Selective licensing scheme given go ahead in Wirral

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A selective licensing scheme will come into force in Wirral on 1st July this year after plans were given the go ahead at a Council cabinet meeting last month. The designation will cover six areas within the local authority including Birkenhead South, Egerton North, Egremont Promenade South and Seacombe Library, Egremont South and Tranmere Lairds. […]

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£3.2m Council funding for rough sleepers to self-isolate

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Rough sleepers, or those at risk of rough sleeping will be supported by £3.2 million of initial emergency funding if they need to self-isolate to prevent the spread of coronavirus (COVID-19).

The funding will be available to all local authorities in England and will reimburse them for the cost of providing accommodation and services to those sleeping on the streets to help them successfully self-isolate.

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Breaking: Mortgage holidays will only apply to ‘amateur’ landlords, not rental businesses

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Trade body UK Finance has told LandlordZONE that the three-month mortgage holiday will only be available to landlords who operate their properties as sole traders, but will not apply to those who have business mortgages.

The government has revealed that it has persuaded mortgage lenders to give landlord customers a mortgage payment holiday of up to three months if they are experiencing issues with their finances as a result of Coronavirus, including tenants who stop paying their rent.

Trade body UK Finance has told LandlordZONE this morning that the mortgage holiday is only available to ‘amateur’ landlords who operate their properties via personal residential buy-to-let mortgages, and not for those who operate properties via a business.

“Mortgage lenders will support customers who are experiencing issues with their finances as a result of COVID-19 and the options include a payment holiday of up to three months,” says Stephen Jones, CEO of UK Finance.

It also says that landlords who have tenants who are unable to pay their rent should contact their lender as soon as possible to discuss the options that may be open to them.

But UK Finance is keen to underline that the mortgage payment holiday is not free money. Landlords will have their payment reduced to zero for the period, but interest will continue to added to their mortgage balances.

“Where repayments are deferred for a time, the borrower will need to make up these repayments in the future, which could be over the remaining term,” says UK Finance.

“Providers will look at customers’ individual circumstances and offer support on a case-by-case basis.

“All providers are ready and able to offer support, we would encourage customers to speak with their provider at the earliest possible opportunity to discuss the options available to them.”

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – Breaking: Mortgage holidays will only apply to ‘amateur’ landlords, not rental businesses | LandlordZONE.

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Are Shelter Abusing Their Financial Muscle? AGAIN!!!

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Shelter are currently running a Social Media campaign which alleges that landlords can be fined up to £13,000 for discrimination if their Agents advertising includes phrases such as “No DSS”.

Property118 has challenged Shelter to produce evidence of legislation or Case Law to justify this claim

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Landlord charged after shocking conditions found at three HMOs

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Zhiqiang Shen, and a company which until recently he was a director of, have been charged with operating the Ipswich HMOs without licences and with little regard for tenants safety.

A property manager has been charged with a raft of offences related to running three unlicensed HMOs in Ipswich.

Shen
Residences and former company director Zhiqiang Shen, of Manor Road, Chatham,
is charged with operating two HMOs without a licence in Woodbridge Road and a
third in Granville Street, as well as breaches of HMO maintenance regulations.
He denies all charges against him and the company.

At a
hearing at Suffolk Magistrates’ Court, Ipswich Council alleged that both
Woodbridge Road properties lacked fire escape routes and contained bedrooms
with mouldy windows.

It
said one of the Woodbridge Road properties contained two windowless bedrooms,
no protected escape route, no adequate fire alarm, and a first-floor bedroom
fitted with a fastening capable of being padlocked and trapping the occupants
inside.

Other alleged breaches of HMO regulations at the property include a mouldy bathroom and first floor rear room, no light bulbs in the ground floor entrance, lobby, corridor or rear room, and loose paving slabs in a back garden containing beds, furniture, building materials and a shopping trolley.

Rear yard washbasin

At
the property in Granville Street, the council alleges that there was a lack of
escape route, fire alarm and emergency lighting, the only hand wash basin was
in the rear yard, and the only WC was in an external lean-to shed in the rear
yard, where beds and other materials were being stored.

Both
Shen and the company are also accused of failing both to comply with notices
served by the council or produce documents, failing to provide tenants with
contact details, and failing to undertake electrical check.

The next hearing has been fixed for 20^th May at Suffolk Magistrates Court, local media have reported.

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – Landlord charged after shocking conditions found at three HMOs | LandlordZONE.

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UK Airbnb landlords unhappy after platform makes them pay for cancellations

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Company says it will be working in the days and weeks ahead to identify tools and initiatives to support its hosts during these ‘very challenging times’.

UK Airbnb landlords will now have to offer refunds for cancelled bookings in line with the company’s world-wide response to coronavirus.

After some guests complained they weren’t getting their
money back, the bookings platform announced that guests could cancel existing reservations made on or before 14^th
March, with a check-in date up to 14^th
April, and get a refund, while hosts could cancel without being charged.

However, Airbnb’s Extenuating Circumstances policy has been met with dismay by some hosts. Daniel Clarke, estate agent at Potent Property asks on Twitter: “Why is your extenuating circumstances policy allowing guests to cancel at hosts’ expense? You’ve chosen guests over hosts.”

Impact hosts

In a statement, the company said it understood the
announcement would impact hosts around the world, many of whom depended on the income
it generated.

It added: “We will be working in the days and weeks ahead
to identify tools and initiatives to support our hosts during these very
challenging times.”

Airbnb has confirmed that it won’t collect any service fees
or benefit in any way from reservations cancelled under this new policy.

The booking platform said some hosts had already provided
guests with refunds outside of their existing cancellation policies, and that of
those reservations cancelled in the last month, 86% of the money was refunded.

Merilee Karr, chair of the Short Term Accommodation Association, believes it’s important for everyone to co-operate during this period of uncertainty.

“All
businesses – big and small – are affected from the reduction in travel,” she
says. “Our advice is to work together to support our customers and as we call
for government support to ensure that our industry comes out of the crisis in
the strongest possible position.”

Coronavirus looks set to delay Airbnb’s plans to become a publicly traded company this year. Airbnb had planned to make an initial public offering, however, this is now in doubt until the virus has been contained.]

Read more about Coronavirus.

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – UK Airbnb landlords unhappy after platform makes them pay for cancellations | LandlordZONE.

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Helping landlords help tenants

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NLRA chief executive Ben Beadle on supporting landlords in a time of national crisis. With the rapid spread of coronavirus across the country, more and more landlords are asking what they need to be doing to protect and support their tenants. What we are facing is an unprecedented situation – with circumstances changing sometimes hourly […]

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Landlords share how they are helping tenants as Coronavirus cases climb

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The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in the UK is on the rise, and more people are either working from home or self-isolating due to recent government advice on Covid-19. The RLA is calling for a package of measures for landlords to be able to support tenants affected by coronavirus. This includes a temporary scrapping […]

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Leading Labour MP calls for emergency legislation to stop Coronavirus-linked evictions

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Labour MP Tulip Siddiq is urging the Government to immediately outlaw all no-fault evictions so that tenants don’t lose their home as a result of the disease.

Writing in The House,
the MP for Hampstead and Kilburn says low
income private renters are already living precariously and need the option to
defer rent payments.

Siddiq believes the impact of coronavirus could be
devastating for many working families, 60% of whom are just one paycheque away
from losing their home.

“Statutory Sick Pay of £94.25 won’t come close to
covering the cost of rent for most tenants in London. A shocking 63% of private
renters have no savings at all, so the loss of a job or income as a result of
the virus could mean many thousands are unable to pay rent.”

Renters will not be able to self-isolate if they don’t
have security in their homes, she adds.

“The ending of private sector tenancies has become the
main single cause of homelessness – the Government must ensure that people
aren’t being forced onto the streets as a result of coronavirus.”

She writes: “It may seem tragic that it takes an epidemic
like coronavirus to fix these inequalities but if there are opportunities in
this situation to improve the plight of the low income private rented sector,
we should seize them and act now.

“We must scrap Section 21 and outlaw all ‘no-fault
evictions’ urgently. We must also look at other ways of improving the private
rented sector, including better standards, properly funded enforcement, longer
tenancies, a register of private landlords and rent controls.”

The Labour Party has just published a proposed draft Bill to ban evictions of tenants who fall behind on rent due to coronavirus. It wants the Government to adopt emergency legislation to protect families.

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – Leading Labour MP calls for emergency legislation to stop Coronavirus-linked evictions | LandlordZONE.

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Will the Coronavirus have a major impact on the commercial property market?

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Commercial Property:

The Coronavirus
contagion technically known as COVID-19 originated in Wuhan, Hubei
province, China but is now spreading at a rapid pace across the
world. It is causing major disruption for businesses, tenants and
landlords. Initially affecting travel companies and hotels, its
effects will be much more far reaching before we’ve done, and as we
are in uncharted territory the end result is as yet unknown.

With stock market
valuations down by an average of thirty per cent currently, and
heading for the 50 per cent drop of a typically serious bear market,
commercial property funds and property values will inevitably be
seriously affected. Depending on how long the crisis lasts, many
businesses will find themselves struggling to pay rent and service
their debts, meaning they could breach the terms of their leases and
face themselves and their landlords with some difficult decisions.

Sales and purchases
are more than likely to be put on hold as vendors and property
purchasers adopt a “wait and see” approach. Most commercial
landlords see their investments as long-term and will generally hold
on and see a crisis through, but the longer the crisis continues,
highly geared commercial landlords will find in more difficult to
service existing debt and raise capital, the giant
shopping centre owner Intu being a case in point.

Many sectors of the
economy are at risk, so landlords need to closely monitor the
financial health of their tenant companies. Retail has been in
decline for some time, so in some cases Covid-19 could be the last
straw. Travel and tourism is badly affected, but now restaurants and
pubs are coming into the firing line, and the construction and
manufacturing sectors may next suffer as materials and component
supplies from our interconnected world dry-up.

In the meantime it
will be important for landlords to monitor the financial health of
existing tenants. Landlords may start to see an increase in rent and
service charge arrears and eventually in voids as tenants default on
leases and put off renewing leases or fail to take-up additional
space.

Conversely, some
sectors like grocery supermarkets and home deliver businesses like
Amazon could be busier than ever, running flat out to keep the
shelves stocked and the deliveries made.

Travel restrictions
and component shortages could lead to labour shortages and delays in
new project starts, leading some tenant companies to rely on force
majeure clauses in their
contracts, to relieve them of their performance obligations.

Most commercial
tenants will be tied-in to long-term leases which, depending where
they are in the lease term, will not allow early termination; their
they lease contracts will rarely have force majeure
concessions.

Landlords will be
reluctant to allow tenants in trouble “off the hook” as they will
then pick up business rates and insuring obligations themselves.
Encouraging tenants to assign their leases or sublet the whole or a
part of their premises may be an optimal solution for some landlords.

In unusual
circumstances it may be possible for a tenant to argue that the
contract is frustrated by operation of the law. The common law
doctrine of frustration means that if a judgement can be
successfully obtained from a court, the contract is deemed nil and
void, and the tenant would be discharged from all its obligations
under the contract (lease agreement). It has to be said that a
frustration judgement would be exceptional in the case of a
commercial lease agreement.

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – Will the Coronavirus have a major impact on the commercial property market? | LandlordZONE.

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