More and more sales are being conducted by what is termed “Modern Method of Auction”. It is sold as a buyer friendly method of purchase but from what I can see, a non refundable reservation fee of 3.5% subject to a minimum of £5,000 plus VAT needs to be placed which then “secures” the transaction […]

It would seem HMRC has started to crosscheck declared rental income, in bulk, via letting agents. It does seem a little strange as those most likely not to declare on tax returns are unlikely to use a reputable letting agent. I’ve had a rental property for 8 years & this is the first time I […]

It is with great interest that landlords have explored student property investing but the the drawbacks of lack of leverage and future resale market have remained unanswered until now! A student Freehold House with 11pct return on equity invested with mortgage finance is available in the top ranked city of Durham. We are delighted to […]

I am an owner of a flat in a block of 18. I am also one of four Directors making up the Management Committee.  We have one owner who constantly has to be chased for their annual service charge. This is time consuming and occasionally the bank account has to be topped up to prevent […]

I currently have this situation:  Two properties, both on homeowner mortgages Property A : Purchased Dec 2010 Was my sole residence until DEC 2012 when I let it out Purchased for £90k Now worth £135k Property B: My current residence Purchased April 2014 Purchased for £142K 90% LTV Now in around 6 months time, Id […]

My mother and I own a house which is mortgage free which we let out.  We’d now like to take some re-mortgage with a buy to let mortgage. I thought this would be relatively simple, but how wrong could I be. I’m 44 employed with my own property and my mother is retired and 75. […]

On the advice of my accountant about four years ago, I (they) set up a limited company for me to run my own portfolio of around 55 properties through.  With interest rates at an all-time low, cash flow is very positive so the Ltd Company sounded good to lower mine and my wife’s own tax […]

I have been a Landlord for many years and have accordingly seen many changes in legislation and impositions placed on Landlords, many for the better and some questionable. Along with such changes is the guidance and advice being given to Tenants by the various bodies such as Citizens Advice, Shelter, Homelessness Departments of Councils etc, […]

We have 2 properties on joint mortgage. One of them is Residential mortgage (Property A) and other on Buy-to Let (Property B). We were out of the country between August 2010-April 2013. During this period, I was renting out both the properties without changing the mortgages. We moved back to UK last year in April […]

Can someone give me some urgent advice?   My son and his two friends are moving into a shared flat today on an assured short hold tenancy basis. It is 3 bedroomed and two of the bedrooms are absolutely fine. The third however, has one completely wet to touch wall and mould – where does […]

Hazel de Kloe is a highly respected UK Property Mentor and Coach, the only one I have ever approved as a Property118 sponsor. She has been building her portfolio since 2001 and has worked with over 150 personal clients over the last 6 years to build reliable and profitable property businesses.  Hazel is known for her […]

I’m at the point of making a life changing decision, for the past 5 years I have managed to live quite comfortably off the rental income from a portfolio of 12 properties. I was fortunate enough to take out lifetime tracker mortgages and have benefited greatly from the exceptionally low Bank of England base rate. […]

After a year long battle, I have recently evicted a tenant and am in the process of repairing the damage to the property by the previous tenant in order to re-let. There are a number of letters still being received at the property addressed to the previous tenant which give a strong indication of possibly […]

I am thinking of using an answering service for my property business.  Someone gave me this advice for a variety of reasons such as giving a professional image, never missing a phone call and screening calls. I have done some research and come up with quite a number of options. I believe there are people on […]

My previous letting agent did not make me aware I needed an HMO licence on a property which they subsequently rented to 3 people.  It has now been picked up by the new agent and I have applied for a HMO. Am I liable to prosecution? Thanks Gary

I manage the residential letting of 7 properties which I jointly own with my wife and/or brother and/or sister and HMRC can’t decide if I should register as a Self Employed landlord. Currently, I am not registered as Self Employed and normally complete the Property section of my Self Assessment tax return. However, as tax […]

I use an agent for one of my properties who has now inserted a “break clause” in the standard 12-month AST. The wording is the same for the Landlord as it is for the tenant. This clause appears to me to effectively make it a 6 month AST.  Is this a standard break clause? Do […]

We are a small property development partnership that mainly buy houses, do them up and either sell or rent them out. For our first major development project we recently bought a plot of land near the city centre which is predominately a student area being so close to the university.  We applied for planning application […]

My wife and I have in addition to our own property three rental properties, owned outright as tenants in common. We wish to minimise our IHT liability for our two children. We have been advised that if we give them half of the properties as tenants in common (i.e. a four way split) and do […]

Manchester is the number 1 city for house price growth in the UK (Nationwide) with prices growing by 21% in 2013. This is even more than London which grew at 15%. Pre-launch prices for these new Buy to Let opportunities start from £98,285 with a projected market value in excess of £110,000. They come with […]

What are today’s landlords and tenants struggling with? We’re running a live Q&A in partnership with Shelter, helping everyone to get answers to their burning questions on renting and sharing. We’ve invited people to send in their questions in advance and the range and depth of what we’re getting in already is quite astonishing. We’ll […]