A shortage of homes to rent is pushing yields up for landlords – and the trend is likely to continue, say letting agents. Yields have risen for 21 months in a row according to the latest buy to let market review for the three months ending October 31 from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors.

The latest news and views from the property market and private rented sector, including reaction to the Channel Four Property Scandal programmes. This edition also includes guest articles from Ben Reeve-Lewis, Julie Ford, Frazer Fearnhead and the funny-as-ever HMO Landlady.

House prices in Scotland have remained fairly constant, offering only small rises for larger properties and slight drops in smaller houses. Edinburgh saw its average house price rise by 0.6% on a year ago, with the biggest rise coming in West Lothian at 6.2%. Elsewhere, properties in East Lothian and Dunfermline decreased.

You can reference tenants, you can use your own judgement to select ones you think you can trust and you can be a good honest considerate landlord, but there is still no guarantee they will treat your property with respect. If you have not experienced any issues with tenants damaging your property then you are […]

Property investors will pay more inheritance tax and capital gains tax after the government changed the basis for calculating index-linked increases in reliefs. The back-door move will increase the amount of tax collected on all transactions from April 2012 despite Chancellor George Osborne promising CGT rules would remain the same during the life of this […]

Property investors looking for homes with the best capital growth should look for homes built before the end of the First World War, according to new research. High ceilings, decorative features, larger rooms and often larger plots have all contributed to the massive 461% price rise in homes built before 1919 – equivalent to just […]

Landlords across the country appear to be changing tack as the amount of successful possession orders appears to be on the rise. Let Insurance Services have found the amount of possession orders without a money judgement is up a third on 2010 as landlords appear to be cutting their losses.

Probably like many readers of Property 118, I watched Landlords from Hell on Channel 4 last night with a mixture of annoyance and head shaking depression. I feel partly responsible as having appeared briefly in September’s follow up to the first programme, I stayed in touch with the production company and provided a lot of […]

The Deposit Protection Scheme has made a raft of changes to make the returning and protection of deposits process easier and quicker. Tenants can now request their repayment ID by SMS, they say this should take away one of causes for delay in returning deposits.

Two-thirds of people believe house prices will not drop next year despite warnings from banks and governments that the global economy is on the brink of slipping back in to recession. One in five predict prices will rise by the end of 2012 while around 40% expect no change despite property prices sitting around the […]

Landlords are being urged to sign up for a new passport scheme for tenants that build a six-year rental history similar to a credit record. The passport is a real-time online service that helps landlords reference tenants.

I’ve just come off the phone to our local housing benefit “help” line, scraped myself off the ceiling and stopped terrifying the handyman (who is putting up shelves) with my expletives. Based on previous experience, I don’t know why I thought this call could ever be a productive use of time.

The latest news and views from the property market and private rented sector. This edition also includes guest articles from Ben Reeve-Lewis, Mary Latham and the return of Landlord Action’s Paul Shamplina.

The Localism Act 2011 is another heavy piece of legislation and you might be forgiven for missing a very important detail. It has been overlooked in several articles that I have read this week, but the courts will not forgive you so you’d better read on. In the Housing Act 2004 it became unlawful to […]

Landlords working guide to housing case law Abandonment etc This is the first of a new and occasional series (In other words as the mood takes me) where I try to explain my world as an enforcement officer for landlord and tenant law to people in your world, PRS landlords just trying to get by.

A drug dealing landlord who planned to run a cannabis factory in a charity hostel has assets of just £266 to set off against profits of £7,000 from his crimes. Naeem Sarwar, 33, the resident landlord at Maundy Relief in Union Road, Oswaldtwistle, Lancashire, was arrested when police raiding his flat found £5,000 of cannabis […]

Planners are cracking down on landlords who have added extensions to 24 homes in just three streets without permission. Manchester City Council says 14 of the illegal extensions were built on properties owned by two landlords.

Islamic Bank of Britain has joined the throng as the latest lender to offer buy to let mortgages to landlords. The IBB will consider applications from landlords of any faith for a Sharia-compliant mortgage. The mortgage package is a 75% loan-to-value deal at 5.49% variable with a 1% arrangement fee.

Readyclaim.co.uk are making it even more difficult for landlords to avoid adopting new technology as they launch their new online asset management tool. Readyclaim believe their tool will make easier and more accurate insurance claims as users can take pictures of their assets and attach pictures of receipts or invoices to it.

Congratulations to Roy for his winning story! Mary Latham selected the Good Tenant Story because “People don’t have to do “big” things to be good tenants, all landlords really want is for their tenants to do as this family does. Its great that Roy recognises the fact that they are good tenants and I hope […]

Every landlord can unwrap a generous £150 gift to himself courtesy of the taxman. Buried in tax law is a little known rule that lets every business spend up to £150 per head on a party for staff – and the rule applies to landlords as well.