When it comes to achieving maximum value, it is easy to forget that what is appealing in terms of taste to one person can be abhorrent to the next. Of the many home improvement faux pas which affect saleability and value in the minds of buyers, the following seven deadly sins represent the equivalent of […]

I have updated a property of mine with a new extra wall insulation on green deal finance, new boiler and new roof. Which has been an expensive upgrade. My tenants saw a massive improvement in their energy costs. However due to job circumstances they moved out in June. I now have new tenants who I […]

We have a small portfolio of BTL properties one of which incurs an annual Management Fee which we have paid for the past 10 years, but we are now wondering should this have been an expense passed on to our tenant as she is clearly the ones who has benefited from the services provided? As […]

I will try to keep this as simple as possible!  I am the sole owner of 5 buy to let properties on mortgage. I wish to remain the sole owner by way of land registry. My wife has done majority of the leg work and finances towards the building of this portfolio – albeit in […]

In an interview with The Times the Bank of England chief economist, Andy Haldane, said property was “almost certainly” a better investment for retirement and he could not make “the remotest sense of pensions”. This has caused quite a stir and accusations of irresponsibility considering his current pension pot is now worth a reported £83,816 […]

My mother is 97, has Alzheimers and a pacemaker. She lives in a mansion block, is a freeholder and probably the longest resident in the building. The owner of the flat upstairs is a director of the freeholders association. His nephew has bought the flat. He has also bought the space outside the flat and […]

I am very near to completion on an investment flat that I intend to rent out. The service charge includes the building insurance, however I want to know if this insurance will cover letting the place? I have been asking my solicitor this question for weeks now and frustratingly am still yet to get any […]

This is another one of those antagonistic headlines to get you hot under the collar and to motivate you into action. It’s nothing you can’t read every day in the comments section of the National media though is it? And can you really blame the journalists for publishing their sensationalist, attention grabbing, anti-landlord headlines to sell […]

If everybody who benefited from our campaign against The West Brom was do donate just 10% of the £27,500,000 we recovered for them Property118 Action Group would have a fighting find today of over £2.75 million. If each person who read my article last night had committed £10 a month we would be building a fighting fund at a rate of […]

I am asking on behalf of my mother, who owns a three-bedroom house. The property was leased to an estate agents that offer guaranteed rent whether the property has tenants or not. My mother signed a contract for two years, so she was due to receive the property back in May 2016. As such, she […]

The average house price across the top 100 universities in the UK equates to £319,963, according to a new poll. Leeds University achieved the best balance of UCAS entry level and property prices for those considering a buy to let investment. Leeds University has an average entry requirement of 436.5 UCAS points and an average […]

After reading all the doom and gloom on the new tax rules and now the underhand tactics regarding CGT, I’m pretty much done and looking to sell up. I’m really worried that I will go bankrupt and take my family with me. It just isn’t sustainable under these new rules. I have two properties both […]

The Supreme Court has ruled that an occupier of a private residence cannot invoke Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) as a defence when the private landlord seeks possession. Article 8 Article 8 http://www.echr.coe.int/Documents/Convention_ENG.pdf covers the right to respect for private and family life and states the following: Everyone has the […]

If you thought clause 24 of the 2015 finance bill was underhanded, wait until you get a load of this!  The government have slipped some additional clauses into the finance bill 2016 “Sections 75-78: taxation of profits from trading and investing in UK Land” which make profits made on the sale of buy-to-let property become taxable income, at […]

Myself and my wife are established BTL landlords with a high value portfolio of six properties in London. The net result taxwise is that we both now have incomes of just above the higher rate limit of £43K and no other income. The purpose of the portfolio is purely is to provide a long term […]

I have a new family moving in 1/10/2016 who wish to bring there own gas cooker. Do I have any legal responsibility to get the tenants own gas cooker they want to install gas safety checked or is it their responsibility to use a gas safe installer of cookers? I appreciate that I need a gas safety certificate […]

I have just had a very traumatic experience after taking a freehold management company to 1st tier tribunal over a costs dispute. This is my story of how winning £800 cost me over £14,000. In 2014 I took a managing agent to a 1st Tier Tribunal and they were ordered to repay unreasonable service charges. The tribunal made […]

Their leader has been praying for a House Price Crash for years, he’s even set up a forum dedicated to helping to create one! By his own admission he can afford to buy a place of his own but has always chosen not to. What a plonka! His strategy is based on hope and he’s recruited around three […]

It’s all well and good moaning about headlines like the one above and the bias of anti landlord media which leads to increased legislation and higher taxes but what are we doing about it? Ah yes, we are going to pass on all the costs to our tenants because they should foot the bill – […]

I private rented with no letting agents, had a basic tenancy agreement and paid my rent each month. The landlord wasn’t paying his mortgage and now the house has been repossessed leaving my family homeless. We got the letter informing us of eviction 6th July, this is when I refused to pay the rent for […]

The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) has suggested a possible Brexit clause that can be added by member surveyors to be added to Valuation reports. This is intended to offer protection for Surveyors against the uncertainty of future house price movements while the issue of Brexit and its repercussions are still uncertain. The RICS […]