Landlord On Your Feet

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Selco Builders Warehouse are here to give you a helping hand with any Landlord job or project you have in progress or coming soon. 

When you sign up, you become part of the Selco club. Being a member of the Selco club gives you exclusive access to everything we have to offer.

That means you can drop into any of 62 massive branches across the UK, and pick up any number of 1000s of trade products – products that are priced competitively low for professionals like you, so you can complete every important job or project for less.

And so you know for certain you can rely on the products we supply, we have 100s of top trade brands available too, including Leyland paint, DeWalt tools, Kronospan floors and absolutely tons more.

Not to mention deliveries from branch, a top-notch tool, plant & machinery hire service, paint-mixing, sheet material cutting, and brick-matching.

But do you want the convenience of being able to buy trade products whenever you need them? Well, at selcobw.com, not only can you buy online for next day courier delivery, but you can also Click & Collect in-branch within just 30 minutes. Or drop into any of our branches from early in the morning to late at night. Our helpful and knowledgeable team is always ready and available to help you.

Want to take a look at what you can get right now? You can sign up for our trade card online and start buying straight away.

Register now for your free trade card.

P.S We nearly forgot! All of our branches have their very own café serving tasty hot & cold food & drink, so you’ll never go hungry when you buy at Selco Builders Warehouse.

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – Landlord On Your Feet | LandlordZONE.

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Charged £90 – Email not a guaranteed system to deliver notice?

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I recently received a £90 charge for late paying service charge for a leasehold property for which I never received the service charge demand/invoice, but the management company claimed they sent it by email (an email in their sent folder).

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Landlord borrowers must conform to new EPC regulations

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Buy-to-Let Mortgages:

Buy to let lenders will increasingly demand to see that landlord borrowers are complying with the Minimum Energy Efficiency Standard (MEES) regulations which come into force from next month.

From April 2018, a new legal standard for minimum energy efficiency will apply to all rented residential and commercial buildings. The new legal standard brings both threats and opportunities for landlords, investors, developers and lenders.

From 1 April 2018, landlords of buildings that come within the scope of the MEES Regulations (there are a limited number of exemptions) must not market them for sale, renew existing tenancies or grant new tenancies if the building has less than the minimum energy performance certificate (EPC) rating of E, unless the landlord can register a valid exemption. This will extend to all existing tenancies by 1 April 2020.

To establish whether a building and tenancy come within the scope of MEES is not always easy. Generally it can be said that MEES does not apply to:

• buildings not required to have an EPC, for example industrial sites, workshops, non-residential agricultural buildings with a low energy demand, certain listed buildings, temporary properties and holidays lets
• buildings where the EPC is over 10 years old or where there is no EPC
• tenancies of less than 6 months (with no right of renewal)
• tenancies of over 99 years.

To determine whether a building and tenancy come within the scope means consulting two sets of regulations: Energy Performance of Buildings (England and Wales) 2012 and the MEES Regulations.

Having said that, most buy-to-let tenancies will come within the scope, but the government’s Guidance for Landlords here provides explanations of how MEES will apply in particular circumstances for residential and commercial lets, such as leases parts of buildings.

Enforcement

The MEES Regulations will be enforced by Local Authority Weights and Measures (LWMAs) with powers to impose civil penalties set by reference to a property’s rateable value. The penalty for renting out a property for a period of fewer than three months in breach of the MEES Regulations will be equivalent to 10% of the property’s rateable value, subject to a minimum penalty of £5,000 and a maximum of £50,000. After three months, the penalty rises to 20% of the rateable value, with a minimum penalty of £10,000 and a maximum of £150,000.

Following recent changes to the regulations to be followed by mortgage lenders, they are concerned that they are lending to landlords operating viable portfolios. If a rental property is likely to be unviable due to its not complying with minimum energy efficiency standards, then this creates a problem for the landlord when going through the mortgage application process, either for a new mortgage or a renewal / replacement.

OneSavings Bank, through its Kent Reliance and InterBay brands, specialising in buy-to-let mortgages, is one of the first to make changes to its lending conditions to ensure its residential and commercial borrowers conform to the new MEES regulations.

In some circumstances a grace period will be allowed, included in the formal mortgage offer, to ensure that the property receives an ‘E’ rating or better within three months of completion.

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – Landlord borrowers must conform to new EPC regulations | LandlordZONE.

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Channel 5’s “Bad Tenants, Rogue Landlords”

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On Thursday 5th April (8pm), Channel 5 will launch “Bad Tenants, Rogue Landlords”, a companion series to “Nightmare Tenants, Slum Landlords”, which delves into the dark side of the housing crisis and features cases handled by leading tenant eviction company

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Flat used for forced prostitution by trafficked girl

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The tenant moved in November and has paid rent due in accordance with the AST. I had tried to meet the new tenant at the flat on a couple of occasions after he moved in, but numerous excuses meant this did not happen e.g.

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Reminder of the new rules for Section 21 evictions

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Section 21 Notices:

Tessa Shepperson of Landlord Law has set out here very clearly the new rules affecting the Section 21 process and the key points you should be aware of when serving s21 notices. It’s very important that landlords to follow these rules to the letter as minor errors will almost certainly result in the failure of a court eviction application.

The new rules have also thrown up a few anomalies which have yet to be ironed out by the courts – see below.

These guidelines apply primarily to England. Other regions and jurisdictions are similar but there may be important differences and this is becoming more so in the UK with the devolution of laws. This is not a definitive interpretation of the law, every case is different and only a court can decide. If in doubt seek expert advice.

Tessa says:

“As you will know, section 21 notices are the notices you need to serve on an assured shorthold tenant if you want to evict them under the ‘no fault’ shorthold ground

You should also know that new rules came into effect on 1 October 2015 for all tenancies which were created or renewed on or after that date.

These new rules will, from 1 October 2018, apply to ALL assured shorthold tenancies.

This is not far off now, so you need to be sure that all your tenancies will be compliant.

The new rules are summarised as follows:

As well as the existing preconditions of complying with the deposit rules and having, where required, an HMO license, landlords must, at the start of the tenancy serve:

• A current gas safety inspection certificate
• A current Energy Performance Certificate
• A copy of the governments How to Rent booklet

A section 21 notice cannot be served within 6 months of service of a Local Authority Improvement Notice (unless this is withdrawn or similar).

You need to use the new prescribed section 21 form – which is also known now as form 6a

This notice cannot be served during the original first four months of the tenancy and it will expire (in most cases) after six months.

Things you need to watch out for:

One major problem for landlords under this new regime will be if your tenant refuses to allow you to carry out a new ECP assessment when it becomes due (every 10 years) or an annual gas safety inspection. Because these documents must be current at the time of serving an s21 notice after 1 October 2018, this situation would be fatal to all ASTs where a landlord wants to use section 21.

Unless you have already served a section 21 notice (the old notices have an indefinite life) it is probably already too late to evict your tenant under the old rules (unless you serve the notice really quickly). So now you will have to do whatever you can to persuade your tenant to let your contractor in to do the EPC and/or the gas inspection.

Another possible issue for landlords is that some Judges are refusing to accept as valid section 21 notices where no gas certificate was served at the start of the tenancy.

Here is a quote from the Nearly Legal blog post on the recent County Court case of Assured Property Service Ltd v Ooo, 2017 on this:

The District Judge held that provision of a gas safety certificate to the tenant prior to occupation was required by s.36(6) of the Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations 1998. Provision of that certificate was a requirement of s.2(1)(b) of the Assured Shorthold Tenancy Notices and Prescribed Requirements (England) Regulations 2015, failing which, no valid s.21 notice could be served by reason of s.21A Housing Act 1988 (as amended).

So you should ALWAYS serve your gas safety certificate, along with the other documents listed above, on the tenant BEFORE they move in. Ideally at the time they sign the tenancy agreement.

The landlords in this case lost their case. This case is only County Court case of course, but I understand that a similar case may be going to the Court of Appeal. So watch this space.”

As with all new legislation it needs to be tested in the courts to establish the new rules in different circumstances, so the issue of when the notices must be served and what happens if the tenant refuses access have still to be defined by higher courts.

Free Notices are available here: https://www.landlordzone.co.uk/documents

Author: Tessa Shepperson – www.landlordlaw.co.uk

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – Reminder of the new rules for Section 21 evictions | LandlordZONE.

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When should you tell a prospective tenant you live very close?

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I am currently in the process of finding a tenant for my property. I live a couple of houses along from it.

I have advertised this property as a ‘no pets’ property, mostly because I don’t want to be annoyed by any more dogs barking and cats messing in my garden which I already have to tolerate from other neighbours.

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Lettings industry regulation consultation response released

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The Government announced its response to consultations for letting industry regulation and Client Money Protection (CMP) in a crack down announced over Easter.

Client Money Protection will now be compulsory and privately-led schemes will be introduced alongside civil penalties of up to £30,000 for agents who do not comply with the scheme.

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Our properties are managed, does this mean we cannot claim incorporation relief?

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My husband and I live overseas but we have a portfolio of 38 rental properties spreads across the UK. We are considering incorporation for a variety of reasons, one of which is that Limited Companies are unaffected to the section 24 restrictions on finance cost relief for individual landlords.

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The truth about Nottingham Council putting private tenant’s rents up

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The New tenant Tax Nottingham Council expects private tenants to pay-Selective Licensing

The truth about Nottingham Council putting private tenants rents up

• Licensing cost £780 PER HOUSE
• Accreditation cost roughly £100 per house
• Electrical certificate £140 EACH HOUSE + average works per house £97 as stated by Government
• Floorplans each house £30
• Inventory each house £45
• Average works per house to bring to Newbuilds regs: £1000

Total cost £2192 per private tenant-And council houses don’t have to do it-Why not?

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