Vandalism and damage to property

Vandalism and damage to property is an area of anti-social behaviour which has been growing in recent years.

Some customers seem unaware that vandalism and damage ot property is criminal damage and they can be prosecuted and made to pay for the damage they cause. This includes people who paint graffitti onto walls etc.

Tenancy Agreement

The Tenancy Agreement makes it clear that:

"Tenants are responsible for the behaviour of everyone living in or visiting the Property. They must also keep under control any animals living in or visiting the Property. This applies when they are in the Property, in communal areas (stairs, lifts, landings, entrance halls, paved areas, shared gardens and parking areas), on adjacent land and in the locality around the Property."

Tenants, members of the household and visitors must not cause or permit a nuisance, annoyance or disturbance to any other person.

Examples of nuisance, annoyance or disturbance include:

loud music; arguing and door slamming; allowing excessive or prolonged dog barking, dog fouling; offensive drunkenness; selling drugs or drug abuse; solvent abuse; rubbish dumping; playing ball games close to someone else’s Property.

Other conditions of the tenancy tell tenants that they must NOT:

damage, deface or put graffiti on Council property. Tenants will have to pay for any repairs or replacements.
interfere with security and safety equipment in communal blocks. Doors should not be jammed open and strangers should not be let in without identification.
steal any item from any property owned or previously owned by the Council or in the locality of the Property.

What can you do?

STEP 1

Report the vandalism or damage to property by folowing any of the following links to:

Gloucester City Homes|

Gloucestershire Police| OR

confidentially to CRIMESTOPPERS|.

If you are making a report to the Police or CRIMESTOPPERS please ask them to also pass the information onto Gloucester City Homes or report it directly to us and let us know that you have already reported the matter to the Police or Crimestoppers.

STEP 2

It is essential that you keep a record of any vandalism or damage to property and how it is effecting your enjoyment of the area. This information could be crucial to any legal action. If neighbours are also suffering then they should also be asked to keep a record and to complain to Gloucester City Homes and Gloucestershire Police.

Follow this link to download our incident log sheet.|

What can Gloucester City Homes / Gloucestershire Police do to help?

There are a range of legal powers available to the Police to take action against people who vandalise or cause damage to property. This can range from a warning, to in some cases fines, criminal prosecutions and depending on the severity of the damage or destruction - imprisonment.

If however the person causing the vandalism or damage to property, is a tenant, leaseholder or shared owner who is a customer, member of the family of a customer or a visitor to a customer of Gloucester City Homes or if the damage is to to Gloucester City Homes or Gloucester City Council property, then the Police may ask us to investigate the incident in partnership with them.

If speaking with the person concerned does not stop the behaviour then Gloucester City Homes and the Police will decide what action can be taken to stop the unacceptable behaviour continuing. This could include the following non-legal action:

The person causing the vandalism or damage could be asked to sign an Acceptable Behaviour Contract which gets them to agree to stop their unacceptable behaviour and repay the cost of repairing the damage.

If that doesn't work the following legal action could be taken:

The Police will investigate and may decide to arrest the person causing the vandalism or damage. This could lead to a prosecution and either community service or prison.
In addition Gloucester City Homes could ask the Courts for an injunction which forbids the person acting in this unacceptable way. If the injunction is broken the court could decide to jail the person.
Alternatively Gloucester City Homes and the Police could decide to ask the courts for an Anti-social Behaviour Order (ASBO). If the ASBO is broken the court could decide to jail the person.Ultimately if this still fails to prevent the person Gloucester City Homes could ask the Courts to threaten repossession of a tenants home, or the revocation of the lease for leaseholders or shared owners, suspended if they stopped the unacceptable behaviour. If they continued, Gloucester City Homes could ask the Court for repossession of the property and the abusive person causing the abusive person could be evicted. As the person had caused themselves to become homeless it is unlikely that the Council's Housing service would be required to permanently rehouse them. They are more likely to have to find their own suitable alternative accommodation. This would ultimately depend on the circumstances of each case.