‘They’ve attacked families with cordless drills’: the man taking on rogue landlords

Ben Reeve-Lewis says it is becoming more and more difficult to trace who owns and is responsible for a property. Photograph: Graeme Robertson/The Guardian

Ben Reeve-Lewis has been a scourge of rogue landlords for more than three decades. The co-founder of Safer Renting, a housing law advocacy service made up of a crack team who take on criminal landlords, has seen tenants’ lives made hell by the most unscrupulous proprietors.

“We’ve had landlords pulling guns on tenants and attacking families with cordless drills and crowbars,” he said.