I own a two bedroom apartment in Leeds city centre. I am in negative equity and I want to get rid of it.

Does anyone know of an organisation that will just take it from me and they carry on paying the mortgage.

Any advice will be most welcome

Thank you

Peter

A local letting agent in Ilford, Essex has closed down his business and run off – no one appears to know where he has gone.

A number of landlords including myself have been left in a position where we have tenants in our properties and don’t know how to evict them.

The original tenancy agreements have been signed with the letting agent. We also believe that some deposits were protected under a scheme and some were not.

Anyone have any ideas?

Sandeep

Help and advise is needed; please forgive my grammar error as I write in pain and low spirit.

I rent out my 3 House that goes for market price £1200.00 for £700.00 to a shady a Nigeria agent in Canary Wharf. Little did I know his intention / plan was to rob me of every penny he could to maintain his fake life.

Firstly, every now and then he charges me for repairs for a house his subletting to the council as b&b per night rate of almost £60.00 per day; yet he won’t pay me the £700.00 per month rent without deductions for repairs. I took it on myself to inspect the property, when he realised I caught him at his game he sent people to the house to harass the tenant and her family; afterward calling the police claiming it was in the landlord that came to threaten and harass the tenant. They were advised by the police to change the entrance lock; of course he deducted the lock change from the monthly rent pay I get from him.

Secondly, over two years now his being charging unbelievable amount for repairs from the rent due to me. Last year December decided to visit the property again this time with a police officer for record purpose, after our visit with the police another harassment complaint was filed against me to the police.

To an extent he framed up a lie thereby complaint to the police I threaten to kill him and his family. He police came to arrest me but I was out as of when they came looking for me.

He told me the company belongs to him but when did my finding I realised he was under bankruptcy order as of when he signed 3years lease agreement with me showdown get the director and the director (the wife) signed as both me and him witness.

I have filled a court case against him, his wife and his company(ies), its came to light that he used his wife name to register the company, but he’s being going around saying to people he owns the company now his hiding under his wife now claiming his was the company head of portfolio manager while Bankrupt but now his the CEO of the company. He gave the council using the property for their tenant a different contract with a different company name that foes not have identity; bill me with non-identity company compare to the contract issue to me.

I have paid two different lawyer thousands of pounds on this case.

The court sent another hearing after the first one we had; both him, his wife and their lawyer are trying to play smart with case thereby complicating matters.

For two years now I have suffer financial hardship, emotional and verbal & oral abusive languages from this this shady agent with my mortgage property.

It is a long story; I am lost of thought and ideas.

Fem

Does anyone know what the legal position is regarding an agent retaining the tenants deposit when they have been employed for a tenant find only?

I already have an agent that manages my property and protects the tenants deposits, however, this agent claims that their procedure is to protect the deposits themselves through the DPS even with a TFO agreement.

I’ve used other agents in the past for a TFO and they have just forwarded the deposit to me, leaving it up to me to protect.

Many thanks

Adrian

I only have 4 properties, but fall into the ‘portfolio landlord’ category. The interest only mortgage on one expires in the middle of next year. I have approached the NLA mortgage team and found I can remortgage to Kensington, Paragon or Aldermore, albeit with a monthly increase of £80 – £100. (All mine seem to be on very low SVRs!)

The rental income easily stacks up, so no problem there, and the tenants are my tenants from heaven, having rented the house since 2010 and never missed a payment. One lender requires proof of 12 months rental payments on ALL the properties (which is no problem), but none so far are asking for personal income and expenditure details.

My choice is a bit limited, because I’m in my 60s and not all lenders are happy to lend beyond retirement. I also have a personal loan and credit card balance, which are easily affordable, but will I fall foul of the the tightening of the rules if I wait until next year to remortgage?

I’m even thinking I may have left it too late to avoid the new rules, if the process takes a few weeks?

I haven’t mortgaged/remortgaged for about 10 years so I’m having to get up to speed on the latest regs!
Any advice, and also any broker recommendations, would be welcome.

Thanks in advance:)

Annie

My wife and I are expats who have been renting our property through an agent for 5 years. We currently own a four bedroom property (for bedrooms including a loft extensions).

In October 2016, the previous tenants move out and the current occupants moved in. We were sent the documents with a recommendation that we sign. On the agreement were five as opposed to four tenants. The agent gave us no advice on the implications of having 5 tenants. We later discussed that having 5 tenants changed our license from a statutory to a mandatory licence (the mandatory license treated our property the same way as a 3 – 5 floor block of flats). We contacted the agent with this information, and asked them to clarify if we have the right license. They refused to reply to our emails. Three months after the initial email they replied (only after I cced an email to everyone in the organisation).

The advice we received was that we should not have informed the council (which was tantamount to them telling us to break the law). They are now refusing to allow us to cancel the terms of the lease (even though we have agreed to a cancellation with the tenants with an agreement that their rent would be reduced for four months).

The questions I have are:
1. Legally what can we do in this situation?
2. Can we take action against the agents in relation to the original lease agreement. (Surely as experts they should have provided us with advice in terms of having an extra tenant).

Many thanks

Emmanuel

I have gone round and round on whether to continue with BTL and I keep walking into the 2 same issues:

1 – If I incorporate, tax rates are such that I could only take a small proportion of income (i.e via dividends) as long as I work
2 – If i don’t incorporate, I take an immediate hit to earning through section 24 and this is dramatically exacerbated by the inevitable interest rate rises

Am I wrong? I was planning on quitting work at some point to focus on BTL, but until I do I feel like I’d be investing in a non-investment, which has the risk (if house prices drop) of giving me real problems.

Appreciate people’s views? Have I missed something on incorporation?

Richard

Is the procedure any different when seeking Possession of Property whilst I am living abroad ?

I have served a section 21 notice on tenants living in one of my properties in the UK. They have been unable to find affordable alternative accommodation. They have approached the Local Council who have not classified them as being in need of accommodation (No real surprise there!) despite the government guide lines to local authorities that a tenant, once served a valid section 21 notice, should be treated as ‘homeless’ within the last 21 days of the notice.

It would seem that the next step is to seek possession of the property through the courts. I have a UK address although most of my time is spent abroad. Would there be a problem with using my non-UK address ?

Many thanks

Mike

I assume I’m not the only Property118 reader who receives emailed offers of ‘help’ in the form of invitations to webinars from HMRC.

And I guess I’m not the only one to be irritated at being addressed as “Dear customer”, as if I have a choice. If I had a choice I might choose to take my business elsewhere!

And am I the only one to feel rather patronised that HMRC believes I need its help?

So far I’ve not taken up the invitation to attend a webinar, but I’d be interested to hear what anyone who has sat in on them thought of them.

I wonder too whether the questions in the ‘onscreen text box’ [sic] were dominated by people asking about the punitive Section 24 tax changes? They should have been!

Steve

I am sure others have thought of this, I did ages ago, that is; if Tenants were to write and make their concerns of the affect that Section 24 will have upon them, it will amount to MILLIONS of letters (voters) showing in our favour.

My first concerns against this, were that by alerting tenants to the reality that I may be forced to sell, that they may act by moving. I also had in the back of my mind that Section 24 will have been eradicated or changed by now, so I did not want to alarm or lose my tenant unnecessarily.

However, with the slim election win by the Conservatives still fresh, and with Section 24 still in play, I believe it’s now time for landlords across the country to bear the brunt of any negative effects of formally alerting tenants and write to each of our tenants requesting action from them in the form of a letter to both their Conservative MP, and that of the party they vote for, stating the drastic effects that Section 24 is set to have upon them and their respective family.

I believe as Landlords we will need to make it very easy for tenants to do this, I suggest we use this forum and spread to other forums to get as many tenant to write to their MPs as possible, if we managed 1 in 4 it should be over a million, surely this much mail will open the ears of those MPs who simply fall back on party policy blindness.

I suggest we compile a letter for landlords to give tenants and for tenants to give their MPs, or maybe we would secure a better response if we personally delivered and collected from our tenants and we took responsibility of forwarding them by post. It is after all very much to our benefit and we are near enough under legislation to wipe the arses of tenants so this should be of little effort.

To follow are rough drafts of a “Landlord to Tenant”, and “Tenant to MPs” letter, please edit it, scrap it, or make a new one and if you think it’s better add it here, perhaps a tick list for tenants.
_______________________________________________________

“Landlord to Tenant”
Dear Tenant,

You may be aware the Government has imposed Tax changes to private Landlords across the country.
This is in the form of Section 24. The implications to myself and many others are extreme.

The government is bringing section 24 in under the guise of helping first time buyers, Section 24 does very little to help first time buyers, it will potentially release rental stock to them, but this will certainly be at the cost of Tenants, the government talks about fair play, nothing about Section 24 really brings fair play to any party.

The huge taxes to landlords are only part of the issues, basically if Section 24 continues both I and other landlords like me will be forced to act against the risk of being made bankrupt.

There are some options open to me, none are easy or without massive costs and changes.

Landlords have been fighting against Section 24 for a long time, some prominent government members are now listening and stating its wrong. With the help of tenants this should really cause the government to act to make changes.

As a rule, (and as with your rent to date) I do NOT put rents up while a tenant remains with me.

The situation I face with Section 24 gives me very limited options, it maybe that I will have to sell all but a few.

Putting rents up will initially help however; there is a limit to both your affordability and the current market rent value, any increase in rents by myself will be purely because of Section 24.

The effect of section 24 will mean if the bank base interest rate goes up the bankruptcy factor comes back into play. This was not the case before Section 24,

Section 24 means high rate Taxes are due even upon losses, this was not a factor under the old tax rules. Section 24 has created a high risk factor to what was otherwise a well-managed format.

The government has so far ignored that a single tenant will be effected by Section 24.
They also claim only 100,000 landlords will be effected, Both their calculations are easily proved vastly incorrect.

You stand to be effected whether you stay with me or find another landlord, many landlords are still oblivious that they will be affected by Section 24, the effects will be nationwide.

I call upon you to help yourself, it will cost you a little time.

I ask each adult member of your household to write to your MP, your MP is ( ___ @ ________ ) (Landlords see houses of parliament site for current MPs contact email or address and provide details to tenant)
Alternatively, I will pick up the letter from you and post it on.

Let your Mp’s know that you stand to be effected by Section 24, either by rent increases or by having to find somewhere else to live, affectively being made homeless by the effects that Section 24 has to your landlord.

Insist that your MP fight your case and forward your communication to those with the power to make changes. Ask to be kept up-dated with progress.

The current government is not in the best of positions to risk losing the votes of millions of tenants that will be effected by section 24. Make it known to your MP that you will not vote for them while Section 24 exists.

I would appreciate being copied in on your communications.

Regards
C. J. B. Landlord

____________________________________________

“Tenant to MPs”
Tenants Name
Address
Postcode
Email
Phone
Date

Dear MP
DON’T MAKE ME HOMELESS

SECTION 24 stands to put the needs of first time buyer’s above mine.

My landlords will be adversely affected by Section 24, this will lead to my home becoming highest market rent value or worst still, sold.

My household is made up of _____ adults and _____ children

I have been with my private Landlord for _____ years

My rent is fair

My rent has not been increased since I commenced my tenancy. (edit as necessary)

Repairs and maintenance issues are dealt with swiftly when reported.

I am happy with the service I receive from my landlord; I am dealt with fairly.

This is my home I am happy to call it my home.

+ I would be interested in becoming a Co-owner with my current landlord if the opportunity was given and viable, I understand this will need government backing, please informed of this.

+ I am happy with renting and wish to continue, however Section 24 risks my being able to afford continuing my tenancy, it affects me and others like me nationwide, why are you letting this happen?

I ask you to put an end to Section 24, there are better ways to help first time buyers, work on them.

If you want my vote section 24 has to go.

Your sincerely

Tenants Name
Ps kindly ensure my details are only used for this correspondence and not passed to third parties or use for any other purpose.

Chris