A section 21 was issued to my tenant to leave the property on 27th December he now tells me he can’t go as the flat he is moving into will not be ready now till the end of January. Can I issue him a licence or a holiday let to allow him to stay till […]

Is Clause 24 of the 2015 Finance Bill (“restricting finance cost relief for individual landlords”) discriminatory? Join the campaign for a Judicial Review

Landlord Tax – George Osborne Policy To Face Judicial Review. Private Buy-to-Let housing providers have chosen Boxing Day 2015 to begin their fight back at Chancellor George Osborne and his discriminatory tax regime, announced in the Summer Budget, which only targets private landlords with mortgages via the Judicial Review process. New tax rules will treat […]

David Strange, a member of Property 118, recently wrote to Mark Carney, Governor of the Bank of England, about the Government’s plans to restrict finance cost relief for individual landlords. The exchange between Mr Strange and Mr Carney reveals that the Bank of England Governor acknowledges that the recently announced changes to landlord taxation have […]

Ever since the Summer Budget we have been encouraging Property118 members to actively lobby their local elected officials to explain the real life consequences of Clause 24 of The 2015 Finance Bill (Restrictions on Finance Cost Relief For Individual Landlords). The vast majority of responses have been gratitude for highlighting the consequences of clause 24 and […]

The Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) has warned that rents could outstrip house prices with tenants paying as much as 25% more in 5 years time. Chief economist for RICS, Simon Rubinsohn, was concerned that recent government moves to discourage Buy to Let with a cap on mortgage interest relief and increasing stamp duty […]

Commenting on the decision by Greg Clark, Secretary of State for the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) to reject Redbridge Council’s application for a borough-wide landlord licensing scheme, Richard Lambert, CEO at the National Landlords Association (NLA) said: “The NLA did not believe that Redbridge’s proposals to licence every landlord across the Borough […]

My tenant reported via the estate agent a leaking window. It turns out the damage is quite extensive with some internal drain having not been set properly inside the wall (something like that). Anyway… I requested 3 window repair contractors to quote on the repairs and one of them went ahead with doing the work […]

Our block is currently being prepared for major works, the first since it was developed in 2002 (of course it should have been done every 7 years but due to a major fall out between leaseholders and freeholder/management the leaseholders refused to fund it – previous funds had been used for repairs that would benefit […]

I am converting a semi-detached large house into 5 self contained flats. 4 x flats will be 1 bedroom and 1 x 2/3 bedrooms. The 1 x 2/3 bedroom flat will have gas and I was contemplating gas central heating for the others too. However, I am now reconsidering as now the partitions are going […]

Researchers from a landlord tax campaign group, who joined forces via the Property118 online forum, believe they have located the source documents behind the discriminatory taxation policies targeting private landlords which are being implemented by Chancellor George Osborne. The landlord tax grab, which will make the housing crisis worse, was proposed by David Kingman, a non-economist, in a deeply flawed report which […]

I have a 3 bed property which was rented under an initial 12 months AST to 3 friends. One of the friends now needs to depart to London with his job. The 2 remaining tenants have found a suitable substitute sharer, and asked me to remove the departing tenant, and replace him with the new […]

I Bought a house at auction. It has a supposedly difficult tenant in it who has arrears. The AST has expired. I would like the tenant to leave asap. What is the procedure please? I understand that a Section 21 is useless as I don’t have an AST. I don’t want to enter into an […]

The question that most property investors and people who are looking to buy an investment property ask themselves: is property investment really viable? Since the GFC and with recent proposals that could see a 3% tax on the purchase of properties that are intended to be rented out and phasing out of interest costs and […]

UK housing could soon be facing a major upheaval as the UN climate change deal in Paris could mark the end of gas appliances in British homes. Gas hobs,fires,cookers and boilers could all be phased out over the next 15 years under the agreement. Around 23 million homes will be affected if the proposal is […]

Can anyone assist me? I was lucky enough about 18 months ago to download a superb spreadsheet that very much mirrored the HMRC self assessment form for unearned income. In addition, it allowed a number of properties to be added to the spreadsheet columns in order to track exactly where expenses had been incurred. At […]

I’m looking to mortgage two apartments in a block that are all leased to a serviced apartment company. The block is effectively a hotel of sorts, although the block was built as a residential block in 2007, it has always been sub leased to the company. Flats are owned by private individuals. The lease with […]

I’ve taken a deposit of £400 from a tenant in order to ‘secure’ a room for her (a holding deposit). That was two months ago. She’s re-scheduled moving in several times. She’s now decided not to take the property. The Holding deposit was then to be set against the Security deposit (which happens to be […]

Lord Flight cc’d the Property118 Campaign Committee into an email to George Osbourne commenting on the restriction of Finance Cost Relief for Individual Landlords. In his email to the Chancellor Lord Flight said … “A lot of Buy to Let investment has been an alternative to saving for old age via pension schemes.  Up until World […]

Philip Booth is a Professor of Finance, Public Policy and Ethics at St. Mary’s University, Twickenham. He recently issued the following statement to a member of the Property118 Campaign Group, along with his blessing for its publication …. “Osborne is either being deliberately dishonest or simply does not understand the issue when he uses the tax […]

Would installing a drain and pump system into a tanked cellar to solve minor damp and condensation problems risk flooding? The property is at the bottom of a hill on land with a variable water table and occasional standing water a little lower down, and has flooded in the past, although not since the work […]