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 […]

Stephen Cleaver of Phoenix Aircon Limited Pontypool I am a Landlord and want to support The GOOD Landlords Campaign and welcome the opportunity to network with members.

Ben Hall of Loft Interiors Manchester I am not a Landlord, but do want to support The GOOD Landlords Campaign and welcome the opportunity to network with members.

Following the news from Property118 last week regarding “no win no fee” debt collection for landlords I have been re-thinking my strategy. I have a question though, can I charge tenants for extra admin if they are in arrears? This is my thought process.

For years I have happily operated a 7 bed HMO which has 2 full bathrooms. According to the council bumf a 4 bed house needs one full bathroom. You would therefore think that you can have up to 8 with 2 bathrooms, but no … apparently in order to have 7 people I have in […]

Our tenants moved in with pets (ferret, cat and a dog) even though we had advised our letting agents that we would not allow tenants to keep pets. We discovered our tenants little zoo when we arrived a month after they moved in to fix a problem with their kitchen taps. We Immediately informed the […]

Tenants are now staying in one property for a record duration of 20 months, according to the latest research from the Association of Residential Letting Agents (ARLA).  This figure is up year-on-year from an average of 19 months in Q1 2012, indicating that tenants are starting to take a longer-term view of renting a property. […]

Stephen Fincham of Haul-4U Cardiff I am not a Landlord, but do want to support The GOOD Landlords Campaign and welcome the opportunity to network with members. We offer FREE house clearance service in the South Wales area and are fully licensed waste carriers. I have excellent feedback in all we do offering a fast […]

I don’t think landlords should allow tenants to get away with not paying rent or making good any damages, do you? Well the good news is that the “no win no fee” Debt Collection for Landlords service I wrote about last week is now up and running. You can download the claim form and full […]

I rented my property to a company who in turn sub-let the property for the same term. The tenancy was an AST in the company name and I retained a deposit that was not insured. The company provided me via email a tenancy agreement and I introduced additional clauses to accommodate sub-letting but apart from […]

After having read a lot of articles that Mark has posted, some of which are very informative, some of which make me laugh out loud and some of which make me cry (as I have been in similar situations) I find I have come across something that has stumped me completely and hope the Property118 […]