The Insolvency Service has seen a rise in landbanking scams, complaints have gone up by a third since 2009 at a cost of £13.4million. The scams involve a company selling portions of land to investors with the false pretence of planning permission only for the land to be found to be Green Belt and planning […]

Consumer champions are warning homeowners with financial problems about property speculators who offer a way to avoid repossession with lease option deals. The Financial Services Authority (FSA) is drafting guidelines warning homeowners about some unscrupulous companies that fail to deliver their promises to stop repossessions or ease their financial problems. Lease options are a controversial […]

Buy to let insiders have revealed some home truths behind the property business in an online video for mortgage brokers. The key speaker was Paul Howard, head of the Nationwide’s specialist accounts, which includes major landlord lender The Mortgage Works (TMW) The video debate was hosted by trade magazine Mortgage Solutions, bringing Howard together mortgage […]

Do flats make good buy to let investment properties? I have several in my portfolio but the dynamics of viability is very different to a freehold property as service charges and rent affect net yields. Also, what’s best, ground floor or upper floors? Please check out the short video below ….

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The Bank of England have released their Agents’ Summary of Business Conditions for October, and have once again found a depressed housing market. They say high loan to value products are being offered, but the take up has been low. Worryingly, they said the stagnant market and lack of transactions has provoked concerns for letting […]

I listened to a programme on Radio 5 Live a few days ago that investigated how “Property Investor and Guru” Phil Martin had left a couple close to bankruptcy after agreeing a lease option on their property. In a nutshell he agreed to take an option to buy the property at a future date and […]

With inflation hitting a 20 year high at 5.2%, the headlines are screaming doom and gloom. Instead, step back and read what high inflation and quantitive easing means to landlords running a buy to let business. The Consumer Price Index (CPI) – the government’s official inflation monitor – has registered 5.2% for September and is […]

Homes under the hammer are still knocking up strong sales with almost 2,500 properties changing hands for £282 million. Around 70% of all homes up for auction were sold, according to the latest UK auction statistics for September from EI Group. The number of lots sold were up from 3,450 (3.8%) on a year ago, […]

What hints and tips can you share about how to check out a letting agent or a property manager to manage your property investments? Did you know that a landlord can NOT contract his legal responsibilities to an agent and that he maintains responsibility for the actions of his agent? Please rate and comment on […]

The Association of Independent Inventory Clerks has once again warned buy to let landlords to conduct inventories properly, even for unfurnished properties. They say it’s not just the ‘loose’ contents that need protecting with an inventory but carpets, bathrooms and even walls and cupboards. Worktop chips and scratches should be recorded in the inventory, as […]

Will changes in funding provide threats to private rented sector landlords or an incentive for parents of students to become landlords themselves to offset rising costs of education?

Next year I will have been a landlord for 40 years and I am going to throw a boomerang at each of my good tenants via twitter (@landlordtweets) during the month of December. I am fed up of hearing tenants from hell stories, most of my tenants over the past 40 years have been great […]

We’ve had our Indian Summer and weren’t some of the sunsets amazing!  Now apparently because the berries were on a certain shrub over August , we are in for a hard and cold winter.  I always thought that if the berries were untouched till late then it was because they were being saved for winter. […]

The latest pointless buy to let survey has hit the news feeds with the headline finding that broker buy to let mortgage applications are up 3.1% during the three months ending September 30. The problem is the figure is meaningless as the Paragon Mortgages survey gives no idea of the number of brokers taking part […]

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When a tenant has a beef with their landlord, I’m the guy they go to. My job is to either negotiate or prosecute, depending on the circumstances. This occasional and random series aims to let landlords know the common complaints that are made about them, the laws that cover them and how to deal with […]

Maps that show commuting times to a destination postcode are a great aid for landlords who want to highlight public transport links near their properties. Students and universities are big users of the new mapping service that works out bus and train travel times. Landlords can use the maps to show prospective tenants just how […]

The North may be lighting up the house sale statistics, but the number of homes changing hands is still down by almost half in the past 10 years. Bury leads the way with a massive 44% surge in sales in the first six months of 2011, compared with the same time last year.

The latest Homelet index found average rent prices dropped last month, only the second time it’s dropped in successive months this year. Across the country prices fluctuated, some regions saw big price drops while the regions where prices rose only did so slightly, accounting for the drop. East Anglia saw the biggest drop, dropping back […]

Judges have deemed new government rules to cap housing benefit and rental home sizes do not discriminate against poor families. The Child Poverty Action group launched a legal challenge against the shake-up of housing benefit rules as part of the government’s universal credit policy. As part of the welfare review, the government changed housing benefit […]