You wouldn’t expect your family Doctor to perform major surgery on you, so why do most landlords expect their accountants to provide tax planning advice and recommend the optimal structure for their business? Most accountants work with all types of businesses, they are general practitioners in tax. Their speciality is to ensure you have recorded […]

Dear Property118 members The government have announced that landlord redress will be mandatory in the future and they will be authorising schemes to cover landlords. They are setting up a Redress Reform Working Group to look at the practicalities of implementation and we at the Property Redress Scheme will be members of this group. Once […]

Mark Hayward, Chief Executive, NAEA Propertymark and David Cox, Chief Executive, ARLA Propertymark, comments on the Government’s response to Strengthening Consumer Redress in the Housing Market consultation: “In Propertymark’s response to the consultation last year, we called for greater clarity in the system and streamlining through the creation of a single portal along with a […]

On 24th January 2019 MHCLG announced that it will become compulsory for Private Landlords in England to become members of a Redress Scheme. No dates are available yet as to when this will become law but meanwhile I have been looking into the cost implications and decided to make my membership application to the Property […]

Sadiq Khan is to make wide ranging rent controls the key policy of his 2020 re-election bid by asking the government to give the London mayoralty the power to control rent increases in the capital. The Mayor said: “We need an approach to rent stabilisation and control that works in London. Once we have set […]

A new Housing Complaints Resolution Service has been announced for the entire housing market and for the first time ever, private landlords will be legally required to join a housing redress scheme. Click here to view the MHCLG release: Private landlords will be legally required to become members of a redress scheme – with a […]

Since the roll out of Universal Credit many landlords have become more and more frustrated in DWP’s consistencies. Recently, we have seen a large amount of complaints from landlords regarding DWP’s current complaint process. DWP are failing to respond to Stage One complaints within the 15 day period as stated in their policy and in […]

Background is that we are looking to buy a new residential property and retain our current property as BTL. I work and am hitting 40% tax, my partner has no income. Reading the forum (excellent BTW) I can see that setting a declaration of trust up would enable us to use her tax free allowance. […]

The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government has given Lincoln Council permission to ban To Let boards in part of the city dominated by student housing. This was after a consultation requested by local residents claiming the boards were an unnecessary eyesore. The questions are if bans on boards are going to become more […]

Daily Mail article published last night, Click here to view the full article: How Britain’s £239bn buy-to-let bubble burst: Our devastating audit shows ‘amateur’ landlords have been ruined by tax penalties – and lost their pension plans The article goes on to say: “A deluge of taxes and an uncertain market has seen tens of […]

Renting became more affordable in 2018 thanks to a combination of a once-in-a-decade fall in annual rents and wage inflation, according to The Deposit Protection Service (DPS). 2018 was the first calendar year since the global financial crisis of 2008 that average rents decreased in the UK, with the percentage of wages spent on rents […]

If you are trapped in Negative equity and need to find a solution we advocate Mediation as we believe that this is the best option not only for the clients, but also for the banks as this process saves all parties time money and distress. It is important to note that unlike Bankruptcy or IVA […]

‘Rumble with the Agents’, the annual white-collar charity boxing event hosted by Landlord Action is set to return for the fifth year running.  This year they are calling for participants and attendees to help them create life-changing wishes for children with critical illnesses through Make-A-Wish UK. Rumble with the Agents is a unique opportunity for people with […]

Our article “Ban on Lettings Fees to commence June 1st” (click here) created a great deal of discussion in the comments section and in-depth detail on what will and won’t be allowed and is worth catching up on along with the examples below. Further examples of fees banned, but not exhaustive include: Referencing cost Charging […]

Steve Harriott, Chief Executive Officer at Tenancy Deposit Scheme (TDS), discusses the serious fire at the company’s head-office, and how meticulous planning and a strong team meant that the service continued with barely a hiccup. (Pic right – what is left of a computer) I’ve always firmly believed that TDS’s biggest strength is the expertise, […]

I am a landlady of the residential property as well as a tenant of commercial one and got into trouble with our landlord. My partner and I running a small dry cleaning business from a rented premises. Our lease came to the end in September last year and we made a mistake by not acting […]

Rightmove have reported a small increase of 0.4% in the price of properties coming onto the market in January 2019 compared to a 1.4% drop in December. There was also a significant 5% rise in the number of searches for property on the website this month so far with an average of around 4.5m visits […]

I have a terraced house with a passageway between the neighbouring properties. The Tenants next-door have just been evicted, they caused damage to my side of the passageway and I have had to have 25 bricks stitched back in. I have contacted the Landlady who tells me that the Tenants are liable and she will […]

Please see below email I have received from Coventry City Council regarding a Selective Licensing scheme (not that selective) which is being rushed through with very little publicity to date.  Some of the facts and figures used to justify the scheme do not at first glance at least ring true! If you could publicise this […]

Data released by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, click here, warns that whilst demand for rented housing from tenants “held more or less stead for the third month running”, the number of landlord instructions “declined once again, rounding off a year in which they have fallen in all twelve months.” The RLA is blaming […]

Businesses, tradesmen, and contractors, are overcharging VAT to customers. Homeowners, property developers, and landlords, are routinely being charged VAT at the standard 20% rate, for works which should qualify for a reduced VAT rate. Most accountants don’t pick up on this, or don’t even know about it, (I asked several accountants and some bookkeepers), so […]