Retaliatory Eviction and the Deregulation Act 2015

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This act was introduced, as although most tenants are happy with their accommodation, there are still some who have what might be termed rouge or criminal landlords who repeatedly fail to carry out basic repairs.

This legislation was introduced to protect these tenants from eviction by their landlord after requesting repairs.

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Ex tenant still using our address

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Can anyone advise on how to stop an ex-tenant using our address?

We evicted him 8 months ago for non-payment of rent. He owes us over £10,000.

Obviously we weren’t able to get a forwarding address from him.

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Serving a Section 21 on tenant while house is uninhabitable

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This is about a tenant who claims a a Section 21 notice constitutes illegal eviction because he can’t return to the property during rebuilding work.

I made a mutual agreement with my AST tenant to vacate my house temporarily for 3-4 months during rebuilding in lieu of rent

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Borders inspectorate calls for Evidence on Right to Rent

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Checking Immigrants:

The Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration (ICIBI) is calling on the industry for evidence to help with their evaluation exercise on the tenant’s Right to Rent scheme.

The inspector has already invited stakeholders, landlord and agent representative bodies, including  those bodies that took part in the Home Office Landlords Consultative Panel to contribute.

ICIBI are now asking for evidence from wider stakeholders on:

• The initial introduction of Right to Rent.
• Evidence from the Rollout of Phase 1 (in Birmingham, Walsall, Sandwell, Dudley and Wolverhampton) and how this informed the development of the scheme.
• Right to Rent sanctions.
• Issuance of civil penalties, criminal prosecutions and removals measures by Home Office enforcement and casework teams.
• Joint working and data-sharing between the Home Office and other government departments, agencies and other bodies.

In ARLA Propertymark’s response they are highlighting key issues with the scheme including whether the scheme is achieving its core aims in relation to rogue landlords and illegal tenants.

They are also concerned about the time and resources that professional agents have to use to complete checks within the context of an impending ban on letting agent fees.

They are highlighting to the inspector the issues that need to be addressed in order to ensure that the scheme does not fail to meet its objectives including the quality of example identification shown in the user guidance and the robustness of some forms of accepted identification specified in List A, Group 2.

ICIBI need to understand, say ARLA Propertymark, that the limited scope of the helpline is an issue as it does not meet the needs of agents and landlords who are frequently looking for advice on spotting forgeries and deciding whether individual items of identification correspond to generic items on the list i.e. “other travel documents endorsed to show that the holder is allowed to stay in the UK”.

ARLA Propertymark says:

“Where agents have had to use the Landlord Checking service for tenants without documentation, we are pleased that checks are being carried out quickly but have raised issues with the quality of the documentation received.

“In our response we are highlighting the ineffectiveness of legislation which fails to be supported by appropriate levels of enforcement. Many members are simply sceptical of the impact on rogue landlords delivering substandard accommodation because of a fundamental lack of enforcement activity.”

This new elevation study follows a previous one conducted 6 months after the scheme’s introduction – see here

Code of practice on illegal immigrants and private rented accommodation here

ARLA Code of Practice for Letting Agents – here

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Agent responsible for PMQs UC eviction letter meeting PM’s Policy Board Chairman and Shadow Housing Minister

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I am the agent responsible for the letter warning my tenants of the impending Universal Credit that was coupled with their s.21 notice and a reminder that if rent is not paid on time then I will have no option but to evict

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So what does an aging small landlord do?

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I’m a small landlord, 4 BTL properties acquired over the last 13 years. 3 are in a limited company (no mortgages), 1 is owned privately. The privately owned one was re-mortgaged to fund the last property purchased, which I managed to slide into the company just prior to all the changes.

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ONS take £70bn of Housing Association debt off Government Balance sheet

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In 2015 the Office for National Statistics (ONS) decided that Housing Associations were under such direct levels of control by the government they could no longer be classified as charities or private businesses and so added their debt to government borrowing.

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“Save the High Street” campaign, a failure…

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Retail Trends:

The “Save the High Street” campaign, a government sponsored experiment led by TV presenter and retail shop expert, Mary Portas, has proved a failure, as the towns involved in the trial have seen 1,000 shops close in five years.

The idea was to show that with the right approach, the application of good town centre management principles, markets, coffee shops and community cafes, and the rejuvenation of a few key shops, trade would increase by attracting more footfall and other shops would follow.

The experiment started in 2012, selecting twelve towns which presumably were thought to have the potential to show the most improvement: Bedford, Croydon, Dartford, Greater Bedminster, Liskeard, Margate, Market Rasen, Nelson, Newbiggin-by-the-Sea, Stockport, Stockton-on-Tees and Wolverhampton.

All have since gone on to lose nearly almost one-in-five (20%) of their shops, that’s according to research group, Local Data Company’s data. This rate of decline has exactly matched that of the rest of the country.

The government-backed plan involved a £1.2million government grant which was thought would transform these centres back into the thriving retail hubs they once were.

The campaign was launched in a blaze of publicity by Mary Portas, based around her TV performances as the “Queen of Shops”, the 12 towns involved were each given £100,000 to bring about this town centre transformation.

However, controversy soon reigned as Ms Portas accused the Government of just using her campaign as a PR exercise, but not backing it up, as she saw it, with its policies, namely not reducing business rates.

She has lobbied the Chancellor, Philip Hammond, to cancel the recent increases in business rates, predicting that they would kill off 33% of shops. Ms Portas told The Daily Telegraph:

“It feels like there was this great splash from Government, that they were getting behind businesses. But they can’t say that and then treble rates.”

Can businesses swim against the tide of internet shopping revolution and home delivery, as even more expansion of this trend, now into groceries, from the likes of Amazon takes place?

There were reported to be around 15 shop closures a day across the UK in the first half of 2016 and new shop openings fell to the lowest level in five years, according to research by the Local Data Company.

Over the period covered by their 2016 report, produced by accountancy firm PwC and the Local Data Company, BHS went into administration, which increased the figures, but these were still a small proportion of the whole.

The retail mix is changing, and other shops still opening are giving town centres a different character from before. Matthew Hopkinson, the director of the Local Data Company, has said:

“The spaces left by the traditional occupants of our high streets are being increasingly filled by health care operators, food and beverage operators and the ongoing rise of the discounters.”

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – “Save the High Street” campaign, a failure… | LandlordZONE.

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Moving parents into an FHL – what would I owe to HMRC

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I’ve a tax question concerning furnished holiday lets and personal occupation

In 2016 I bought a flat and spent £20k on renovating it, with a view to making it a furnished holiday let (FHL) in the short term.

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DWP inquiry into UC rent arrears

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Finally the DWP announce that they are launching an inquiry into whether Universal Credit (UC) is pushing claimants into rent arrears.

This was revealed by Caroline Dineage, Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions),  in the House of Commons and I’m sure we as landlords will be very interested to see this report.

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