Save The Date – 8th Oct At ExCel London

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Our search for a low-budget super model is over. Pictured above is Neil Patterson, Managing Director of Property118.com, showcasing our bright orange promo T-Shirts for our big publicity stunt. We are looking forward to meeting as many of our members as possible at the Property Investor Show at the ExCel Conference Centre on 8th October. We… Read more

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Government reports ‘surge’ in Rent Smart Wales applications

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The Welsh Government says it is seeing a surge in applications for its Rent Smart Wales scheme, after the RLA revealed just 3% of landlords have been issued with licences. It has reminded landlords they face prosecution if they have not registered with the scheme by the November 23rd deadline – now just eight weeks […]

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A New Look TenantVERIFY®

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Doing background checks on tenants should be a part of every landlord’s or agent’s letting process. Screening tenants effectively involves many things, but the credit checks and referencing using a reliable agency is perhaps the most important aspect.

Since TenantVERIFY® started nearly 15 years ago, we’ve completed many thousands of checks, but our online systems were becoming very dated. So now, after 12 months hard work, we’ve come up with a new system which has been extensively tested, and we are finding, a few weeks after launch, that users have really taken to it.

We’ve completely overhauled TenantVERIFY®

We’ve updated the website with new features but it’s still basically the same process as before.

We hope you like the clean, streamlined new look and the additional features we have included to make landlords’ and agents’ jobs easier…

A redesigned front-end, which not only looks and feels state-of-the-art, it includes lots of up-to-date letting information.

✔ New forms which gather all the information you should ever need on your tenant applicants.

✔ Tenant applicants can now complete the forms online, saving you lots of time copying data.

✔ You can save information at any time and come back to complete applications later.

✔ You can easily upload ID documents and images with your application, with right-to-rent checks and affordability in mind.

✔ We send out emails and SMS text messages to keep you informed as the checks progress.

✔ Our new in-depth analysis reports give you detailed information to help you make an informed letting decision.

✔ Our tenant checks include right-to-rent, anti-money laundering (AML) and a whole range of important data searches.

✔ Our 4-stage user process is simple to follow and conclude, making your busy letting life easier…

Visit TenantVERIFY® – See What We’ve Updated

The 4 Stage TenantVERIFY® Process:

1. The Application – Register for a User Account – user accounts are FREE, secure and without obligation, then choose the type of check and process method you want:

a. Send a Link to your tenant applicant for online completion – this is the fastest method.

b. E-mail the pdf form to your tenant & have them complete, scan & return it via e-mail.

c. Print off a form and have the applicant complete it by hand.

2. Submitting Information – when your online form is returned – you check the information to make sure it is accurate and click on the “Submit” button. For e-mailed and printed forms – transfer the information from the completed application form to our online form before submitting it. You will then be passed through to our bank’s secure payment system.

3. Processing – we will do our detailed checks and analysis on the information supplied, along with any photos / documents you uploaded, all of which will be stored on your User Account Control Panel for future reference.

4. The Decision – we will compile a completed report about your applicant based on a wide range of checks and our years of experience. We will give you our clear decision – Accept, Accept with Caution, or Reject.

Next time you need a credit check, why not give TenantVERIFY® a try!

… LandlordZONE.

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Can this tenancy become periodic?

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This is a query about whether this particular tenancy can become periodic. We have a flat which have let to the same tenant for two, consecutive, 12 month tenancies. In each case, the rent for the whole 12 months has been paid in advance. The tenant is a single mother but with some sort of… Read more

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Labour attack private landlords for being ‘subsidised’ with £9bn in housing benefits

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In his Keynote speech to close the Labour Party conference in Liverpool,  the leader of the Labour Party Jeremy Corbyn, accused the government of subsidising private landlords spending £9bn of housing benefits in the sector. A sum double that of 10 years ago. Despite the Private Rented Sector (PRS) now accounting for over half of… Read more

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Corbyn’s attack on landlords is misguided

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Landlords have hit back at accusations made by Jeremy Corbyn in his Labour conference speech  that they are being subsidised by £9 billion of housing benefit cash. According to Budget figures, in 2014/15 total housing benefit spending for social rented tenants at £15.2 billion, was significantly more than the £9.1 billion for those in the […]

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Are HMO’s the smart investment?

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In the post-Brexit world, nothing is certain. However, it appears that investment in Houses of Multiple occupancy is where many property investors are looking. HMO properties can allow a landlord to maximise their return by splitting property into separate spaces with separate tenancy agreements. An HMO is defined as a property with at least three tenants forming multiple households, where ‘multiple households’ means tenants are not in a relationship or related.

HMO landlords tend to come in three categories:

• Those who rent out spare rooms within their property

• Regular ‘Buy-to-Let’ Landlords that bought a large property that it is suitable for HMO letting

• Landlords that actively seek out properties that are suited to an HMO style or are willing to spend time and money changing a property to become an HMO

Why invest?

Demand

There is a growing trend amongst the under thirties to not live alone. This could be due to a plethora of reasons, two of which are the fact that rent for a single bed recently moved over the £1000pcm mark or maybe thanks to sites such as SpareRooms that increases the opportunities available to find groups of similar people to live with. Whatever the reason, it is good news for those looking to get into the HMO market.

Furthermore, with the 21^st century phenomenon of ‘Generation Rent’, there are more people looking to rent rather than buy. This is thanks to things such as more stringent mortgage laws and inflated property prices, even after Brexit. This means that the size (and quality) of the potential tenant base has increased.

Ability

Since 2013, Planning permission rules surrounding small scale extensions have been relaxed. This means that investors actively seeking properties to convert to an HMO style are able to quickly and easily increase the size of a property without having to go through the arduous process of planning applications. This has been a particular bugbear of MP Steve McCabe, who raised the issue of ugly HMO extensions in parliament in August.

Return

When compared to a standard buy-to-let single freehold and block of flat models, HMO’s outperformed both. The single and block of flat models returned 6% and 7% respectively, whilst HMO’s averaged a 10% return per annum. As the saying goes…the numbers don’t lie.

Things to consider

Rules

As with all types of private rented housing, there are laws surrounding certain things that must be provided. For HMO’s these are more complex than usual. Firstly, the property must be licenced to become an HMO by the local council. To gain this licence the property must adhere to a certain criteria. For example, no room can be too far from communal facilities such as a kitchen or bathroom (when renting out individual rooms) and there are stipulations over the types of locks that must be used on doors both inside and outside the property. Unfortunately for those looking to invest in HMO’s, there is currently no standard definition of what an HMO is or what it must contain, therefore it is best to check with the council what the property must have and ensure the correct licence is applied for or face a fine of up to £20,000.

Oversupply

As is often the case when an investment opportunity that offers a higher yield than the rest comes to light, lots of people jump on the bandwagon. This means that the market could be flooded with shoddy HMO’s. The best thing to do to avoid this and being dragged down is to spend time thinking about the potential layout of an HMO property and how it would feel to live there. Tenants are more willing to pay higher rent when the property is worth it. Furthermore, this doesn’t have to cost more, it is simply a case of taking a step back and thinking “How would this work if I was living here?”

Making life easier?

Unsurprisingly, having multiple tenants with differing tenancy agreements means that HMO rental is more complex than a standard single let. The property manager will have to deal with issues both in the communal areas and in private areas. This is where property management software is key. Arthur Online is the leading property software management tool when it comes to HMO letting. Arthur’s unique database allows the property manager to work on both a property and unit level. This means when an issue arises, or a task needs to be completed the property manager can automatically inform all parties that need to know.

Furthermore, due to the fact there are more tenancy agreements within the property, there tends to be a higher turnover within HMO properties. However, when using Arthur this is not a problem. Tenants can request to end a tenancy through Arthur, the property manager can the accept this and automatically assign the letting agent to find a new tenant.

By using Arthur Online Property management software, Landlords can take on an HMO without worrying about the extra workload it may present.

Sign Up for a free thirty day trial of Arthur Online.

… LandlordZONE.

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Urgent review into UC rent arrears

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Lord David Freud has called for an “urgent” review of Universal Credit claimants – tenants who have fallen into rent arrears. Lord Freud was appointed Minister of State for Welfare Reform at the Department for Work and Pensions in May 2015 and is a Conservative member of the House of Lords working towards implementing Universal […]

… LandlordZONE.

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