The following is not only absolutely true, so too are the photos. As both a landlord and agent, every week are varying numbers of Gas Safety Checks that require their annual renewals and each week the engineer arrives at my offices to collect all the sets of keys to the relevant properties. It’s a system […]

In our area there are 1930s estates which rent well. There are many semi and some detached. One area or estate has many houses where the third bedroom is something like 40 sq feet. This is only really a child’s bedroom. I am wondering about buying one for the rental market and converting this room […]

London Trading Standards claim more than 46% of 1,922 agents inspected in the 15 months up to June 2019 by local council trading standards officers in London were non-compliant with either the Consumer Rights Act or the legislation on redress scheme membership. LTS also report letting agents were fined over £1.2million for breaking the law […]

Superstition stalls the property market as completions drop nearly 40% on Friday 13th This coming Friday 13th could put the housing and commercial property markets on pause according to analysis by Search Acumen, which shows a double-digit drop in both residential and commercial sales on Friday 13th. HM Land Registry data shows that the average […]

THIS August brings with it the label of all-time high rental prices, according to the latest data from HomeLet. The headlines from August 2019’s HomeLet Rental Index are: The average rent in the UK is now at an all-time high figure of £970, this is up by 2.4% (£23) on the same time last year […]

Nightmare tenant, arrears, treats the place like a tip etc. Section 8 issued for rent arrears – eventually paid up when case came to court. Then her legal representative threw back a counterclaim of ‘landlord disrepair’ knowing she had just secured Legal Aid (how the hell this was granted knowing that there was no evidence […]

The true cost of a being a landlord: Letting platform Howsy has revealed how the profitability of the buy-to-let sector is being squeezed due to the hidden costs of being a landlord, coupled with the financial penalties handed down from the Government via changes to stamp duty tax. In recent times, the buy-to-let market has […]

Tenants face higher rents as a result of the demand for private rented housing outstripping supply according to the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS). In their latest survey of the housing market they say that demand for private rented housing has increased for an eighth month in a row. This comes as supply continues […]

Shelter have issued a press release responding to MHCLG’s latest statutory homelessness statistics. The figures, as reported by Shelter,  indicate that a household became homeless every 4 minutes in England in the last year (April 2018 to March 2019) and that young people aged 16 to 24 are disproportionately affected by this country’s housing emergency. […]

The Liberal Democrats have released the agenda for their 2019 party conference. Click here to download. The Party looks likely from the agenda document below to confirm support for Conservative policy of banning Section 21 and reforming the court process. Conference notes with concern: i) The growing numbers of people across the UK reliant upon […]

The August 2019 RICS Residential Market Survey show tenant demand increased for an eighth month in succession, as a net balance of +23% of contributors cited a pick-up (non-seasonally adjusted figures). Set against this, landlord instructions remain in decline, an ongoing trend stretching all the way back to 2016. Given the consistent imbalance between rising demand […]

The attacks on landlords are coming thick and fast and no political  party is the landlord”s friend. However, the worst possible fate that could befall our businesses would be for us to have them stolen from us. Last week Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell proposed just this in an interview with the Financial Times. Click here […]

The government department Office of Tax Simplification (OTS) is seeking views on tax reporting and payment arrangements for self employed people and landlords of residential property owned in their personal names (not for company owned property) to inform its work. The consultation closes on the 20 September 2019. the OTS published a document setting out […]

The left wing think tank, Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) has released a study titled ‘Reforming the taxation of income from wealth and work‘ which recommends the taxation of wealth in the same way as income. The IPPR claim that income inequality in the UK is one of the highest in the world and […]

THE Government’s approach to the private rented sector is “incoherent” according for a former member of the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC). David Miles, now a Professor of Financial Economics at Imperial College London, has argued that contrary to the Government’s stated aims, there are “few signs” that tax increases on the sector […]

I bought a property divided into 3 self-contained flats. I have a tenant in one, but she is not paying rent or energy since l bought it 8 weeks ago. I have decided to sell it as l don’t have any idea of how to produce so many papers and the stress that the Council […]

Please help me. I bought a property with a tenant and I had no idea what being a landlord meant! The tenant is really making my life miserable. She did not sign the new contract and Nottingham council is doing everything to keep her in. They are demanding I give her the boiler room key, […]

Research conducted by BVA BDRC on behalf of Precise Mortgages reports HMO landlords are currently receiving the highest average rental yields in the market at 6.3%. This compares to the overall average rental yield of 5.5% for private landlords. HMO investment popularity remains strong in the face of increased regulation and punitive tax reforms in […]

ARLA Propertymark has sought Counsel’s Opinion from housing barrister Erol Topal to clarify for it’s agent members if the tenant fees ban allows for a charge or commission to be made for arranging repair works. This has been a common and frequently asked question by agents since the legislation came into force on the 1st […]

They helpfully link to articles quoting industry experts who predicted that higher property taxes would lead to higher rents in their article: “Higher property taxes needn’t mean higher rents… Some argue that taxing rental income or buy-to-let transactions will lead some landlords to sell up, reducing the supply of rented housing and thus raising rents. The flaw with such […]

Are you managing your rented property within the law? Many landlords think they are – only to find to their cost later that they are not. There are four traps that landlords’ tend to fall into: 1. Thinking that managing rented property is easy 2. Thinking that they are bound to be a good landlord […]