusions of grandeur. Now you’ve written it for ALL to see.
That’s the problem with lying, Rachel. It gets very complicated.
You’re a faker.
All animals are equal, eh. But some animals are allowed to lie, right? It was a noble lie, wasn’t it Rachel, right?
Get out of my sight.
The sooner you fade into insignificance the better.
So Rachel from Accounts is not only criminally incompetent but also a criminal. But..wait…Far Left Southwark Council have let her off the hook by saying it is a warning first and giving time to comply.
Oh well, when the economy goes into a tailspin after her budget next month the clock will be ticking on her departure.
Ms Reeves:
Once AKA ‘Rachel from accouts’
Now AKA ‘Rachel the unaccountable’
So … initially they “weren’t aware” a licence was needed.
Then the emails reveal that in fact they were aware and their Letting Agent would be applying on their behalf, but didn’t.
And they obviously didn’t check that the licence had been obtained, which is THEIR responsibility. My letting agent sent me a copy of all the documentation/licences required for my BtL. It was MY responsibility to ensure I had them.
Guilty as charged M’lud.
I regard Reeves with disdain and have absolutely no sympathy for any difficulty she is in over this issue. But what does it say about our country that if you own a house and choose not to live in it, you need a licence from the state to be able to rent it out?
A worthy tangent to this subject.
Maybe a fun question, but why would you need a license to rent out your property? First time I have heard of this.
So the local council can extract some more money to pay for their waste…
But isn’t the guiding principle in British Law this:
“Ignorance of the law is no excuse!”
So how come Reeves is allowed to get away with it?
“I drove, entirely safely, thru a 20mph village last night at 40mph. My excuse is that it was dark and any signs must have been hidden by overgrown foliage which I thought we had paid the Council to maintain. What are you going to do about it, Starmer?”
What makes me really angry with these useless sods is the excuse attempted by the Honourable (?) member Sir Chris Bryant this morning. He acknowledged both that a criminal offense had been committed and that ignorance is no defence in the law. He then went with the usual line, oh but it was such a busy time for her, new job, moving house, family to worry about. Yes, just like every other person who takes a new job in another part of the country or even abroad and chooses to rent their home, but would the socialist Southwark council be as lenient to them, would Rachel Reeves who campaigns for these dreadful licenses be as understanding. Of course not, they would fleece them for every penny.