I am refurbishing my first rental property and undecided on what type of carpets to fit. I have been recommend a hard wearing loop pile. What carpets do you use for your rental property? I am also installing a white gloss kitchen and looking at laminate worktops to go with this. What colour are the […]

I let a flat to a student, she has boyfriend with her. She signed the contract but the boy friend paid the rent I think. They renewed the contract ( signed a paper for another year conditioned to old contract ) in august14 ( she was still in UK). In October we received complaints from […]

I bought a flat in November 2012 and the ground rent was £100 till now. Yesterday I got a letter from the management company E & M saying that the ground rent was due for review in December 2012 and it’s now £325 pa from 2012.  I am going to check the lease out but […]

My partner and I moved into our first rented home together on 28 February 2014. We paid what we thought were extortionate referencing fees of £300 (EACH!) on top of the deposit and rent. At the time we mentioned that this was a high price, especially considering that my partner had rented from this letting […]

I would like to ask the advice of your members, please. I own 2 x 2 bed ground flats in a block of four, two flats upstairs, two downstairs. They are freehold flats, close to the town centre and rent well. Both of my flats are rented out to tenants and up until the relatively […]

Hi, I was wondering if any one could help me out here?  I have a clause on my tenancy agreement stating that rent will be increased on annual basis on 28th of September. Thus, I expected agency to send me a notice for that before September but I did not receive anything. This month I […]

A tenant of mine has tried to claim LHA, but not Jobseekers Allowance. He was sanctioned by DWP and did not make a claim for Jobseekers Allowance for a period of 7 weeks. In turn, the Council have refused to pay him any LHA for this same period. They are of the opinion that if […]

My current tenant is receiving housing benefit/local housing allowance (which is paid directly to the estate agent and then to me). Initially the tenant, who is a single parent, moved in with his three young kids. I tagged along to the most recent quarterly inspection and noticed that there were no children’s clothing or toys […]

Ed Balls, the Labour shadow Chancellor, has already asked the Treasury to start planning for the Mansion Tax to be implemented before the General Election. Mr Balls wants the tax to be levied “day one” of a Labour administration and will be part of his first budget raising £1.2 billion to be invested into the […]

EDITORS NOTE: The following article was submitted by George Crofts Llb (Hons), with whom I had a very educational and eye opening discussion last week regarding claims management and no-win-no-fee legal services for tenants. I personally invited George to submit an article so that our landlord, tenant and letting agent readers could ask George the […]

I have joint tenants in a property and one has violently assaulted a family member and friend as well as her husband within the property.  The police were called and she was told to leave the property and can return to collect her personal items but only when the husband is not in the property. […]

This is my situation:  31st October – tenancy commenced with tenant paying £900 for first month’s rent and £446 as part payment towards the deposit required of £1,246 17th November – £800 balance of deposit received by the agent 8th December – full balance of £1,246 protected with DPS. I received an email from agent […]

I have a number of BTL flats – all fully occupied.  I bought them some time ago at around £20k then remortgaged at a later date with mortgages around £70k to fund a family home. We can hardly complain – capital growth paid for the family home – with the mortgage on the flats being […]

Please advise since all legal bods are closed over weekend!  I have had a lovely tenant for 4 years, she’s a single mum, 3 kids and all housing benefit has been paid to me, no problems. Unfortunately her boyfriend has moved in without my permission. The housing benefit has halved and a top up needs […]

I live most of the time in the Channel Islands. Contrary to the popular imagination that was given out by John Netttles in the 1980s, the Islands are accessible and easy to get into (in the right Island). There are plenty of houses available to purchase at what (compared with London) are reasonable prices.  I’ve […]

What do you think will happen to property values?  Do you think interest rates will rise? How do you think lending criteria will change? What changes in legislation do you predict? Do you think Rent Guarantee Insurance will become more popular? Any other thoughts?

Now before you jump down my throat, please understand the context, I am not being derogatory to my fellow landlords I promise you.  The reference to Monkeys comes from some fun with psychological profiling in a great little book written by my old friend Nigel Risner, who was arguably the most successful commercial finance broker […]

EDITORS NOTE: I have re-published this article because we are getting very close to the point of this investment opportunity being publicly available via the Crowd Cube Platform. Interested parties are advised to set up an account with Crowd Cube in order to avoid delays when shares are eventually released. When we first published the […]

We think this might be a unique problem and want some advise please.   We went to view a house which was a Care Home 18 months ago. The Care Home has moved but the property is still owned by the Care charity. We really liked the house, made an offer and the offer has been […]

How do I support a very good Lead Tenant who wants bad Tenant 2 and her abusive partner (not a tenant) out of my property? We are talking about a large 2 bed high-end apartment, 6 month AST started September 2014, with Good Guy named as Lead Tenant. Lead Tenant’s father is Guarantor (tenant is […]

I bought 3 bedroom leasehold flat 6 years ago which included the loft space.  Three years ago, 4 leaseholders collectively bought the freehold of which I purchased a third of the freehold. Recently, one of the leaseholder who owns a share of freehold has indicated the loft space which I have owned for many years […]