Tenants at a London apartment have sent their landlord spiralling into difficulty after repeatedly failing to pay their rent. Naomi Koningen is something of an accidental landlord after failing to sell her house in 18 months, forcing her to let out her 2 bedroom, ground floor Streatham flat. In such a desperate time, she said […]

Buy to let movers and shakers have urged the government to consider the private residential landlords as businesses to promote more investment in housing. Landlord mortgage specialist John Heron, managing director of Paragon Mortgages berated the government for failing to motivate property investors with tax breaks. Heron made his remarks while raising the curtain on […]

Buy to let landlords have lost the chance to claim compensation from surveyors who overvalued an investment property following a successful appeal. The Court of Appeal reversed a previous ruling against Bank of Scotland owned valuers Colleys in which a judge held a surveyor had a duty of care to a home buyer. The decision […]

Landlords and tenants who find themselves disagreeing over property inventories now have a foolproof way of settling disputes –  high definition video evidence. Video inventories act as visual support to a written inventory and can be used at all parts of a tenancy agreement: the start (the property’s contents, state of repair and meter readings); […]

Upcoming changes to energy performance certificate rules for landlords have been put on hold because they have failed to clear the required regulatory hurdles on time. The new rules were due to tighten controls on landlords and letting agents from July 1.

Relationships between students and green-fingered neighbours have blossomed after they dug deep to bring an unloved garden back to life. A Growing Together scheme has run in Bath for some months with the aim of turning over uncared for gardens at shared student houses to neighbours for growing vegetables.

As we reported earlier, the Bank of England have released their Agents’ Summary of Business Conditions for June 2011. To read the report in full, click here (opens in a new tab to the Bank of England website) Your comments and feedback are always greatly appreciated, please see below.

Over the last couple of years, the problem of unauthorised subletting has been growing. From last year alone, our instructions relating to unauthorised subletting have increased by around 15%. An unauthorised sublet is when a tenant re-lets a property to another tenant without the prior permission of the landlord. It can affect all types of […]

The Bank of England’s Agents’ summary of business conditions June findings have further emphasized the sluggish activity in the housing market, but buy to let continues to thrive. The smaller properties, usually expected to be bought by first time buyers, have been picked up by buy to let investors capitalising on the market of renters.

Landlords are to give a boost to tenants and their communities as hundreds are expected to sign up to the new Respect – ASB (anti-social behaviour) Charter for Housing. The charter will offer more help, protection and guidance to prevent anti-social behaviour and to also deal with ASB.

The real worth of official housing market statistics has received another knock with the revelation that Bank of England researchers are relying on Google for their data. The government already spends taxpayers’ money on producing rival housing statistics from the Land Registry and Communities and Local Government Department.

Property owners can check if they live in a repossession hotspot with a new map compiled by homeless charity Shelter. Researchers plotted repossession data from county courts against council areas to come up with the towns and cities where house and flat owners are most at risk of losing their homes. Around 45,000 homeowners are […]

The Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors believes more should follow Broadland Housing’s lead and look to the EU for funds through the European Regional Development Fund. The Norwich-based association has won funding of over £500,000 to improve 11 houses in the area into eco-homes using the latest environment-geared housing advances.

New figures have revealed that almost half of Britain’s homes do not have adequate basic insulation and as a result, are wasting at least £100 in energy bills every year. Adequately insulated lofts and cavity walls help to cut down energy leakage and therefore energy bills.  However, the latest lagging statistics show that only 57% […]

Buy to let lending is likely to increase by billions over the next three years as smaller, independent lenders come to the market, claims specialist lender Precise Mortgages. The firm’s managing director Alan Cleary gives some interesting insights into buy to let borrowing for landlords in an interview with a trade magazine.

Discussions to change tenant deposit protection rules for landlords are going on behind closed doors, according to information leaked by the Residential Landlords Association. After a succession of court rulings rubbishing current tenant deposit rules, the government wants to tighten up the law.

High housing costs are hitting ‘Generation Rent’ hard, leaving them struggling to make ends meet. When utility bills, council tax and insurance are taken into account, individuals renting in London are left with as little as 25 per cent of their net income after housing costs. With little spare cash available, this generation is exposed […]

The first few from a series of eco-friendly homes have been unveiled in Kettering after being commissioned by LHA-ASRA. The eight homes are the first of 18 being built on unused allotment land provided by the Kettering Borough Council to be completed. The two and three bedroom houses meet Level Five of the Government’s Code […]

A property developer has been sentenced to 18 months in prison after failing to declare £143,000 he removed from his estate. Giles Nicholas Gilbey had received the money from his share of the sale of his family home. He could not satisfactorily show where the money had gone, despite knowing it should have gone to […]

According to new data from the Council of Mortgage Lenders, gross mortgage lending totalled an estimated £11.3 billion in May, which represented a 12% increase from the £10.1 billion lent in April, and was 1% higher than in May 2010. Gross mortgage lending includes lending for both house purchase and remortgage.

The Council of Mortgage Lenders is not commenting on news that a major battle over regulating buy to let mortgages with European policymakers is lost. Reports suggest lobbying by the CML and Association of Mortgage Intermediaries (AMI) has failed and a new European Directive on Credit Agreements Relating to Residential Property will include buy to […]