Letting agent Helen Gregory has been expelled from The Property Ombudsman scheme after a rent row with a buy to let landlord client. Her firm Beechwood Property Portfolio, in Bakewell, Derbyshire, was dumped from the scheme after failing to resolve a dispute with the landlord over persistent late rent payments.

Demand for buy to let lending has dropped for the first time in two years, according to the latest Bank of England lending survey. Specialist landlord lenders told the Bank that they expect the figures to be a blip and the market will quickly recover from the slight fall.

Homeowners face more misery as house prices dropped back for the first time in six months as the stamp duty holiday for first time buyers ends. The fall signals the start of an expected slow decline in house prices as first time buyers race to complete a purchase rather than holding off until later in […]

Tax inspectors are obviously finding tax too taxing, despite HM Revenue & Customs claims to the contrary over recent years, as hundreds are due to go back to the classroom for extra lessons. HMRC says the aim is to make staff more professional and to help them handle difficult investigations better when they line up […]

The UK’s millionaires are set to up their investment into property according to the latest Millionaire Monitor form Skandia. Of the 436 millionaires questioned, 55% said they were going to invest in more property. More leaned towards residential investment too, with 31% saying they were going to invest in residential property and 24% interested in […]

Renters who flatshare won’t be affected by their housemates who fail to pay their rent and bills following complaints from tenants to Experian. After announcing the plans for a rent payment profile for tenants, those on shared tenancy agreements were going to be linked, impacting each other’s credit score.

With rents still continuing to rise, insurance provider LetRisks is urging to buy to let landlords to ensure they are in a position to cope with rising arrears and evictions. All figures relating to arrears and evictions appear to be the rise. The number of tenants with two months or more arrears increased by 11,400 […]

Renters in London need to earn around £52,000 to let a buy to let home, according to figures from homeless charity Shelter. The charity reckons 65% of non-home-owning Londoners have given up hope of buying a property in the neighbourhood where they live.

Landlords maximising income from buy to let properties by leasing their roof space to firms generating energy from solar panels are warned that they need to comply with mortgage lender guidelines. Many landlords are installing solar panels that offer tenants cut-price power while siphoning off excess energy for an income under the feed-in tariff.

The latest round up of news features the reaction to the National Planning Policy Framework from around the buy to let industry, a strong open letter to Grant Shapps about the work and influence of Shelter and the penultimate edition of the LHA Expert. There’s also news of a landlord in trouble for a lack […]

Pictures are great, but there’s no substitute for a good description when it comes to inventories according to the Association of Independent Inventory Clerks (AIIC). The before and after photos that fill inventories should always be accompanied by a “clear narrative as to what the photo is showing”. Photos, they say, are mainly for reference […]

LHA Top Tips for landlords. Article 7 in a series of 8 If prevention has failed the next best thing is speedy resolution. Be organised. Know when your rent or rents are due and what date you are expecting top-up payments. Never allow arrears to mount up before taking action.

The government needs to take action to protect consumers by regulating unscrupulous letting and estate agents, urges the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors. RICS slams the current self-regulating regime as ineffective, complicated, inconsistent and fragmented. Instead, says the organisation, the government should a impose a single regulatory framework for residential property aimed at protecting consumers.

Following the release of the amended draft of the National Planning Policy Framework, reaction has been fairly positive. The streamlining of rules, culminating in 1000 pages being reduced to a more succinct 50, include a return to focus on developing brownfield and town centres as opposed to greenfield development. Councils already with a local plan […]

*Property118 is not in any way aligned with Kazuri nor Farah Damji, but we believe questions should be raised about the funding being poured into Shelter and Crisis to work with private landlords when they have done and continue to do so much to damage the reputation of the Private Rented Sector. We believe this […]

Buy to let entrepreneurs can only finance around a quarter of the £200 billion investment needed in property over the next five years – leaving a massive shortfall in homes, according to new research. Unless institutional investors, like pension funds, fill the breach, the UK will not have enough homes to meet demand regardless of […]

A landlord who told a court he misunderstood shared house rules was fined £1,000 for failing to licence his property and fit fire safety equipment. Anton McLoughlin, 47, thought he did not need a house in multiple occupation licence because although six tenants lived there, he had divided the property into three separate flats.

Clever Chancellor George Osborne is masking landlord tax increases with smoke and mirror financial tricks that make income tax bills look better than they really are. Many believe they are better off this year and next after all the talk about big increases in the personal allowance that lifts the poorly paid out of the […]

There is a wide variety of buy to let mortgage news for both landlords and letting agents in today’s newsletter with a spotlight feature on how our but to let mortgage calculator can assist landlords to find the most suitable deals on the market. Our columnists feature posts on whether or not to opt for […]

To fix or not to fix, that is the question so many people are not honest with themselves about. In the early days of my career I saw interest rates go to 15% and then slowly creep down from that point. Around that time a significant proportion of customers were sold/chose cheaper fixed rates on […]

Hi it’s me for my sins I started my career in banking in 1990 (when I was 8!) and on to the mortgage desk in the pre regulation days. Then on to a Building Society to become a branch and business development manager, and that’s where I came across a specialist Buy to Let brokerage […]