£100,000 Coronavirus emergency donation by Paragon

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The Buy to Let specialist Paragon Bank has split a £100,000 between the NHS, Solihull Change into Action, Age UK and the company’s 2020 charity, Macmillan.

Nigel Terrington, Paragon Banking Group Chief Executive, said: “Coronavirus is impacting on all of our lives and we hope this donation will help make a difference to some of the charities that are doing fantastic work in these difficult circumstances.”

NHS

The donation to the NHS will go towards helping frontline staff who need accommodation and food whilst they care for patients

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UK’s leading commercial landlord reports £1.1 billion loss as it collects just 43% of rent

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Retail and office giant sees losses rise nearly four-fold as its core markets are battered by both the Coronavirus crisis but also retailers struggling against online competition.

One of the largest and most powerful
commercial landlords in the UK is reeling from the effects of lockdown on the
nation’s shopping habits.

British Land,
which owns shopping centres around the UK and
office properties in London, suffered
a £1.1 billion loss in the year to the end of March – three times higher than
the £319 million loss it reported a year ago.

Pressure on retailers from higher costs and online competition affected property prices, while shop owners struggling with a massive hit to their income also meant the landlord only collected 43% of retail rent due in March for the current quarter.

It accepted lower rents and shorter leases for some shops to maintain occupancy while tenants falling into administration or using insolvency procedures to cut rents or close shops affected 118 units.

Rent reductions and store closures accounted for £11.3 million in lost
rental income; British Land has written off £2 million in rental income to
support small retailers and has agreed about £35 million of rent deferrals from
those facing financial difficulties.

Chief executive Chris Grigg says: “This was
already a difficult year for retailers, many of whom have been severely
impacted by the lockdown and the early effects of the crisis were reflected in
the value of our retail portfolio.”

British Land believes that as the lockdown eases, it’s well placed to respond to new ways of shopping as retail parks are more conducive to mission-based trips and social distancing while it’s currently progressing 220,000 sq ft of office deals under offer with a further 160,000sq ft being negotiated.

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – UK’s leading commercial landlord reports £1.1 billion loss as it collects just 43% of rent | LandlordZONE.

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£18.49bn of Bounce Back Loans agreed

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HM Tearsury publish management information each Tuesday for each of the three Covid-19 emergency loan schemes schemes (CBILS, CLBILS, BBLS), including: The total number of applications, number of approved applications and the value of loans approved.

The applications figure includes approved applications

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Agreed rents drop steeply in key areas of London, leading agency reveals

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While the property industry has been keen to talk about a surge in pent up demand within the housing market, in reality over supply and the effects of tenants’ financial insecurity are driving agreed rents down in the capital.

An alarming drop in agreed rents in London has been revealed by one of its leading property firms, which also says rents in the capital are unlikely to rise ‘for quite a while’.

Hamptons International says that while rents have dipped by only 1.3% on average during the first four months of the year, this masks reductions in rents achieved of nearly 8% in some areas.

These figures suggest that many landlords have been forced to drop their asking rents to attract tenants during the first five months of the year, no doubt in part due to the Coronavirus crisis, a trend that may spread out of London

Hamptons International says rents dropped by 5% in central London, 6.9% in Zone 2 – such as Fulham, Clapham and Hammersmith – and by nearly 8% in Zone 3 (e.g. Tooting, Tottenham, Golders Green).

Further out into suburbia, Hamptons International says it’s a very different pictures with rents rising in Zone 5 and by 2.2% in Zone 6. But despite the reductions in agreed rents, they continue to vary significantly depending on where you look, from £2,910 per property in Zone 1 to £1,370 in Zone 6.

Hamptons International’s chief housing analyst Aneisha Beveridge says the price falls are down to an imbalance of supply as landlords try to fill vacant properties set against tenants who are reluctant to move, and that many tenants feel financially insecure and unable to afford more expensive properties at the moment.

“I don’t think we understand the hit to people’s affordability yet, so I don’t expect rents to rise again for quite a while,” she says.

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – Agreed rents drop steeply in key areas of London, leading agency reveals | LandlordZONE.

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Campaigning website accuses Airbnb hosts of flouting London’s 90-day limit

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As Airbnb prepares to recommend whether hosts should face mandatory registration, Inside Airbnb says up to 40% of short-let properties in the capital are being run year-round as professional accommodation.

A campaigning group which monitors Airbnb listings in the UK has claimed that 40% of the platform’s properties in London have been breaking the 90-day rental limit agreed for the city.

Inside Airbnb, which is a privately-funded website that offers landlords and tenants free tools to analyse Airbnb listings in cities throughout the world including London, claims that some 35,250 Airbnb listings in the capital are entire vacant homes that it classes as ‘highly available’ year-round for tourists.

It claims that these ‘could be illegal’ because many landlords use both Airbnb and other platforms to rent their homes out and circumvent the 90-day rule.

Airbnb currently lists 87,235 properties in London, although the platform has been blocking bookings nationally during the Coronavirus crisis.

The Inside Airbnb data is mentioned within a new document published by The House of Commons Library to brief MPs ahead of next month’s expected report from Airbnb following a 10-month tour of the UK by its executives.

This report will recommend the best way forward but is expected to suggest a system of property registration across the UK for short-term rentals and, if they adopt proposals already put forward by Mayor of London Sadiq Khan, require property owners to register their properties before they could be rented out.

The government has, effectively, outsourced regulation of Airbnb and its competitors to the Short Term Accommodation Association which it has made the lead body to oversee suppliers in the sector. An attempt by Labour MP Karen Buck to introduce legislation failed after it ran out of time in parliament.

See the data on London.

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – Campaigning website accuses Airbnb hosts of flouting London’s 90-day limit | LandlordZONE.

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£1bn fund to remove dangerous cladding to support private leaseholders

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Building owners have been urged to act and put the safety of residents first as the government’s £1 billion Building Safety Fund to remove dangerous cladding was launched by Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick.

It comes as the government published the prospectus for the fund which will meet the cost for remediation of unsafe non-ACM cladding systems on residential buildings in the private and social sector that are 18 metres and over and do not comply with building regulations.

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TONIGHT’s Baker Street LiveStream: How To Finance Property Deals After Lock Down

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The Baker Street Property Meet Livestream Networking Event is tonight, Wed 27th May at 7pm. Join 1000+ property investors in the UK’s largest online property networking event. Tonight’s theme is ‘How To Finance Property Deals After Lock Down‘

I will host and explore the theme with tonight’s guests:

Evan Maindonald

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LATEST: Competition watchdog says students due rent refunds during Coronavirus

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Competition & Markets Authority confirms to LandlordZONE that student rental contracts are likely to be covered by its guidance that businesses should offer refunds where a consumer isn’t allowed to use a service as a result of lockdown restrictions.

Student renters
could be due refunds if they have to leave accommodation due to the Coronavirus
crisis.

Guidance
on consumer contracts hit by COVID-19 issued by the Competition & Markets
Authority (CMA) – the body responsible for protecting consumers from unfair
trading practices – says in most cases, businesses should offer refunds where a
consumer isn’t allowed to use a service as a result of lockdown restrictions.

The CMA has confirmed to LandlordZONE that its guidance could apply to suppliers of student accommodation. It adds: “In most cases, the CMA would expect a full refund to be offered if a business has cancelled a contract without providing any of the promised goods or services.”

Students
around the country are staging rent strikes where their private landlord has
refused to offer a rent refund for the third term – despite them leaving their
accommodation after courses moved online.

The National Union of Students has written to private landlords with a list of demands to help student renters financially survive the crisis, including rent subsidies, reductions or waivers for six months for those impacted by Coronavirus.

The National
Residential Landlords Association says the Government had made it clear that
tenants remain legally liable for their rents and all aspects of the tenancy
agreement they’ve signed.

Policy director Chris Norris tells LandlordZONE: “Coronavirus doesn’t preclude any tenant from continuing to live in the property they rent. When lockdown restrictions were introduced it was for individuals to choose where that would be. For students, maintenance loans continue to be paid to cover rents and universities are providing hardship loans for those who might need extra support.”

He adds: “We’re sympathetic to the concerns of students who have left their university accommodation to spend lockdown with their family. In such cases, we’re encouraging landlords to be as reasonable as they possibly can and agree a suitable way forward with their tenants.”

Last week students began a rent strike in Preston.

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – LATEST: Competition watchdog says students due rent refunds during Coronavirus | LandlordZONE.

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Housing first! Council approves key property licensing schemes, but without start date

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Islington says that because of Coronavirus it does now know when its new HMO and Selective Licensing schemes will come into force but that they will ‘level the playing field’ for landlords.

Islington Council has given
the go-ahead for two new property licensing schemes with the hope of improving
conditions in the private rented sector.

It’s
approved both a borough-wide additional HMO licensing scheme and a selective
licensing scheme to cover all properties in the Finsbury Park ward that aren’t already
covered by a scheme.

A council spokesman tells LandlordZONE that no start date has been agreed due to the COVID-19 crisis. He says: “At this stage the decision has been made by the executive in principle but no start dates have been discussed so any instigation wouldn’t be in the near future.”

HMOs have some of
Islington’s poorest housing standards and many conversions don’t meet fire
safety standards; Finsbury Park ward has the highest number of complaints
about private rented property in the borough and it believes many people there face
higher levels of deprivation, and are at greater risk of being taken advantage
of by rogue landlords.

Islington Council says the schemes
benefit responsible landlords by levelling the playing field, ensuring rogue
landlords who avoid paying out for repairs aren’t saving money by renting
properties in poor condition.

Councillor Diarmaid Ward,
executive member for housing and development, says: “There are a great number
of responsible landlords in the borough, and these licensing schemes will help
the council to ensure that those conscientious landlords are rewarded, while
rogue operators offering poor conditions are more easily
identified.”  

However, the National Residential Landlords Association warns the schemes could lead to rent increases while criminal landlords might simply ignore them, as they do other regulations. In its response to the consultation, the association pointed out that the council already has sufficient enforcement powers to raise standards.

Read more about licensing during Coronavirus.

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – Housing first! Council approves key property licensing schemes, but without start date | LandlordZONE.

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Blog: What will September bring for student landlords?

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As we see the beginning of the end of lockdown, thoughts are starting to turn to what the ‘new normal’ will look like. For student landlords, this includes a fundamental unknown – what will happen in the next academic year?  Universities have been cautious so far about committing to either online or in-person courses. However, last week, Cambridge University announced that all […]

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