Link to the original Mortgage Strategy article which reads as follows: Three people, including a former police financial investigator were sentenced yesterday to almost ten years imprisonment in total for defrauding mortgage providers of £4.6m. Charles Overend, a former police financial investigator, defrauded mortgage providers by hiding discounts he had received on the price of […]

The taxman has finally come a cropper in the game of brinkmanship played on claiming unpaid tax right on the legal deadlines for chasing money. HM Revenue and Customs is well known for chasing late payers and launching tax inquiries at the eleventh hour.

Property investors have seen prices for homes in rural areas outpace those in towns and cities for the past decade and average house prices are now 20% higher than those in towns. The rural house price rise was also greater than the increase in property prices in urban areas (91%).

The Co-op Bank’s buy to let lending arm, Platform Mortgages, has a new range of fixed rate deals for property investors. The headline grabber is a two-year fixed deal at 4.59% for investors with a 40% deposit – increasing to 5.09% and 5.19% for 65% and 70% loan-to-values.

A 5,000-signature petition demanding changes in the law to speed up the eviction of problem tenants from buy to let rental properties has been handed in to Downing Street. Mike Weatherley, Tory MP for Hove and Portslade is leading the protesters, consisting of 14 landlord businesses and representative groups, including the Residential Landlords Association (RLA).

Landlords can expect to see a jump in the number of complaints from tenants about damp in their homes over the next few months – but who is responsible for paying to put the problem right? Many landlords are seen as a bottomless money pit by letting agents and tenants who are on the phone […]

The new universal credit for housing costs may still leave private landlords out on a limb over rent payments. The proposed new rules will replace local housing allowance with a housing cost element of the universal credit system. But the outline proposals are not clear over who gets the payment – the landlord or the […]

Buy to let rentals have gone up for the ninth month in a row to hit a new record high just shy of £700 per month. According to LSL Property Services, the largest letting agents in England and Wales, the average cost of renting a home rose by 0.4% from £689 to £691 in October, […]

Commercial property investment is much like sinking cash in to buy to let homes to rent – as a landlord you research and select a property, finance the investment and manage the tenant who pays your costs out of the rent. Some investors would argue that now is a good time to put money in […]

Please DO NOT renew your landlords buildings insurance without talking to us first. A new PDF is now available to download explaining why The Money Centre Insurance Scheme is so popular.

The taxman has confirmed The Money Centre’s long-held suspicion that HMRC is chasing property investors suspected of ‘flipping’ homes following the scandal of MP expenses. Following in the footsteps of our articles, the Daily Telegraph has revealed HMRC has a new computer system that compares stamp duty payments on property purchases with capital gains tax […]

Buy to let rents have shattered the £700 per month barrier and are on track to surpass the previous record high of £711, according to a property letting specialist. Average monthly rents have steadily increased throughout 2010 in line with tighter credit controls on mortgage lending from banks and building societies, says Belvoir, a lettings […]

A proposed new law requiring buy to let landlords to provide a wired-in fire alarm in their rental property has failed to gain support in parliament due to fears over cost. Liberal Democrat MP Adrian Sanders claimed his private members bill would save lives and prevent injuries in fires every year.

At last some truths about mortgage lending are starting to emerge from the smoke and mirrors propaganda billowing out from the Council of Mortgage Lenders – the cosy club that represents all of the UK’s big banks and building societies. Mortgage lending has hit rock bottom with the lowest figures for almost a decade, according […]

High street banks lent less on mortgages last month than at any time since February 2001, according to the British Bankers’ Association (BBA). In total, the high streets banks agreed loans of £7.6 billion – just over 16% down on the same month last year.

A new PDF is now available to download explaining why The Money Centre Insurance Scheme is so popular.

Property investors may find the next few months an ideal time to buy reasonably priced property as buyer confidence slips to an 18-month low. Estate agents and surveyors are reporting buyers are saying they will put off any purchase decisions until the spring – which leaves sellers with little option other than to accept a […]

Banks, building societies and finance houses not only share repayment information about their customers, but can now also receive insight about the net worth of buy to let investors. Credit reference firm Experian is opening up house price data by teaming up with property portal Rightmove to offer lenders the new Equity Check service.

The tax countdown clock is ticking for landlords who have less than 50 working days left before the January 31, 2011 deadline. The date is not only important because any tax return filed late is hit with an automatic £100 penalty but also for several other reasons:

HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) has issued a warning to anyone who hasn’t yet sent in their self-assessment tax return – file online or face a £100 penalty. The October 31 paper-filing deadline has passed, so anyone filing a late paper tax return could be liable to a £100 penalty.

Almost a third of buy to let landlords would like to add more letting homes to their portfolios to expand their businesses to meet soaring tenant demand. Half of landlords are reporting surging interest from tenants in the last quarter, while seven in every 10 expect the demand to continue for the coming year.