TDS simplifies busiest day of the year

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With the annual busiest day for end of tenancies approaching, the country’s leading deposit protection provider TDS has launched a new guide to make the process of concluding a lease easier for tenants, landlords and agents.

TDS expects the third Thursday in September (21^st September) to be the busiest period for tenancies coming to an end. The date has been calculated from the peak day over the last ten years. Last year, the third Thursday in September TDS saw 18,000 tenancies coming to an end, compared to the average of 1,300 and 2017 is looking to follow suit.

The downloadable guide gives the latest advice on what to do when a tenant is due to move out of a property, in particular highlighting the key points to address before, during, and after a check-out inspection.

The guide also gives advice on the best approach for negotiating the return of the deposit and promotes the use the new deposit deduction template, recently developed by TDS, to hasten an early agreement.

Michael Morgan, director of dispute resolution at TDS, said: “We see many disputes where a few simple steps taken before the end of the tenancy could avoid problems later on. Tools like our new guide and the deposit deduction template provide a solid structure and basis for end of tenancy procedures and to improve deduction negotiations. If tenants better understand the reasons for deductions at an early stage and can see the justification for them, they are much more likely to agree.”

Steve Harriott, TDS chief executive added: “This is great guidance for members and their tenants – and another great example of the work being done by TDS to reduce disputes and improve practices for dealing with tenancy deposits.”

• Peak day over 13 times busier than normal
• New guide makes end of tenancies easier for landlords, agents and tenants

TDS’ new guidance is available to download: Click Here

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7% of landlords report using Airbnb or similar short term lets

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A survey of 1,500 landlords across the UK conducted by the RLA showed that 7% are now using Airbnb or similar sites to offer their properties as short term of holiday lets.

The RLA concluded from these figures that if this trend was consistent throughout the whole PRS then potentially 134,400 homes have been taken out of the housing stock as main residences.

The RLA are connecting this trend to Section 24 mortgage interest relief restrictions increasing the tax burden of offering Buy to Let property on long term ASTs. In fact 36% of the respondents offering short term or holiday lets said that Section 24 was the direct cause.

One landlord offering properties on Airbnb commented in the survey, ““I didn’t want to do this, but the tax changes have forced me down this route. Selling is not an option due to CGT, and this iniquitous tax which is effectively retrospective is unjust in that my buy to lets are a business, just like any other. There will be less properties available to rent as a result of this tax.”

The shift to using Airbnb and other types of short term let is particularly acute in London with a 75% increase in the number of multi-listings (more than one listing per individual) on Airbnb between February 2016 and March 2017.

David Smith, RLA Policy Director said: “With London and the country as a whole in desperate need of new homes to rent in the long term, it is crazy that recent tax changes encourage landlords to move to the short term holiday let market.

“What we need is a tax system that encourages investment in homes to rent for the long term by good landlords.

“By skewing the market Government policy will serve only to hit the hardest those young people and families who most need a growing private rented sector to meet their needs.”

The RLA along with Property118 and Axe The Tenant Tax are calling on the Government to end the perverse incentive landlords have to move to holiday lets by scrapping the mortgage interest relief changes.

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Now see the other side of the coin – tenant wrecks house…

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Tenants from Hell:

There’s been a lot of talk in the media recently about rogue landlords and how they house their tenants in appalling conditions, and landlords “raking in the money” for doing next to nothing. What we rarely hear about these days is the other side of the coin: the tenants that cause landlords sleepless nights, lots of stress and worry and a big hole in their pocket.

Liverpool landlord Steve Parry, 55, a surveyor, had invested in two rental properties in his home town, hoping the two would rent out to provide him with a comfortable income for his retirement, as he told the Liverpool Echo he does not have a big workplace pension.

But Parry claims he has ‘not made a bean’ after ‘the living nightmare’ he has gone through with this tenant family.

The shocking photos at his Wavertree property, published in the paper, show just what a trail of destruction was left behind by his “tenant from hell” – a wrecked kitchen, flooded bathroom and bags of dog mess left around.

The pictures show internal doors smashed in, piles of rubbish in the sink, cupboards torn off and a ceiling that collapsed after a flood in the bathroom, which brought down the ceiling below, and the landlord believes this was deliberate.

The female tenant had refused to leave the property for months even after the landlord had served notice and gone to court, and Parry claims he ended up losing more than £2,000 in unpaid rent, £1,500 in court fees and at least £6,000 of damage to the home.

Parry decided he had to evict the tenant and her children in 2015 after she had fallen behind with rent. And despite the tenant signing a tenancy agreement which didn’t allow pets, a large dog, which the landlord claims had scratched several floors, and ‘petrified’ him when he went round.

“The house was wrecked – it’s shocking. She had failed to sort the rent out despite numerous promises, so I gave her two months’ notice to quit.

“I was then forced to serve two notices on her, which cost £200 each and she ignored. I had to get an order for possession in court, which I only got in the November.

“She was supposed to vacate by December 13, but despite everything I let her remain on agreement she would leave after the New Year,” said Parry

“But she refused to move – saying she was looking for a new house. I had no choice but to pay for court bailiffs. She was finally removed this April.”

Parry said the experience has put him off taking on tenants reliant on benefits to pay rent, though he admitted it was unfair on most decent housing benefit tenants.

Mr Parry said that many other landlords were also turning their backs on this type of tenant, partly as the income is less reliable after welfare reforms put tenants in charge of managing their money.

He told the Echo:

“Most people are good people, but you get a few rotten apples. I can see it causing problems for 99% of people who aren’t like that.

“People assume you’re loaded as a landlord, but I haven’t made a bean I’ve had that many problems. All I’m hoping is the house value will be more than I bought them for.”

Mr Parry noted that politicians had rightly started cracking down on bad landlords, but called for more action to protect good landlords from problem tenants.

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