Under the Regulations a landlord must ensure every electrical installation in the residential premises is inspected and tested at regular intervals by a qualified person “electrical installation” has the meaning given in regulation 2(1) of the Building Regulations2010(4); which says: “electrical installation” means fixed electrical cables or fixed electrical equipment located on the consumer’s side […]

The housing market in England will remain open in all 4 tiers. This means that people looking to move home will be able to both continue with planned moves and view new properties to move into in the future. Estate and lettings agents, removers, valuers and people in sales and lettings offices and show homes […]

A tenant has contacted me to say she can hear mice under the floorboards upstairs. She knows for sure that they have them next door, as she knows one of the occupants, and she said they were rife, but although she has reported them to her LL nothing has been done. This neighbouring lady moved […]

Over 800,000 private renters in England and Wales have built rent arrears since lockdown measures began according to new research published today. A survey of tenants for the National Residential Landlords Association by the research consultancy, Dynata, suggests that 7% of private renters have built arrears due to Covid. Applied across the sector that would […]

In the draft budget, on 21 December 2020, the Welsh Government announced changes to the higher residential rates, and non-residential rates and bands, of Land Transaction Tax (LTT). The higher residential rates of LTT will increase by 1% across all bands on 22 December 2020. If you complete on buying a property: before 22 December […]

Hometrack have released their latest House Price Index confirming their latest data for November indicating it has been a rollercoaster of a year with demand set to be up 33% compared to December 2019. Click here The Pandemic has driven demand for space and quality of location, with 40% more buyers across the whole of […]

Councils will receive additional government support to prevent vulnerable people from becoming homeless. £310 million will be targeted at areas with high numbers of homeless people, those at risk of homelessness, or those living in temporary accommodation helping them to rebuild their lives. The funding represents a £47 million increase on this year and can be used to offer financial support for people to find a […]

Do I need to protect a deposit via a protection scheme if received from a company for the lease of my house to them, if it is a commercial let and therefore NOT an AST? Is it best to contract out of the L & T Act 1954 so they (the Company) have no automatic […]

High Court enforcement action is currently underway against Liverpool City Council and enforcement officers entered the council’s Cunard building at 10am Friday morning with allegedly dozens and dozens of Writs to the tune of around £100k being executed for, what is believed to be, Data Protection/GDPR breaches against a landlord specifically in relation to the […]

The Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) voted unanimously to maintain the Bank Base Rate at 0.1% and to commence the previously announced programme of £150 billion Quantitative Easing. The MPC’s projections assume that the pandemic would have a greater effect on consumer spending than projected in the August and that the UK would […]

The government has announced a £30 million fund to help end the scandal of excessive waking watch costs, as part of a further move to support thousands of residents in high-rise buildings. The new Waking Watch Relief Fund will pay for the installation of fire alarm systems in high-rise buildings with cladding, removing or reducing […]

Hi everyone, I have a BTL apartment in Scotland and have been enquiring about changing our mortgage from BTL to Commercial/FHL so we can start letting it out as Serviced Accommodation. I am really struggling to get anyone to give me a quote for it as it’s my first time doing it, but also because […]

This question relates to EICRs in blocks of flats where there is a separate metered supply to each flat with the meters all located in one place, perhaps near the main entrance plus a communal supply for lighting the communal areas – staircases, landings etc. According to the regulations, the inspection by each landlord should […]

Private landlords have been giving more help to tenants who cannot pay their rent as a result of Covid-19 than those in the social sector according to the English Housing Survey published today. Since the start of the pandemic 6% of private renters had secured a reduction in their rent payments compared to only 2% […]

Thousands of homebuyers will pull the plug on their deals as a result of the stamp duty holiday not being extended. Around a third (31%) said they would very likely cancel their planned move if they had to pay stamp duty, with a further 43% admitting that they would most likely do the same, according […]

ARLA Propertymark’s Private Rented Sector (PRS) report has confirmed that the number of landlords not increasing rents for tenants during the pandemic emergency has again fallen for the third month in a row Figures for the November report show only 28% of ARLA agents witnessed landlords increasing rents compared to 37% in October and 40% […]

The Welsh Government has agreed measures to suspend evictions from social and private rented accommodation between December 11 and January 11 this year as part of its response to tackling the spread of COVID-19. Housing and Local Government Minister Julie James said: “We have taken action to protect public health and support Welsh tenants this […]

A new report from Shelter indicates 253,000 people in England are homeless and living in temporary accommodation during the pandemic, which is the highest figure for 14 years. Rising homelessness is already a major problem with the latest figures showing 115,000 more people are homeless and trapped in temporary accommodation than a decade ago, but […]

Following a consultation launched in the summer that sought views from planners, councils and the wider public, the government has announced its plan for enabling the delivery of more homes across England. A housing need formula is currently used to provide a starting point in the process of local planning for new homes. An updated method […]

We own and rent out a maisonette (c. 1900) which is a single building, with one entrance leading to the ground floor flat and the second leading directly to the first floor flat. It appears that it was split into two flats sometime after it was built (perhaps c. 1960s). We purchased the property in […]

Despite having been a landlord for over 20 years, I only became aware yesterday of the existence of contractual periodic tenancies, as opposed to statutory periodic tenancies! I am now rather worried about this; when one of our fixed-term tenancies has come to an end I have – in good faith – been telling our […]