In this time of austerity, we must all put our shoulder to the wheel, do our bit, and pay our fair share. However, over the last few years with all the new requirements for Landlords and the resulting costs and additional work and some of the more recent developments, I wonder if Landlords are seen […]

Naomi Heaton, CEO of London Central Portfolio Limited has shared her four point plan which she’s asked Chancellor George Obsourne to consider for the forthcoming Budget.  With days to go until the 2013 Budget, time is running out for Osborne to make a real difference in his Budget mandate. Naomi says her plan could help the Conservatives get […]

I receive a lot of private emails from readers asking who I use personally to manage my properties. If they are local, my brother and I tend to manage them ourselves. However, we do use agents to manage some of the properties we own outside Norfolk. One day, we might decide to take up golf […]

Rowan Ferguson needs some advice on whether landlords can roll over losses for tax purposes. Her “Readers Questions” article follows:- “I Purchased a buy-to-let in October 2012, have incurred £5,00 on expenses, the bulk of which was for necessary repairs and maintenance which has taken 5 months.

Nigel Spalding of Rotherhithe I am a Landlord and a photographer

Gennie Nash of Hurst Real Estates Leigh-on-Sea We are a small family run business that has been running for over 40 years. We provide clean, well maintained, unfurnished flats at reasonable prices. Our properties are located in the Corringham and Leigh-on-Sea areas of Essex.

I’ve made a real Deposit Protection BooBoo. My tenant had a new lease and at that point I should have re protected her deposit. However, because she never returned her signed lease I completely forgot. I always wait to get their signed copy back before I re protect in case they don’t want to renew. […]

Award-winning property brand Auction House has experienced its most successful month in the company’s six year history, with record numbers of lots being entered and sold, contributing to its highest ever monthly total raised. February saw 19 auctions held across the UK, with 385 lots offered and 294 lots sold, raising a total of £28.4m.

Offering investors assured 10% NET returns for the first year and managed/let by Sheffield letting agency Sheff-Lets, this Sheffield Student Accommodation at the Dunfields development is already generating a huge amount of local interest, at affordable prices starting from just £44,000 making them an ideal investment opportunity for cash buyers. The latest concept in student […]

A growing number of Landlords are falling for a “Guaranteed Rent” scam which enables a landlord or an agent to sublet a property. There are several examples of how this works, below is a relatively “clean” one, I will share a much nastier example of how landlords are being stung as comments begin to appear […]

Property auction results record 6-year highs in February with total sales of £445,455,076 David Sandeman Managing Director of EIG reports that the overall market figures are positive, with increases made in almost every parameter across both residential and commercial sectors. A noticable highlight is that 3,083 lots sold last month marking a rise of over […]

My seven year old boiler keeps breaking down. I must have had about 15 visits from British Gas for the past 18 months. I have a service/maintenance contract with them but they are unable to say why there have been so many breakdowns. For example, they had to change the fan three times during this […]

If you serve a section 21 notice to a tenant one month before their fixed tenancy expires i.e it will rolled over to a statutory periodic before it comes into force, do you serve Section 21(4a)for a periodic tenancy or a Section 21(1)b for a fixed tenancy as it was still fixed when it was […]

The space for advice in the mis-selling of Interest Rate Hedging Products (IRHP’s) is becoming increasingly busy. A quick Google search of ‘IRHP’ is enough to start your head spinning. Also known as IRSA’s, (Interest Rate Swap Agreements) these were financial products sold by banks to provide protection to businesses from interest rate increases. Bully-Banks […]

A Universal Credit trial of a first group of tenants in Torfaen South Wales has resulted in an increase in arrears from £20,000 to £140,000 in just seven months from July to January. Chief executive Duncan Forbes of Bron Afon Community Housing  who have 950 tenants receiving direct payment of their housing benefit said the […]

Brian Fitzsimons of Liverpool I am a Landlord and support The Good Landlords Campaign

We live in a small two bedroom house with two children already and I have now found out I am pregnant again. I rang the mortgage and asked about switching to a buy to let mortgage so we could let our house and rent instead . They made it sound really easy. The paperwork came […]

I had a question concerning this from our reader Dan today, but many Buy to Let investors I talk to are unprepared when looking to purchase a flat about considering what lenders will take as suitable security. Banks often have a surprisingly vast array of criteria that needs to be considered when lending. I have […]

IRHP stands for Interest Rate Hedging Protection. So how can a form of “protection” result in the collapse of a business you may well wonder? It’s ‘Heads I Win Tails You Lose’ – but from who’s perspective? The following story was submitted by Jon Welsby, a victim of the banks mis-selling of Interest Rate Hedging Protection.

Are there some agents out there frustrated by the declines they get for some of their tenants, when they seem perfectly fine? Below are just a few reasons as to why this could be.

You may get tenants who from time to time leave without giving you the keys. You know the ones… They have some arrears, have left the house, shall we say “lived in” (by prehistoric savages) and don’t want to be accountable for their actions, so they “done one”. Being a lawyer you’re then faced with […]