What is the reason behind the 60% price rise of Canterbury property over the past 10 years? Supply and demand. Forty six thousand of the total population of 149,000 people living in Canterbury are students.  The Universities only provide 22.8% of the current demand; which means that over 35,000 students are renting in private tenanted […]

LANDLORD NEWS – private landlord speaks out on housing benefit nightmare tonight on BBC’s The One Show  A landlord from Bracknell, Berkshire, has spoken out about her nightmare ordeal after her housing benefit tenant failed to pass on the payments. This issue has been widely reported and discussed within the buy-to-let industry but now a […]

A new ebook has been released by Spare Room and is available to download as a PDF via Property118 free of charge. It’s called “Renting by the Room – A Guide to Maximising Rental Profits”. The media has a fascination with house prices, and together with Property Investment gurus and Estate Agents, spend a lot […]

The Residential Landlords Associated revealed yesterday the housing benefit element of Universal Credit may well be paid directly to landlords after all. However, a lot of questions remain unanswered. According to the RLA “automatic direct payments to landlords will now be allowed in the pathfinder areas. The policy change was tucked away on the last page of […]

I have a lady tenant in one of my flats who has been there for many years, up to now a model tenant. Over the winter she became ill and had to quit her job. She has tried to get housing benefit and I believe that eventually the local authority will meet its obligation. The […]

We appointed Justin Selig to advise thousands of landlords and residential mortgage borrowers across the UK on the day that news broke of the Bank of Ireland intentions to increase the differential on tracker rate mortgages to 4.49%. For some borrowers this means an increase in monthly payments of over 200% starting from today. Over 16,000 people […]

Tenant Eviction is a process which several landlords under-estimate. Some people will tell you that evicting tenants is simple, “oh just issue a section 21 notice or a section 8 notice” are words often spoken at landlords gatherings and on our internet forums. Well, perhaps it is easy when you know how, and especially when […]

Dear Friends, I just created the petition “Bank of Ireland – DO NOT change interest differentials on Tracker Mortgages” and wanted to ask if you could add your name too. This campaign means a lot to me and the more support we can get behind it, the better chance we have of succeeding. You can […]

The Bank of England Funding for Lending scheme will now allow Small and Medium sized enterpises (SMEs) to lend the money available on to property investors. The Funding for lending scheme has been extended another year until January 2015 and from 2014 banks will be able to borrow £10 of cheap Bank of England money […]

Tony Salmon of Nottingham I am a Landlord and support The Good Landlords campaign

My partner’s ex-wife & their son reside in the ex-marital home, courtesy of the divorce agreement. She is required to maintain it & keep it in the (good) condition it was in when he vacated in 2006. This situation will remain until 2016. Anecdotally, we know that the property is not being maintained, internally or […]

I am absolutely amazed that in this current economic climate with the government making people down size to smaller homes or pay a “bedroomTax” and more people having to rent because they cannot afford to buy, that a buy to let landlord cannot obtain a mortgage for property valued under £40,000. I own a Ten […]

Hi all, I would like to tap the experience and expertise of the community with regards to my local Environmental Health department. Some history …..  I have a large building which is an HMO. I applied for a licence and the council came down and went through the building. The short version is that they […]

Electrical inspections are to me a very grey area. I rent all of my properties unfurnished as over the years I have found that most of my tenants prefer this. Therefore I do not require PAT testing to be carried out. I would like some guidance as to how often I need my properties inspected for […]

Paul McVeigh is a friend of mine, we share a lot in common including blogging, public speaking and of course being landlords. He’s just published a book called “The Stupid Footballer Is Dead” which provides an excellent insight into the mindset of the modern professional footballer, both on and off the field and post retirement. Paul retired from […]

I’m often asked whether I think it’s a good idea to let properties on a furnished or unfurnished basis. A friend of mine recently said that he was surprised I had not written an article about this and, in particular, about furniture packs. Unless you buy properties to let as holiday homes, short term lets, […]

Members of The National Association of Commercial Finance Brokers (NACFB) have reported a steady increase in Holiday lets being purchased using commercial finance along with the number of lenders and products to support this business. Investors and Lenders are being attracted by the higher potential income that can be generated by holiday lets in locations […]

Jonty Van der Sluis of Windsor I am a Landlord and lets make things better for the good landlords and good tenants and pool our resources to oppose those others who make it harder for us.

If you had told me this time last year that I would soon be adding Buy to Let Estate Agent to my CV I would not have had a clue what you were talking about. However, that’s exactly what we have become as a result of selling buy to let developments. We have no plans […]

Annette Stone of London and Bournemouth By profession I am a block managing agent, but I have been building a portfolio of Buy to Lets as my pension for the past twenty years. It is quite large and diverse now, ranging from luxurious flats in Notting Hill to first time rentals on the South Coast […]

Newsflash from Tessa Shepperson of Landlord Law. There has been an important Court of Appeal decision on tenancy deposits. In the case of Johnson v. Old the tenant claimed that the six months rent she had paid in advance was actually a deposit which the landlord had failed to protect. Therefore (she argued) he was […]