My tenant has been renting my house for just over two months and today I have found out she has fraudulently used my bank details, which I gave her to pay her rent into, to set up a direct debit to pay her phone and broadband provider. I have been in contact with my local […]

My ex purchased a property by way of a mortgage.  He lived there alone for several years, before meeting me. He asked me to move in with him, I agreed. We decided that we should make the house ‘our’ space, by re-decorating it from top to bottom.   I did all of the painting at the […]

I am a landlord in Scotland, I’ve been exploring transferring my portfolio or least half of it into a limited company. One of the main problems I’ve been experiencing is finding the right people to steer my through the process and don’t charge astronomical fees. I’ve spoke with a few brokers and commercial lenders and […]

Hi all, let me first thank you for giving me your attention! I’ve got three multi-occupancy properties in Doncaster that I’m letting through an agency that specialises in this kind of thing. They’ve been ticking over fairly well for the last few months, with me taking up to £500 net profit (after mortgage, insurance etc.) […]

OPEN LETTER TO ANDREA LEADSOM MP RE PRIVATE LANDLORDS @andrealeadsom – https://t.co/KpkYxASvsH pic.twitter.com/aO7ljphHB8 — Property118.com (@Property118) July 11, 2016 Dear Mrs Leadsom Please pledge to stop the government’s attack on private landlords! As a conservative party member and former local councillor, I was sorry to hear of your decision to withdraw from the leadership race, […]

My husband and I are in the process of an amicable divorce, he has a number of properties and wishes to gift two to me one to live in and the other to make sure I am financially ok, he has plans to move on with another woman. I’m not confident I can take on […]

I’m looking for advice from my fellow Housing Benefit accepting landlords. As more tenants are beginning to migrate to Universal Credit (UC) I am finding that I am being asked by the tenant (after being told by DWP) for an up to date/new tenancy agreement in order for their UC claim to be processed. Previously […]

Can someone explain me the math on a contract reassignment? (FYI: I know there are risks in contract reassignments, but my question is not trying to understand those risks) I have an opportunity to take on a contract re-assignment. The current vendor is selling it at lower than the original price which is what makes […]

I had a very interesting conversation this morning with Alan Harris of the Local Government Association. This week is National Scam Awareness Week where 370 local Councils are uniting to expose fraudulent practices. I explained that Property118 Action Group is bringing a particularly large (multi-million pound) private criminal prosecution to Court next month via Mark […]

Can anyone advise on the rights and responsibilities of Freeholders in relation to the tenants of their long leaseholders please. We are the freeholders of a block of flats and are very concerned about the letting agents employed by the long leaseholder of one flat, and also the behaviour of some of the tenants of […]

As a respectable, honorable landlord the buck firmly stops with you! However, the harsh realities is as we all know include constant chasing, booking workmen in and being let down. Just this week I had a young plumber who has been chasing me for months about giving him a whole job to “show me what […]

I have sold a property after it sat empty for a year. However, I am now forced to pay the full council tax liable against the property. My question is can I use the council tax costs as an expense against my other lets for tax purposes? Many thanks Peter

My tenants advised that they have split up. Miss T wishes to remain at my property, but wants Mr T removed from Tenancy (its on periodic). I have been advised by RLA that if Mr T sends me Notice to Quit (NTQ) that will remove him from the Joint tenancy and liability will pass to […]

My VAT conundrum is – I am looking to purchase a group of buildings freehold. There are 4 buildings in total, split into 10 separate units. Building 1 is 2 units both let out to 1 tenant with a 10 year lease. Building 2 is 3 units, unit 1 is let to a tenant with […]

UKAR (as Mortgage Express) have appointed an LPA receiver on a flat I own. They said I didn’t make any payments to the account for 3 months. I have shown them redacted bank statements showing payments made from my account to their collections account. Apparently this isn’t good enough. they are now asking that I sign new […]

Thank you to all who took part in what turned out to be our most highly attended webinar ever. With almost 600 registered, you can imagine there were many questions. We will answer these in a series of articles, starting here with part one. Please clarify the difference between PF88 and PF89 Both of these […]

They say a picture tells a thousand words. Well just look at this picture of how Hong Kong has developed over the last 40 years! It is generally considered that it was the vision of a British Diplomat who turned around the fortunes of Hong Kong by creating a low tax environment to attract business […]

With the impending new tax rules coming into force next year restricting mortgage interest tax relief for landlords with properties in their personal names there has unsurprisingly been a massive percentage increase in Buy to Let mortgages taken out in limited company names. Figures from Mortgages for Business show that their market share of Buy […]

I sold a flat last year which I had owned for 11 years. I lived in it for the first 2 years, before moving into a house with my partner. I made a reasonable profit on the transaction, but also spent quite a bit on refurbishments (kitchen, bathroom, decorating, etc…) while it was rented and […]

I own a lease self contained upper maisonette with its own garden since Aug 2000. It’s part of a two flat building. The lower maisonette was recently sold and the new owners have done building works and in the process have taken two storage areas which were adjacent to their property but part of my […]

I manage a block of 4 flats in a Victorian building. When one of the owners decided to sell his flat three years ago, we had a professional Fire Safety Risk Assessment completed. Some recommendations were made to reduce the fire risk, and these were done, with the surveyor returning to inspect the improvements and […]