I am a landlord specialising in renting to DSS Tenants – ask me anything 🙂 Update You may remember the video’s I shared with you back in June and November? Well this is what the place I video’d in November looks like now, just three weeks later … My original video’s from June and November […]

I’ve been informed by my letting agents that my property has been given an EPF rating of F. What I don’t understand is why, it’s not that it’s poorly insulated. My house has more than the industry standard loft insulation, it has cavity wall insulation and is fully double glazed throughout, plus a modern and […]

Two years ago we received a letter from the freehold manager of our leasehold flat saying we now require a standard or global licence to let, and if we did not obtain either within 14 days a solicitor would continue with legal action. When we purchased the property nothing was ever mentioned about these licences […]

Located next to the picturesque Shropshire Union Canal and Bridge Lock, this canal side student property development consists of just 36 en-suite student rooms spread across 2 separate blocks. It is located just a short walk to all of the universities and the city centre and will definitely be an extremely attractive accommodation option for […]

The potential implications of the ruling that a Statutory Periodic Tenancy is a new tenancy, according to the Court of Appeal ruling in Superstrike Ltd vs Rodruigues, has reverberated around the industry at lightening speed. Every popular landlord forum, blog and Facebook group has carried articles and thousands have been motivated to express concern. Indeed, […]

The impact of the bedroom tax and reforms to housing benefit – has this led to more impoverished renters? One of the greatest concerns for tenants with the reforms is being able to manage their finances from a weekly to monthly basis and having to deal with taking one, in many cases reduced, payment in […]

Scottish Association of Landlords (SAL) directors are pleased to announce the appointment of Kathleen Gell as convenor of the newly formed Council of Letting Agents (CLA). This new division of SAL aims to support and represent the interests of SAL letting agent members.

Birmingham City Council have sent a strong message to landlords who let in the city – “We support good landlords” Senior officers of the city council have been in discussions with the West Midlands Regional Representative  of the National Landlords Association (NLA)  since 2011 when HMO licences were about to come up for renewal but it was […]

Auctions are an excellent way to sell tenanted property because auction rooms attract investors. A key benefit from the sellers perspective is there is no requirement to decant tenants, thus ensuring rental revenue right up to the point of sale and removing costly void periods. Keeping tenants in situ also has the added benefit that […]

Mark Alexander, editor and founder of Property118 tweeted the Deposit Protection Providers last night highlighting his fears on the ramifications of the Superstike vs Rodrigues Tenancy Deposit Protection Court of Appeal case. They are calling emergency meetings. See the response below and read their interim press statement. @iamalandlord Hi, here is our official statement with […]

The intermediary only lender Precise Mortgages has today launched the Uk’s only true Bridge to Let Product for development and refurbishment BuytoLet projects. If  you take out a Bridging loan with Precise Mortgages you will now be able to switch it into one of their Bridge to Let products (effectively a Buy to Let loan) […]

My reading of a recent Court of Appeal ruling (Superstrike Ltd vs Rodrigues) is that thousands of possession orders may have been granted in error due to lack of clarity in Tenancy Deposit Protection legislation. What’s worse is that the vast majority of landlords may have inadvertently broken the law and face bankruptcy! Scary stuff hey?! […]

The Royal Courts of Justice The Court of Appeal upheld the judgement that Spicerhaart were guilty of “passing off” and had infringed Fine & Country’s registered trade marks by adopting and using the FINE brand. Lord Justice Lewison upheld Mr Justice Hildyard’s decision that Spicerhaart had knowingly taken a risk in trading on the coattails of […]

Seeing is believing! These pictures tell a thousand words.     I recently managed to get an ECO grant for several of my houses to get a brand new boiler fitted free under the Affordable Warmth scheme. However, the fitters refused to enter one of my properties due to the state of the place as […]

R.I.P. Geoffrey Cutting, President of the National Landlords Association. Property118 readers and landlords throughout the UK will be devastated to hear that Geoffrey Cutting, the NLA president passed away yesterday (13 June 2013) aged 88. He is survived by his wife Barbro, two of his four children and three grandchildren. Geoffrey Cutting was a modest and pragmatic […]

Salford has a strong rental demand; professional workers like the easy access to the City of Manchester and there continues to be strong rental demand from Salford university students. Students tend to like renting 2 or 3 bed properties near Salford University and one area that seems to be popular with students is the M3 […]

So you have sourced your ideal tenancy agreement and have found a suitable tenant.  Lets take a look at the information you need to put in your tenancy agreement. The property It sounds obvious, but you need to correctly describe the property being let.  This is particularly important if you are renting a room in […]

I have a Housing Benefit tenant who bags up her domestic rubbish and then throws it into the back yard of the property to join the old three piece suite in there as well. Despite my numerous requests to desist this behaviour she persists in doing this.

I received an email today from Shawbrook outlining their Secured BuytoLet Loans which on first glance I nearly ignored as I normally do for other second charge lenders. On second thought though it struck me that I get a lot of questions from readers who would like to raise equity, but either do not want […]

My name is Mark Crampton-Smith, I am a letting agent in Oxford – “ask me anything” I am a member of ARLA, SAFEagent and The Property Ombudsman redress scheme. I am also a landlord. I am responsible for letting and managing nearly 400 units, of which 170 are HMO’s Please feel free to ask me […]

Hello all, Ive recently taken over the management of some of my houses from a letting agent. I’ve received monies which are the tenants deposits with instruction from agent to put in a Deposit protection scheme. Can I use these deposits as “rent in advance”. Would I need to have new shorthold tenancy agreements? Thanks for […]