Should a holding deposit be retained by the agent or the landlord? A tenant paid my agent just under two weeks rent as a holding deposit, but a week later had to pull out due to personal circumstances. I told the agent I expected an amount equal to a weeks rent (being the amount lost […]

Hi All, Simple question which I guess a lots of people must have asked in the past. I have a council tenant who is renting my house. He has signed a AST agreement which expires on 24th April 2014. Rent is paid four weekly. I now intend to move back into this house as soon […]

I have a portfolio of ‘vanilla’ BTL properties with 70% mortgages on interest only basis. I have have come to a point where my investment fund is dwindling and there is no more equity to release. I’ve got two potential investors asking about armchair investment with me and I have two potential properties in mind. […]

I have just completed a telephone review with our partners at LettingSupermarket.com and one of the questions I asked was “what is the most popular area in the Country for Letting Supermarket right now”. Chris Sheldon, a Director at Letting Supermarket said “without a doubt it is Greater Manchester. We manage more properties there than […]

Does any one know the current limits on how many buy to lets/how much one can spend, before the big lenders pull the plug? I know some say you can have ‘3 buy to lets’ or ‘9 buy to lets’ or whatever, others say you can borrow an amount of money. I know there are […]

Dear community Having recently joined this group and fairly new to looking at property as a way to replace the day job (and salary), I’m interested to hear from experienced investors on how you would invest £500k in this current climate, for the maximum return and with the least amount of risk and hassle!  I […]

Question from Matt Does anyone know if its the landlords responsibility to supply a carbon monoxide sensor, in particular, when the boiler is in a bedroom? Response from Mark Alexander I am not aware of a law to say you must fit them but you would probably be held accountable if something went horribly wrong […]

With social housing more reliant on the private sector than ever before, it must be time for the government to start building council houses as a priority. Council waiting lists for housing according to Shelter are approaching 2 million and waiting times to get re-housed are running at 9-20 years in some areas, it’s no […]

The Bank of Ireland Tracker Rate Legal Campaign began in March 2013. History to date 100 affected BoI borrowers each paid £150 plus VAT into an initial legal fees fighting fund and instructed Justin Selig of The Law Department to obtain Counsels opinion on the merits of our case. Consensus of legal opinions was that regulators […]

The development is perfectly situated within touching distance of the M60 Ring road, Manchester City Centre and Media City at Salford Quays.  This off-market deal has been sourced from a bank who is looking to exit the apartments very quickly. Investment Summary • 15.1% Return on cash invested with a 30% deposit and 4% mortgage […]

18 Months ago I wrote one of our most popular articles titled Ageism in BuyToLet mortgages? Myths dispelled This article highlighted the ability to apply for Buy to Let mortgages beyond age 70 and which lenders you could consider. To this day I still regularly get calls from people who have just read the article […]

A couple of months ago I created a survey of Landlord Law members to identify what the levels of interest might be for a legal help kit on what to do if a tenant refuses access for Gages Safety inspections. Quite a few  members responded – if you were one, thank you very much.  We […]

Due to increasing  levels of interest and use of our Property Research Tool we will be adding a new row of Sponsors banners to the search results pages. This will raise further funds towards the running costs and development of the facilities available at Property118.com which has nearly 200,000 subscribers, mostly landlords and associated professionals. If […]

It seems to be a regular thing that councils, with our money (tax-payers), are encouraging, even helping tenants to break their legally binding contracts. It surely is immoral if not illegal that they do this to help massage their own housing list figures? We need to start a campaign to highlight this, how do others […]

I’m a buy-to-let landlord of one property (should be two in a couple of weeks). My wife came across another potential investment online yesterday. The property is a 3 bed detached house set back from a main road which comes with a commercial property (car repair workshop). The property is priced at £160k, both the […]

Does anyone have any suggestions as to why the supply of new properties for sale in London has has reduced by 85% or more in the last 4 or 5 months? Even Estate agents can’t believe the drop in new instructions. They simply have so little to sell hence causing such a frenzy in the […]

Hi all, I have been looking at sales particulars for 3 bed house which is subject to a lifetime tenancy. It is valued at £195,000 with vacant possession and is for sale for £82,000. I would very much appreciate your thoughts and any advice you can offer. The details are as follows. 3 bedroom detached […]

How do I work out when a tenant hits the ‘2 months arrears’ threshold that allows for the serving of a section 8 notice citing ground 8 “substantial areas? Consider an AST requiring a monthly rent payable in advance on the 1st of every month. Lets say the rent is £800 and up till now […]

We are about to check out at the end of a tenancy. The landlord is insisting that he attends the checkout inspection. We feel this will produce a potentially confrontational situation and do not want to agree.  What are our/his rights in this regard? Thanks Stephen

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) has this morning reported the UK economy has grown by 0.7% in the fourth quarter of 2013 with total GDP for the year growing by 1.9%. These are the best annual growth figures since 2007 (recorded at 3.4%) although we are still 1.3% behind the peak GDP figure in […]

I know this site is mainly for renting, but a lot of landlords also flip properties so may be able to help. If I was to buy, modernise and sell 3 properties each worth £100k in a year, hopefully making around 50k total profit (before tax), would I have to be VAT registered on the […]