Page 749 – Property118

Should we offer longer term tenancies?

22nd April 2015

Hello everyone, This is the second question I have asked here, thank you for all the fantastic responses last time.  Watching the recent national political debates and attending local political debates there has been mention a few times of forcing landlords to offer longer term tenancies, I have heard three, four and even five year […]

Paul Shamplina helps landlord evict bankrupt Pete Burns

21st April 2015

A landlord claims to have suffered a mental breakdown due to the stress of renting to the former singer of 80s group Dead or Alive Pete Burns. The bankrupt singer was evicted from his London flat today after failing to pay more than £34,000 in rent. Paul Shamplina founder of Landlord Action, the landlords legal […]

Death of a Tenant

21st April 2015

My Tenant since 23.07.2007 has died unexpectedly in hospital. He had recently married at the beginning of this year, but without his pension his wife will probably unable to continue to pay the rent beyond his meager savings, which she could take several months to inherit.  I could down size the flat to assist this […]

Half of over 40s considering Buy to Let property as a retirement plan

21st April 2015

OVER half of those saving towards their retirement say they would consider investing or are already investing in buy-to-let properties to increase their retirement income, according to new research. A national survey of 915 retirement savers aged 40 or over, found that 8% are already investing in buy-to-let property, while another 45% said that they […]

Heat Genius, Good Investment?

21st April 2015

I have been a landlord for approximately 3 years.  I have a question about a possible investment, it’s a remote controlled heating system which enables the user to heat up specific locations in the household, as opposed to the whole household simultaneously. It’s supposed to save the user money in the long term (& apparently […]

Stamp duty on transfers between spouses

20th April 2015

I have owned a property jointly with my husband since 1995. We transferred the mortgage from residential to buy to let in 2002 and now have 3 BTL properties in our portfolio.  My husband is 69 and to remortgage the property we agreed that it will be transferred into my name. Advice from our mortgage […]

Need advice on student investment in Lincoln

20th April 2015

I’m brand new to property letting and I am contemplating buying a 3 bed terrace or house in Lincoln with a view to renting this out to students on a per room arrangement, I want to know can I do this ? Do I need additional permission from my lender ? Do I need to […]

Management company and redress scheme

20th April 2015

I wonder if anyone has had a similar issue and can confirm how their local authority has acted (or advised) in relation to whether the redress scheme applies to landlord owned management companies. We own a company to manages our flats (and only our flats) which are let through the council to people in need […]

Late, unexpected and excessive service charges

20th April 2015

I own a 2 bed flat with a managing agent of the building based up in Nottingham. I receive invoices twice a year for 6 months worth of payments in advance for the management/maintenance of the building (12 flats and 3 business units). The quality of service from this organisation has been appalling with hardly […]

Innovative Buy to Let loans

20th April 2015

Albert Einstein has many famous quotes and I am quite fond of this one: “In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity”. This is particularly true of the buy to let market right now and here are a couple of statistics to demonstrate opportunity: Gross buy to let mortgage advances grew by 23% in 2014, compared […]

Advice required on removing tenant who called the police!

20th April 2015

Joint tenants signed 6 month AST, before the 6 months were up (November time) the couple broke up and the wife remained in the property. The husband was asked to write to me expressing his wishes to be removed from the AST, he never did. After the 6 months the wife stayed in the property […]

Evictions – It’s a messy business!

20th April 2015

Last week I attended an eviction in East London with the Channel 5 film crew in tow.  This was not an ordinary case; the arrears were in excess of £20k as a result of rent not being paid for over 2 ½ years. The landlord was based overseas and had passed his portfolio of properties […]

Legionella risk assessment update please

17th April 2015

I can see this was discussed last year but thought I would start a new thread rather than resurrect the old thread where the advice and guidance may now be out of date. The agents of my 3 bed residential rental property have just written to me to advise that “ACOP L8 now applies to […]

Rent money paid but letting agent cannot find it?

17th April 2015

This is a strange one ,my Tenant has paid the letting agent, so she told me so I asked for bank statements to prove this story and from that I see she has paid. But the letting agent says she is in arrears by£1534.45, so they will not pay me. They say her Bank did […]

The legal duties and responsibilities re a Leaseholder’s Information Form

17th April 2015

I am trying to ascertain the area and extent of the responsibility for the completion and assessment of this document and not finding it easy. The Leaseholders Information Form (LIF) is completed by a vendor and so far as I understand matters must answer honestly and has a duty to inform their solicitor of any […]

NLA makes it easier for tenants to check landlords

16th April 2015

The National Landlords Association (NLA) has today (16 April 2015) launched its initiative to enable tenants to check if their landlord is accredited; the National Register of Accredited Landlords. The announcement was made by Chief Executive Officer, Richard Lambert who was speaking at the Chartered Institute of Housing’s annual South West Conference. The Register, which […]

I just lost £205 because I didn’t have Landlords Emergency Cover

16th April 2015

I’VE just lost £205 on a single property because I didn’t have Landlords Emergency Cover in place. That’s a whole month’s profit for the property lost because I had put off buying the cover since December 2014. The Letting Agent called me up at around 1000 today  to say the tenants had complained the boiler […]

Council to reassess my tenants Housing Benefit but they are taking forever. Help

16th April 2015

My tenant had his Housing Benefit stopped, he has provided the info the council requested, but they are taking forever to do the re-assessment. Consequently I am owed many weeks rent which is seriously affecting my cashflow. I’ve asked them several times to prioritise the matter, but I just get told there is a backlog […]

Can I claim expenses against tax?

16th April 2015

I live in Bury,Lancashire and am about to rent a property near Durham City. I incurred some expenses i.e. gas safety certificate, insulation and a visit to the property to facilitate these expenses last month which is also the last tax year when the property was not as yet let (it has never been let). […]

Evasive tenant gone AWOL

16th April 2015

I have a tenant who has left the flat without giving notice and has moved into another house in the area. This tenant has stopped paying rent and has stopped responding to phonecalls, texts etc. I went to the property the other day to issue her with a Section 21 to end the tenancy and […]

Evicting Tenants and Recovering Rent Arrears Guide

14th April 2015

On the back of the popularity in the number of downloads for the free PDF Guide to Enforcing Judgements we produced a new Guide to Evicting Tenants and Recovering Rent Arrears. This guide has been updated today, please complete the form below to download your free copy. As you may be aware, HMCTS recently provided […]