As Russia feels the impact of further economic sanctions, London’s army of estate agent cannot seem to agree on the knock-on effect for Prime London resi. One camp can barely hold their caviar trays steady, dreading an asset freeze that will see the market tumble. Whilst the other camp is toasting their vodka, proclaiming that […]

Good morning, I have just ring my local Council Tax office to advise them that a tenant has vacated my property. I was advised that the tenant had already notified them and that the date given was 8th April 2014. I advised them that the tenancy actually ended on 24th May 2014. I was then […]

Hi- I think I know the answer to this but it is nice to get a few other opinions. I have a tenant who had been late in paying their rent. I found out that one of the tenants had started their own business and I suggested to help cash flow to pay weekly, which […]

Hi, I wonder whether anyone can help me on this please? I recently bought 2 houses both of which were in run down old fashioned condition as follows: Property 1 had been owned by 2 elderly brothers. Overall dirty, old fashioned decor. Filthy ‘doggy smelling’ carpets. Dated kitchen and bathroom and in my opinion would […]

I have been disputing with a letting agency about how they have handled my old property, I took out a lease on the 01-01-12. I signed a brand new lease and gave them £850 deposit They did not lodge my my deposit within the correct time frame (by Nov 13 2012 the cut off) it […]

Peer-to-Peer or (P2P) lending is at its most competitive when financing development projects with the largest loan provided to date of £4.1 million. Key advantages held currently by Peer-to-Peer lending are: Speed – with draw downs possible in 6 weeks rather than months by high street commercial lenders Stage payments in advance of the work […]

It does not matter how many properties you own here are ten very common sense things you can do to keep your landlord insurance costs to a minimum. 1: Do not claim on your insurance unless it is worth it. If you have an excess of £250 think carefully before claiming for the £300 damage […]

Whether a developer, CGI artist, architect, landlord or owner occupier, attention to detail is important. It is easy enough to include a Le Corbusier chaise longue and portray an illusion of contemporary chic which some people do buy. I used to advise the use of vertical blinds in flats with not great views. At least […]

I have a property which once upon a time had a mortgage on it and the property was let. I used to claim the mortgage interest as an allowable expense each year and everything was hunky dory. Then it came to pass that I paid off the mortgage and could no longer claim any interest […]

Hi all, I exchanged contracts on a flat I am selling on 11.4.14 with completion set for 17.4.14. It was not certain that this would go ahead until the last minute, so my solicitor didn’t request a redemption figure until then. Unfortunately, the mortgage on this flat is a portfolio mortgage with one other property. […]

In May last year I did a TV programme called The One Show, where they filmed me serving a section 8 notice on a LHA tenants at 7am, they had kept the landlords rent of £4,000. This piece was about the launch of the trial version of ‘Universal Credit’, which I warned would be not […]

Dear Readers, We issued our tenants a section 21 a year ago, but after some discussion decide they could stay (they were going to buy the house), we left the section 21 in place. They have now separated and can no longer purchase, so we gave them a months notice to end on Friday, the […]

Hi Readers, My parents are selling up to move closer to family as they have health problems. My Mother has carers coming in at a cost of approx £600 per week. They will receive just over 460k from the sale of their house. We now have 2 alternatives, and I would really appreciate your comments […]

Dear Property118 readers, We are currently renting our home and have recently discovered that the landlord has not been paying the mortgage so the house is going to be repossessed. The court date is in May. We would very much like to buy the house. We are able to afford a mortgage and are willing […]

My name is Robert Mellors and this article was prompted by me watching the TV programmes about the Benefit Cap, and “How to Get a Council House” last week. It occurred to me that from my years of experience in working in local government housing departments, and in various advice bureaus, including being a caseworker […]

Whilst I applaud high standards of safety in rented accommodation, there are different ways of achieving this. Some of the conditions under licensing schemes are un-necessarily heavy-handed and open to interpretation, often by over-zealous EHO. These schemes are seen as the answer to rubbish problems, anti-social behaviour and crime, however there is no evidence to […]

Dear Readers I’m a landlord and I’ve had several small issues with with my letting agent who seems to get a little upset when she has to work for her money. The latest being that she refuses to send me a copy of the check out report saying that, because I didn’t pay for it […]

For those of you who, like me, are involved professionally with mortgages, the spectre of MMR, or Mortgage Market Review as it is more correctly known, is finally about to hit home. For the interest of everyone else who is not professionally involved with mortgages, MMR is the FSA’s (and now the FCA’s) baby, which […]

Can one of your many learned members explain to me why rental income can’t be used to get a mortgage on my main residence? Over the past few years I’ve reduced my other business to build up the rental side of things. Hubby is on a reasonable wage for working 3 days a week but […]

Are the forthcoming Mortgage Market Review (MMR) affordability criteria about to play into the hands of the PRS? Well, yes it will for some of us and no it will not for the majority of us!  I’ve been thinking about this for a while now and some interesting points were made in a recent article […]

The Coventry Building Society is currently offering an attractively priced BTL mortgage deal (3.55% variable with a £999 arrangement fee) but a condition is that they do not allow the tenants to be friends sharing even if they sign a joint AST.  As a, soon to be, new landlord I don’t want to burden myself […]