The government could cut funding for the Boiler Upgrade Scheme to help pay for defence spending in the upcoming Autumn Budget, according to media reports. Part of former energy secretary Ed Miliband’s £15 billion Warm Homes Plan, the scheme could face a significant funding squeeze as ministers seek to redirect billions of pounds towards defence. […]

London landlords have seen rents rise while house prices have fallen, according to research covering January to July. Yet in three of the capital’s boroughs, rents outperformed property prices simply by falling more slowly. Across the capital, average private rents increased by 0.47% a month, while house prices dropped by 0.10%. Estate agents Benham and […]

The government will take tougher enforcement action against those responsible for unsafe cladding. The Remediation of Unsafe Cladding Bill has been introduced to Parliament, proposing new legal duties, including a register of all medium-rise residential buildings in England between 11 and 18 metres in height. The government aims to ensure all buildings with unsafe cladding […]

The government has announced plans to pilot new certificates to help cut flood risks, but one insurance firm says expanding the Flood Re scheme to the landlords is key to making a real difference. Similar to Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs), the new Flood Performance certificates will outline a property’s flood risk, including its exposure, characteristics […]

With the Autumn Budget this month, landlords may be starting to feel the pressure. Landlords could be in the firing line once again after last year’s Autumn Budget announced two percentage point increases in tax rates on property and savings income from April 2027, and on ordinary and upper-rate dividend income from April 2026. Whilst […]

Repealing the Renters’ Rights Act is the top incentive to buy again for 39.9% of landlords planning to leave the sector completely (base 361), but for only 14.0% of those already planning to buy (base 107). Half of those still buying (49.5%) rank it last of the four incentives we asked about. These figures come […]

Tenants outside London have seen advertised rents pass £1,400 a month for the first time, while in the capital they are a record £2,825. Rightmove’s latest figures put the average asking rent at £1,418, up 1.5% over the quarter. Annual growth, however, stands at 2.4%, compared with increases of around 10% between 2021 and 2023. […]

An industry has called for the private rented sector to play a bigger role in tackling London’s housing shortage. Propertymark’s call comes in response to Mayor Sadiq Khan’s London Plan, which aims to provide capacity for around 558,000 new homes between 2027/28 and 2036/37, with 50% of homes to be genuinely affordable over the longer […]

To the Prime Minister and Housing Ministers, The state of UK housing policy raises serious questions about where government priorities truly lie. 1. Senior Accountability Following the Grenfell Tower tragedy—which cost 72 lives due to severe oversight failures—former RBKC housing director Laura Johnson secured a £157,000-a-year permanent role with council-owned housing company The Barnet Group. […]

Hello, Right now, I’m deep into trying to get my head around the latest Right to Rent regulations. It’s really not light reading, but absolutely necessary. A question struck me, that just won’t leave my already overfilled brain. Let’s just say that, by some miracle of unfortunate chance, I end up on the wrong side […]

Landlords considering an HMO investment face a £191,618 gap between the average asking price of an existing licensed property and the estimated cost of buying and converting one. Research by Rushbrook puts the average asking price of an existing licensed HMO in England at £340,264, compared with £531,882 for the purchase and conversion route. The […]

Landlords saw average yields rise in eight of England and Wales’s 10 monitored regions over the past year. Fleet Mortgages’ latest quarterly barometer puts the average at 7.9% in Q3 2026, compared with 7.5% a year earlier. Yorkshire and Humberside moved to the top of the table, overtaking the North East after yields increased from […]

From time to time I find myself heads up against loopholes in the legal system that allow what I feel are bad tenants’ being allowed to delay, frustrate and impede. In all cases this has resulted in stress and additional costs, even though this was always a serious contractual breach by the tenant which became […]

The government has acknowledged the challenges social housing landlords can face when tenants refuse access for electrical safety checks. A House of Lords debate on electrical safety checks in the private rented sector and social housing also discussed the introduction of Phase 2 of Awaab’s Law in social housing. The news comes as the government […]

Landlords could see more tenants competing for their properties after the number of homes available to let across England fell by 12.1% during the third quarter of 2026. The analysis by lettings platform Dwelly found that available listings have declined by an average of 6.5% per quarter since the start of the year. The firm […]

Almost half of landlords with 21 or more properties (46.2%, base 173) have sold at least one rental property in the past year, and in four in ten sales where a tenant was in place (41.6%, base 380), the landlord either does not know where the tenant went or the council rehoused them. These figures […]

Another council has paused its plans to introduce landlord licensing following a legal challenge. The selective licensing scheme for Brighton’s Central Hove and Regency wards had been due to begin on 20 October. Now Brighton & Hove City Council says it needs time to consider the challenge before deciding its next steps. The move follows […]

Four in 10 HMO tenants say they would pay more in rent to live with housemates they knew would be a good fit. Some would also stay longer if they had a say in who gets the room next door. The findings come from shared living platform COHO’s State of Shared Living Report, based on […]

Landlords who manage their own properties spend an average of 51 hours a month overseeing them. Even those paying for full management by an agent are spending an average of 11 hours a month on admin. The figures come from Pegasus Insight’s Landlord Trends research, which examines landlords’ use of letting agents and the time […]

Landlords looking to sell face a market in which fewer than four in 10 homes listed for sale in England have an offer agreed. Figures from estate agency eXp UK put buyer demand at 39.8% in the third quarter, with the firm reporting a quarterly fall of 1.6% and an annual decline of 3.8%. Its […]

The introduction of EPC C targets in Scotland could reduce the supply of private rented properties and drive up rents as landlords pass on the cost of energy efficiency improvements. These concerns were raised by organisations responding to the Scottish government’s consultation on minimum energy efficiency standards for the private rented sector (PRS), with particular […]