Around 75,000 buy to let tenants are in rent arrears – a 13% increase on the same period last year, according to rent receivers appointed by mortgage lenders. The number of tenants failing to pay rent went up from 71,483 in the first three months of 2011 to 74,492 in the second quarter – a […]

A gang-of-five of mortgage industry trade bodies has joined forces to challenge European Union proposals for mortgages that include tougher regulation of buy to let. The EU is pushing a draft mortgage directive through the European parliament that aims to tighten up rules for residential and buy to let lending.

Buy to let property investors are set to challenge collapsed property firms Inside Track and Instant Access Properties over misselling claims. The action group is led by Tamsin Banks, 51, who alleges she lost around £400,000 over seven property deals with the companies in Manchester, Spain and Florida.

Landlords are regularly falling victim to rogue letting agents who suddenly shut up shop and take their money and run. The two most common scenarios are a letting agent facing business difficulties closing down with money owing to landlords and tenants or some who are plain thieves milking their business bank accounts for as much […]

Mortgage rates have tumbled to their cheapest since records started almost 25 years ago. Fixed and tracker rate mortgages are at their lowest rates since 1988, according to independent finance monitor Moneyfacts.

Paying stamp duty and capital gains tax on a property sale is definitely a case of one law for the rich and another for the not so rich. Wealthy investors can get away with paying no property taxes when they sell a home by exploiting offshore tax rules.

Council spends £25,000 on repairing death-trap HMO A death-trap letting property seized by a council because the tenants lived in such appalling conditions has cost around £25,000 to repair. The house in multiple occupation (HMO) in Peterborough had blocked drains, uncapped gas pipes and a bypassed electric meter.

The Smith Institute has recently published a report by housing policy expert Andrew Heywood entitled “The End of the Affair: implications of declining home ownership”.  The report highlights the increase in the Private Rented Sector of the UK property market and considers its implications.

Something is only worth what the highest bidder is prepared to pay. If you see something in the sales marked up at 50% off, that’s its value.  The fact it was once priced up at twice the amount it is now is irrelevant.  If you buy that item, that’s its value.  If nobody buys it […]

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 […]