Renting your first home as a student can be exciting yet daunting at the same time. So the Association of Residential Letting Agents (ARLA) and the National Union of Students (NUS) are offering advice to students on renting their first property at university.

As this is a true story about an illegal eviction I would like to remain anonymous please. I witnessed it, it wasn’t my property and it was not a scene you would associate with an illegal eviction. No thugs with baseball bats, just respectable people in a respectable suburb close and the Police keeping a […]

My letting agent has done a runner and left various aspects of my property management in a mess. In some cases, the tenants named no longer exist. The Gas & Electricity Supplier is owed a lot of money from these non-existent former tenants, and current ones which the agent has not advised them of. The […]

I have a property which I rent to my son who is on Housing Benefit. He has several medical problems mainly brought on by the use of drugs in the past. I had two other properties which I had let out before to claimants that were on Housing Benefit. One of which was sold and […]

Has anyone come across this end of tenancy Council Tax situation as I have for a property tenancy which recently ended? The tenants left on the end day of a 6 month assured shorthold tenancy. They were responsible for Council Tax and received the demands and paid the Council direct and contacted the Council to […]

Principality BuytoLet rates have been revised downwards by 0.2% and introduced two new products all with low fixed fees down to a minimum of £99 These are two year variable rate products for the Building Society with the biggest advantage being the low set up costs for higher value properties instead of large percentage fees […]

We receive hundreds of readers emails and telephone calls every month, the vast majority require contacts to arrange funding, hence this article which explores six very different strategies of financing property refurbishment projects.

I have a question regarding renewal fees from letting agents and would very much welcome any feedback or advice that readers of Property118 can offer. I have used the same letting agent for the past 7 years. I do not have a portfolio so felt it would be best to use an agency. The agreement I […]

With so many buy to let  property investors now considering buy/refurb/sell deals I feel the time is right to explain the tax treatment of property development vs property investment. For example, did you knowthat buy/refurb/sell deals are taxed as a trade (property development) and CGT annual exemptions can not be claimed on disposal?

Experian®, the global information services company, today revealed a 23 per cent jump in attempted mortgage fraud rates between April and June 2012. Examples of this being residential mortgages being used to fund buy-to-let purchases and in some cases, buy-to-let mortgages being used to raise larger mortgages than lenders would normally consider based on income […]

Readers response letter to the article entitled “Landlords should not be allowed to let their own properties” in which our reader lists seven benefits to tenants of dealing directly with a landlord in response to …. “give me 6 good reasons why these other not their fault necessarily but unaware Landlords should be allowed to. If you get […]

Property118 Columnists HMO Landlady and Ben Reeve-Lewis have had their book “Renting HMOs Sussed” published and it is now available to purchase via Amazon. If you are a regular reader of Property118 you will know that both Serena (HMO Landlady) and Ben are known for “saying it as they see it“. Neither of them pull […]

The phenomenon of crowdfunding (the collective effort of a large number of individuals who network and pool their resources) is growing exponentially in popularity as a way to fund software development, scientific research, arts projects, small businesses and, through companies like The House Crowd, property investment.

The Manchester Building Society has launched two new 25 year fixed rate BuyToLet mortgage products with a 5.74%  and 5.99% notional rate. In the years I have been working in this industry and certainly since the popular advent of BuytoLet I have never before seen a 25 year fixed rate BuytoLet mortgage. The longest term […]

My brother and I have decided to sell 9 of the properties in our portfolio. The purpose is to raise additional working capital to do more local refurb and flip deals. We are making between £30,000 and £60,000 a deal but we can only do one or two a year within our current resources. Therefore, […]

I’ve recently had a heated exchange of emails with a chap called Mike who’s opinion is that “landlords should not be allowed to let their own properties”. I invited him to produce an article as he set me a challenge and I wanted him to offer his challenge publicly to the readership of Property118. Mike refused on […]

Hi Mark I have a question for you and your readers regarding traditional estate agents vs fixed fee online estate agents if you think it’s worthy of publishing. I’ve never tried these fixed fee agencies that keep springing up, I tend just to stick with traditional agents.

I spent most of yesterday with a lovely couple from Luton who emailed me asking for some guidance. After exchanging several emails we decided to meet and they came over to Norfolk. They have six buy to let properties at the moment, a decent liquidity fund and plenty of equity in properties. They wanted advice […]

If you want to get your phone ringing off the hook next time you advertise a property to let just add the words “DSS Tenants and Pets Considered subject to guarantees.” In this readers letter yesterday several landlords shared their horror and dare I say naivety of the law in some of the comments they left.

As I sifted through the post this morning I thought to myself ‘how time flies‘ – my landlords insurance is up for renewal again. It’s nowhere near as painful as it used to be though. Several years ago it dawned on me that for some reason a very high percentage of landlords insurance policies are […]

I have a property related question regarding Local Authority Homeless policy. My local authority advises tenants to ignore section 21 notices and to stay in the property until a court order / bailiffs arrive. If the tenant does not do this my council deems the tenants to have made themselves voluntarily homeless and they will […]