I am in process of buying my first buy to let property. I have couple of questions: (i) The property we are in process of buying is for my brother who doesn’t own any property in his name. Ideally we want to have property in his and his wife name but he couldn’t get mortgage […]

Too often Buy to Let best buy tables can leave you very disappointed as they are usually all based on a low Loan to Value of 60 or even 50% . I have done a more realistic search using a Freehold house purchase price of £100,000 and looking to borrow £75,000 with an applicant income […]

I had the pleasure of meeting Sophie Lydia-Smith at the launch of Cotswold Barristers new Chambers last year. Unlike stereotypical beauty Queens who campaign for world peace, Miss Cheltenham has agreed to help promote the  e-petition to Government on restricting finance cost relief for individual landlords. LINK Sophie is a building surveyor, her boyfriend is […]

65% of landlords are considering increasing rents following the Budget announcement, according to research by the Residential Landlords Association (RLA). New research reveals that increasing rents are a real possibility, despite the Government having made an argument that rents would not increase as a result of changes to how landlords are being taxed. HM Revenue […]

I have 56 years lease left in a flat. I am hoping to extend the lease. I understand that I can apply for Statutory 90 years lease extension plus pepper corn rent. I am hoping to increase my lease without spending a lot of money on solicitors. Can I do the initial negotiations and test […]

I bought a property 8 months ago which contains a lock up shop. The tenant who has been there since 2007 has given 3 months notice to quit. She says that when she moved in she had a wooden floor, kitchen sink and cabinets fitted. She says that as they are her property and she […]

I wonder if you can help me , my mother lives in a road where their is a property which has been vacant for the last thirty years . I have contacted the Land Registry and have obtained a copy of the title deeds . This has resulted in me writing a letter to the […]

We have a shorthold tenancy agreement in place but 5 months in we have been served with an eviction notice from the landlord’s bank. We have followed the relevant procedure to delay the process by making an application to court and filling in the N244 form etc. What annoys me is the landlady knew about […]

I have received below an email from a company who were going to improve my rented houses for FREE. All I have to do was to comply with certain requirements ( which I did ) and give £150 per property which would have been refunded at the end……..  We are writing to inform you that […]

The following questions have been raised in response to the Governments proposals for “restricting finance cost relief for individual landlords”.  1) Does the Government consider it is reasonable for any business to have to pay more tax than they actually make in profit? 2) Does the Government consider it is reasonable for any business to have […]

Can a Tenant change the locks without permission and without telling the Landlord?  I read my tenacy agreement from landlord association and it does not mention that tenants can’t change the locks. Does anyone have any advice about this? I am not that bothered really, but I am not sure they should do that. I […]

Following the announcement in the ‘Summer Budget’ by the chancellor George Osborne that Landlords will will only be able to offset mortgage interest at the basic rate of tax (20%) by 2020, many landlords may feel there investments are under risk. Landlords at current are allowed to view their mortgage interest as another cost, deducting […]

If you’ve made any taxable capital gains this year, would you consider swapping the majority of your tax bill for shares in Property118 Portal Ltd if it was possible to do so? Good news – this is entirely feasible! Here’s how it works … Due to completion of our crowd funding being SEIS conditional, you would […]

I have been asked by some industry heavyweights to gain some intel from the BTL community on how they feel about the Budget changes that will affect property investors.  The results of the survey could assist the market by producing valuable feedback to enable new and improved mortgage products become available to address (and hopefully […]

I spoke to Chris Sheldon at LettingSupermarket.com this morning to get an update on progress since the completion of their successful crowd funding campaign earlier this year.  Chris was delighted to report that the business is ahead of target in terms of cash at bank, turnover, profit and properties under management. He advised me that […]

We welcome tough questions from our investors, after all it is their money they are backing us with. Below is a selection of questions posted on the Q&A section of our Seedrs crowd funding pitch page together with my replies.  For more information about our crowd funding campaign, how to own shares in Property118 Portal […]

On Wednesday 22nd July 2015, the Ministry of Justice announced a new consultation on court fee increases. Civil proceedings March 2015 saw the introduction of a court fee of 5% of the value of the claim, up to a maximum cap of £10,000 for a claim of £200,000. The new consultation proposes raising this cap […]

Those of us who are lobbying for an amendment to the budget need to have a very clear message. I propose that message is “new tax rules for new debt only” Let us be absolutely clear; Government and the Bank of England have recognised a need to reduce growth in the buy-to-let market. It is […]

HMRC have now published a Consultation document on the removal of the 10% W&T Allowance. They are seeking responses via e-mail, with a closing date for comments of 9 Oct 2015. Jireh

I own/manage around 40+ properties in the East Midlands and South Yorkshire areas. I’ve heard of free solar panels a few years ago, and made enquiries, but they could not answer my questions about maintenance, insurance, etc, and they had extremely restrictive criteria for installation (e.g. roof direction and inclination), so I gave up considering […]

Aldermore have combined and enhanced their Residential and Commercial Buy to Let product ranges providing solutions for many types of landlords with a full spectrum of products for simple to complex deals. Buy to let range improvements include: 2, 3 and 5 year fixed rates from 4.18% Term Variable rates from 3.93% Maximum LTV increased […]