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 […]

Hello everyone, Isn’t the language barrier the biggest issue at the end of the day? I’ve taken a single Ukrainian lady on in a one bed flat who was fleeing from the war (via reference from Council and charity sponsor). Very good English, educated, eager to settle and start work, so not too difficult. There […]

Hello everyone, My wife and I own a leasehold flat in a block of six. A head leaseholder is named on the lease but the freeholder is unknown. We want to extend the lease, so made every attempt to identify the freeholder without success. We appointed a search agency to find the freeholder, and we […]

Fines for landlords and letting agents in London have increased by more than £1.5m in the last year to more than £8 million. The figure comes from technology firm Kamma who are tracking the Mayor of London’s Rogue London and Agent Checker. They also highlight that fines have increased by £238,000 in the last month […]

Hello everyone, My London (Clapham) Loft flat has become “uninhabitable” and/or “uncomfortable to live in” says my Tenant. She further says it is consistently 4 or 5 degrees higher than the outdoors temperature during our present heatwave. She finds an indoor fan ineffective. She continues “the only common heat reduction solutions seem to be air conditioning […]

Birmingham is the rental property repossession capital when it comes to landlords reclaiming their homes from problem tenants and there are fears that things could get worse with the cost-of-living crisis. A market analysis by estate and lettings agent, Barrows and Forrester, has revealed that during the first quarter of this year, there have been […]

I Have been with Nat West since I left School – over 50 years ago now. I have never let them down or had a problem with them. Out of the blue, with no notice or warning, yesterday they shut down all of my accounts. My Direct Debits have started bouncing already. All of my […]

Hi everyone, I have a £100k cash fund in the bank and it is losing 10% ( ?) pa due to inflation. I also have a Buy to Let interest only mortgage in my personal name on a single-let apartment costing 4% on Sonia standard variable rate term and rising. This mortgage is due for […]

HMRC has revealed that it collected a ‘staggering’ £14.3 billion in capital gains tax (CGT) from 323,000 taxpayers in the 2020 to 2021 tax year. The liability was realised on £80 billion of gains. According to the latest data, the CGT on UK property service was used by 129,000 taxpayers who filed 137,000 returns to […]