Hello everyone, In these difficult economic times, firms are regularly going bust and creating financial problems for their employees, and the SE (self employed) are just as vulnerable. Would it not make sense to have guarantors for all tenants? Thank you, Grahame

The average buy-to-let mortgage rates for some typical two-year fixed rate deals favoured by landlords have doubled since the start of the year, it has been revealed. According to Property Master’s Mortgage Tracker, the average rate for a typical £160,000 BTL mortgage fixed for two years for a Loan to Value (LTV) of 60% had […]

Hello everyone, We had tenants for 4 years living in our 5 bed house next door. We got on very well and we were quite relaxed with them. Over time however, I came to realise that they were moving in more rodents in cages into bedrooms. I arranged for an agent to start to manage […]

Houses in Multiple Occupation (HMO) are moving up the value chain as tenants demand better amenities, research by Paragon Bank has revealed. A survey of HMO landlords found that tenants today expect en suite bathrooms, larger rooms, high-speed broadband and quality furnishings. An HMO is a property consisting of at least three people who are […]

The number of landlord possession actions in England for all court stages has increased compared to the same quarter of last year, the Ministry of Justice has revealed. In the latest data, they have compared April to June of this year, with the same period last year. The figures highlight: landlord possession actions; claims (18,201), […]

British investors are spending an average of £1.2 million to quickly bolster their property investments by buying full portfolios rather than single properties, research reveals. According to specialist property lending experts, Octane Capital, the North East is currently providing the best value for money. The firm says that some experienced property investors prefer to invest […]

The University of York and the University of Bristol are undertaking work on new digital risk profiling tools in housing. Digital automated products that undertake tenant referencing are part of a new digital landscape for landlords and agents that automate parts of the tenant selection and tenancy and property management processes. We are interested in […]

Rents and house prices will continue to rise across the UK even as demand drops because there is a severe lack of housing stock, research from RICS reveals. According to the RICS Residential Market Survey for July, there was a continued fall in house sales over the month. And while tenant demand is rising, there […]

Tenants will struggle to pay their rent and bills as growing numbers of them are already cutting their food budget because of the cost-of-living crisis. The warning comes from Sarah Coles, a senior personal finance analyst at the financial services firm Hargreaves Lansdown. Sarah points to data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) on […]

Hello, We have a holiday let and as the cost of living climbs… are considering putting our 5-bed holiday house in Norfolk, that we live next-door to, on a short term let over the winter months. Our questions are: We understand anything more than 30 days risks losing our holiday let status with the council […]

Hello everyone, If you have fixed gas appliances in residential premises you let, the Smoke and Carbon Monoxide Alarm (Amendment) Regulations 2022, unintelligible as they are, will affect you from 1st October 2022. The government has published guidance for landlords and tenants which says all relevant landlords must: “Ensure a carbon monoxide alarm is equipped […]

The number of deposits being protected has increased across the UK, The Dispute Service (TDS) says. Steve Harriott, the chief executive at TDS, said: “This data shows the bounce back in the lettings market that happened from the spring of 2021 as we came out of lockdown. “However, towards the end of the financial year […]

Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, has urged landlords who have a former council house they want to sell to offer their property to local councils – rather than selling to other landlords. Mr Khan has given an update on the Right to Buy-back scheme which was unveiled in July last year in a bid […]

A property expert says that the cost-of-living crisis calls into question the viability of selective private landlords licensing schemes. Selective licensing gives councils the power to regulate privately rented housing in areas of high deprivation, crime, anti-social behaviour and migration or low housing demand. This involves charging a fee for a five-year licence, which is […]

Since the beginning of the year, higher mortgage rates have led to the annual profits for a typical landlord being halved, research reveals. The findings from estate agent Hamptons, show that interest rate hikes are now eating into the profit that the average landlord is now able to make. And, following the base rate rise […]

What to do for the best? I have long-standing tenants (from 2016) who don’t appear to have done any cleaning since then. The shower cubicle resembles a 21st-century Black Hole of Calcutta (i.e. it is black moulded from top to bottom) with the moving door parts so heavily limescaled that they barely grind into a […]

The Association of Independent Inventory Clerks (AIIC) claims that the topic of inventories in the property industry requires more attention. They say that landlords and agents who do not put the right processes in place could end up accruing unnecessary costs. The AIIC argues that although inventories are not compulsory in the property industry, they […]

Hello, I value everybody’s opinion here. I had a long term tenant in a flat which has been quite low maintenance. He asked for new carpet which I provided and 4 days later he gave notice, a month after renewing, which I wasn’t best pleased about. Anyway, he put posters up on every wall in […]

Landlords would have lost more than £1 million over the last year without anti-fraud tech picking up fraudulent tenancy applications during the referencing process, research from Goodlord reveals. The lettings platform says that 20% of applicants flagged by their anti-fraud technology in the past year were then confirmed as being fraudulent by its specialist team. […]

Research by GetAgent has revealed just how out of kilter the nation’s housing delivery is when it comes to the level of homes required in each area versus the reality of those actually delivered. The estate agent comparison site analysed government data from the Housing Delivery Test 2021, an annual measurement that highlights the need […]

Those of you with long memories will recall the talks I gave 5 to 10 years ago about my ‘shaving foam technique’. It got me hated by the #leaseholdscandal keyboard warriors, who saw it as encouraging developers to fleece leaseholders. It did nothing of the sort, but the #fleeceholdscandal brigade didn’t understand what I was […]