New guidance for landlords – Right-to-Rent update

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Right-to-Rent:

New guidance has
been issued following a High Court ruling that measures aimed at
preventing illegal immigrants from renting properties were
“discriminatory” and breached human rights laws.

The “right to
rent” scheme requiring landlords to check the immigration status
of tenants was introduced in England in 2016, but judges said it
would be illegal to roll it out in Scotland, Wales and Northern
Ireland without further evaluation. The Home Office had said it was
“disappointed” by the ruling.

At the time of the
ruling Mr Justice Spencer said the scheme had “little or no
effect” on its main aim of controlling immigration and even if
it had, this was “significantly outweighed by the discriminatory
effect”. He added that the evidence “strongly showed”
the scheme was causing landlords to discriminate against potential
tenants and appeared to be having a “real effect” on
people’s ability to find accommodation.

Therefore, the Home Office has now released a new factsheet to help landlords in England to comply with the law and complete Right to Rent checks.

This affects
prospective tenants who are not UK nationals, visiting the UK from
Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea and the
USA and who have crossed border control through ePassport gates.

Nationals from these
seven countries visiting for up to six months can rent a property
during their stay. But, says the National Landlords Association
(NLA), if they have used ePassport gates, their passports will not
have an endorsement although they have the right to remain during
this period.

In such
circumstances, landlords can evidence the Right to Rent during the
visitor’s six month stay through these means:

• a boarding
  pass, or an electronic boarding pass for air, rail or sea travel to
  the UK;
• an airline,
  rail or boat ticket, or e-ticket;
• any type of
  booking confirmation for air, rail or sea travel to the UK; or
• any other
  documentary evidence that establishes the date of arrival in the UK.

Landlords should
keep a copy of the evidence above as well as a copy of the tenant’s
passport, including the date the landlord checked these documents, as
evidence they have acted in the proper manner. Visitors would only
have the Right to Rent for a maximum of six months from the date of
arrival in the UK.

If a tenant is
looking to rent for more than six months, they will need to show the
landlord a visa in their passport and a biometric residence permit.

The Home Office
guidance also states that if a letting is for less than three months
and it is not extended it should be classified as a holiday let and
this would remove the requirement for Right to Rent checks.

There is no update as yet to the Landlord’s Code of Practice The Government must seek Parliamentary approval to amend the Code of Practice, which will follow in due course.

With the new
guidance in place it means that still, legally, landlords do not have
a statutory excuse if they follow the new Home Office guidance. But,
the Home Office has stated it will not seek to impose a civil penalty
or take prosecution action where landlords have complied with the new
guidance published yesterday (8/10/2019)

The Landlord’s
Code of Practice will be amended taking into account the High Court
ruling as so as is practicable.

Landlords: immigration right to rent checks

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – New guidance for landlords – Right-to-Rent update | LandlordZONE.

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Bristol City Council – The lights are on but no one’s home!

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I have just received an email from Bristol City Council regarding my recent license application for one of my HMOs and I also just paid them £1050.00 for the pleasure.

I list here the accompanying 37 conditions (yes really 37 of them) I have to follow.

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Call of the Week-Gaining possession and court forms

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Every week the RLA provides advice and support to landlords suffering with court delays. With a 22 week average wait from applying to court to regaining possession it is no surprise that most landlords seek advice from someone before applying to court. Unfortunately, this week the landlord did not seek any advice before applying to […]

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Chaos Theory! What’s next for the private rented sector? – Hamilton Fraser’s property podcast

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Hamilton Fraser’s property
podcast aims to help support landlords and agents throughout the private rented
sector with industry updates and key advice from industry experts.

In October’s episode, Eddie
Hooker, CEO of award winning Hamilton Fraser Total Landlord Insurance and Paul
Shamplina, Founder of Landlord Action and Brand Ambassador at Hamilton Fraser,
are joined by special guest, Sean Hooker, Head of Redress at the Property
Redress Scheme.

The Property Redress Scheme
operates as a straightforward and easy to use consumer redress (ombudsman)
scheme for property agents and professionals. Sean is a qualified Adjudicator
(ACIArb), CEDR Accredited Mediator, and has a Professional Award in Ombudsman
and Complaints Handling Practice (Queen Margaret University and Ombudsman
Association), bringing a wealth of knowledge on the industry to the podcast to
help keep landlords and agents up to date with legislative changes.

In the latest
episode of Hamilton Fraser’s property podcast, Eddie, Paul and Sean attempt to
decode the confusion surrounding legislation in the private rented sector,
including delving into upcoming consultations that could impact landlords.

They also
discuss the ‘tenant fee ban’, ‘Section 21’ updates, ‘right to buy’, ‘rent
control’, and Sean gives his opinion on housing courts and whether there could
be a ‘housing act overhaul’ on the horizon.

In addition,
Sean, Eddie and Paul discuss the importance of preparing for upcoming
regulation and legislative changes, whatever they may be! Read more about your
current legal obligations here.

As always, Eddie and Paul round up the
podcast by asking Sean … ‘If you could
make one new property law, what would it be?’

Missed the previous podcasts in the series?
Don’t worry you can catch up with industry news here!

Previous guests include:

• Kate
  Faulkner,market analyst, commentator and co-author of ‘The Landlord’s Friend’
• Tessa
  Shepperson, residential property lawyer and Managing Director of Landlord Law
• Tony Gimple,
  Founding Director of Less Tax 4
  Landlords
• Jeremy Leaf,
  Principal of Jeremy Leaf & Co Chartered
  Surveyors and Estate Agents
• Arden
  Hanley, Property Educator and HMO landlord

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – Chaos Theory! What’s next for the private rented sector? – Hamilton Fraser’s property podcast | LandlordZONE.

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RLA opposes Bassetlaw licensing plan

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The RLA has opposed plans to introduce a licensing scheme in Bassetlaw, Nottinghamshire. Bassetlaw District Council is consulting over proposals to introduce Selective Licensing for privately rented housing in the designated areas of Worksop South East, Worksop Central and Worksop Sandy Lane. The consultation on the plans runs until 10th October, and a full list […]

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John Lewis Partnership threatens landlords with rent cuts

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High Street
Rents:

John Lewis is said
to be threatening its landlords with rent cuts, a desperate measure
to reduce its operating costs as trouble on the high street
continues.

The leading UK
retailer, with its famous John Lewis and Waitrose stores, is said to
be informing its landlords in certain shopping centre locations that
it requires rent reductions, otherwise it will withhold 20 per cent
of its quarter’s service charge.

As reported by The
Scotsman newspaper, it is not known if the flagship Edinburgh
store is affected, but it is known that several other leading sites
are.

In Scotland, John
Lewis has three major department stores, in Aberdeen, Edinburgh and
Glasgow, plus a number of Waitrose supermarkets. According to a BBC
report there have been few signs of efforts by landlords to cooperate
with the retailer to reduce its costs.

The retail giant has
said service charge increases from landlords have been “simply
not acceptable” and have resulted in the high street firm doing
“everything we can to reduce our cost base”.

However, John
Lewis’s threat to to withhold one-fifth of its service charges
would not result in a threat to foreclose on leases, as could be the
case if rent was withheld, but it could result in legal action being
taken by its property landlords to recover any unpaid service
charges.

John Lewis claims
that its service charges bills have risen by as much as 20 per cent
over three years. These are fees in addition to rents the retailer
must pay as part of its lease obligations to cover services such as
insurance, heating and security.

A John Lewis
Partnership spokeswoman had said:

“At a time when
we are doing everything we can to reduce our cost base, we have
unfortunately been faced with regular increases to the service
charges we pay for some of our shops in shopping centres.

“Over the last
three years we have seen an increase in service charges of 20 per
cent and these continued increases are simply not acceptable,
particularly in the absence of strenuous efforts by landlords to work
collaboratively with us to reduce these costs.

“We are
investing more in our current shop estate than ever before to do
everything we can to encourage customers and grow footfall, and we
hope that our landlords will support us in continuing to do this.”

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – John Lewis Partnership threatens landlords with rent cuts | LandlordZONE.

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Landlords – this is how to beat the Tenant Tax

admin    Uncategorized     agents

Over 90% of tenants look for new rental properties online, therefore making
your property competitive is essential. The Tenant Tax (aka Section 24, which
will be in full effect by April 2021), is going to cost any landlord with a
mortgage over £2,000 extra a year in tax. A shocking 44% of landlords surveyed
said they would be putting up prices to compensate but, this does not affect
those landlords without a mortgage – which makes up half of all landlords – as
such these landlords will be able to offer a simpler property at a better
price, making them the opposite of competitive.

There are two far better options, luckily: market smart and cut costs
elsewhere. After tax, a landlord’s next biggest costs are void periods and
tenant finder’s fee. Leaving a property sitting empty because the landlord has
priced themselves out of the market is ludicrous – especially when there are
five tenants chasing every vacancy. Void periods and using a traditional letting
agent both cost around £1,000 each, and the North East actually has the highest
number of voids in the UK. With the Tenant Tax, as one lot of costs have
skyrocketed, so it makes sense to cut back on these easily avoidable outgoings.
  

Ollie, who marketed his two-bed house
through Upad last month, says, ‘My dedicated
account manager suggested using an internal picture as my advert’s main
picture, advertising on Monday morning and writing the description in an online
blog format – which got me three offers and let by that Wednesday.’ Marketing
through an online letting agency like Upad
leverages the expertise of people whose job it is to be on the cutting edge of
the property market; they know when to post a property, what photography works
and even provide guides for landlords on their online landlord
hub that explain how to
successfully market your property in 2019. As to whether it works? Upad’s let
rate is a third higher than the average high street letting agent, sitting at over
90%.

Landlords also often turn
to outdated marketing channels to save money – most of the time they are
advertising in the wrong places like on Gumtree or with high street agents; yet
an online agent can cost around a third of what a high street agent costs, as
they simply don’t have office rents to pay for example. To find out all about
the benefits of using an online letting agency, check out Upad’s website today –
don’t let this new tax turn your property into yet another cost: https://www.upad.co.uk

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – Landlords – this is how to beat the Tenant Tax | LandlordZONE.

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Proposed Manchester rent control powers simplistic and populist!

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Introducing rent controls in Manchester would choke of the supply of homes to rent making it more difficult of tenants to find a place to live. That is the warning from the Sale based Residential Landlords Association as a new report calls for the Greater Manchester Combined Authority to have powers to implement forms of rent control.

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Housing latest: Your daily update on politics and the private rented sector

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Monday 7th October 2019 Vast Majority of private rented sector Housing Unaffordable for Families In Receipt of Local Housing Allowance -new research reveals More than 94% of family homes are unaffordable to local housing allowance (LHA) claimants, according to analysis of private rental listings. Some towns had just one affordable property available, found the National […]

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Hat trick for Hamilton Fraser Total Landlord Insurance

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Landlords’ Insurance:

For the third year in a row, Hamilton Fraser Total Landlord Insurance has been crowned ‘Best Landlord Insurance Provider’ at the Insurance Choice Awards, beating tough competition from Endsleigh.

The Insurance Choice Awards aims to find the UK’s best insurance companies by asking consumers to vote and share their experiences. After 12 weeks of voting, more than 26,000 consumer votes were received across all categories. These awards not only provide an opportunity for organisations to benchmark themselves against competitors, but also to gauge their understanding of how they are perceived by consumers.

Eddie Hooker, CEO of Hamilton Fraser Total Landlord Insurance says:

“I am genuinely ecstatic at this result. Ordinarily the winning or losing does not matter, but in this instance, because this has come from the people who have trusted in our business, it validates just how hard the entire team works and the personal service I know they deliver.

“I’ve said it before but, being a good insurance provider is more than merely selling a product. It is built around a company’s ability to earn the trust of their consumers by listening to their needs and finding both the best product and price to match those needs, then delivering on those promises at a time when people need it the most – the point at which they make a claim. Our team puts customer service at the heart of everything they do, so winning this award once again is truly a privilege.”

In these uncertain times for landlords, Hamilton Fraser Total Landlord Insurance’s consistent success at these awards will help to reassure landlords that they have access to high-quality innovative landlord insurance cover that is designed with the customer in mind.

Mike Fortis, Founder of Smart Money People who launched the awards in 2016, said:

“The voting process has once again demonstrated that many insurance firms have made the jump from viewing their customers simply as policy numbers.

“It’s also particularly pleasing to see that innovative new propositions are starting to filter through and delight customers, with firms like By Miles, Laka, Digital Risks and FloodFlash representing this new wave of insurance firms.”

Hamilton Fraser Total Landlord Insurance is part of the Hamilton Fraser Group of companies, including mydeposits, Property Redress Scheme, CMP and Landlord Action. Their award-winning landlord insurance offering, Total Landlord Insurance, has been specialising in providing comprehensive cover for landlords since 1996.

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – Hat trick for Hamilton Fraser Total Landlord Insurance | LandlordZONE.

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