Unleash the profits analyser! Fintech firm launches tool for smaller landlords

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Smaller portfolio landlords can now analyse their current and proposed property investments in a way previously only bigger players and build-to-rent operators have been able to do.

This follows the launch of portfolio management software firm Lendlord’s new tool, which it claims enables landlords to make better informed decisions about how to grow their property business by analysing key metrics that underpin property investment including:

Net Annual Cash Flow – how much is going in and out of your property investment.
Yield – usually the gross or net profit you make each year as a percentage based on income divided by property value.
Cash on Cash – the income earned expressed as an annual percentage of the cash (but not debt) you originally put into a property.
ROI (Return on Investment) – how much profit in total a property will make over a given period.
Cap Rate – Another way to measure the expected return on a property investment.
Equity Multiple – the expected return on an investment based on the money you put in. So a 2x multiple would mean you got back twice the amount you put in.
DCR (Debt Coverage Ratio) – a measure of whether you have enough rent to pay your mortgage.
GRM (Gross Rent Multiplier) – ratio of the price of a property compared to its annual income.
IRR (Internal Rate of Return) – one way to calculate the future profitability of a property investment.

Lendlord also offers an online mortgage engine to match landlords to their ideal home-loan based on their profile.

“We are very excited with this new release that will help landlords and property investors to get the right view on what should be their next step, based on an enhanced analysis and data rather than intuition,” says Lendlord CEO Aviram Shahar.

“We believe that a thorough analysis of deals is important now, more than ever, as risk has been amplified through the impact on the property market of Covid19,” says Aviram Shahar, CEO of Lendlord.

“Landlords should adopt a ‘digital first’ approach to help mitigate this risk through the use of tools like ours.”

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – Unleash the profits analyser! Fintech firm launches tool for smaller landlords | LandlordZONE.

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LATEST: NRLA says evictions ban is ‘disproportionate’ and says no to extension

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Calls to extend the evictions ban past the end of August have been resisted by the National Residential Landlords Association (NRLA).

Its spokesperson Chris Norris has told MPs that the organisation does not believe the stay on possession orders should be extended, largely because the ban has already put thousands of landlords into legal limbo as they wait for hearings granted before Covid to proceed.

In April LandlordZONE estimated that this totalled some 7,500 cases.

“We don’t see why the system can’t be opened up so that these cases could be progressed now that lockdown has begun to be lifted,” he said.

“The NRLA certainly does not see a need for a continuation of this blanket ban.”

Norris said the NRLA does not dispute that an evictions ban has been needed to stop people being made homeless during the pandemic for public health reasons – even though it’s made the lives of many landlords difficult.

“At the moment this blanket ban, which says stipulates that cases that aren’t related to Covid must not progress seems disproportionate,” says Norris.

In response, Generation Rent told MPs that if the government did unwind the ban then tenants should be given extra protections including bringing forward the government’s promised reforms of Section 21 and Section 8 evictions, and to temporarily give judges discretionary powers to prevent evictions for rent arrears.

Norris also refuted that there would be a ‘spike’ in evictions as the court re-opened, but that “a very busy system has been closed down for a number of months now,” he said.

“Official figures show that you would normally have expected to see 60,000 cases and 40,000 possession orders during the lockdown period.”

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – LATEST: NRLA says evictions ban is ‘disproportionate’ and says no to extension | LandlordZONE.

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Most radical reforms to planning system since the Second World War

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Build Build Build: Boris Johnson says he will make the most radical reforms to the planning system since the Second World War, making it easier to build where people want to live. New regulations will give greater freedom for buildings and land in our town centres to change use without planning permission and create new homes from the regeneration of vacant and redundant buildings.

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Council hammers landlords with rent repayment orders totalling £100,000 in 12 months

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Tower Hamlets Council in London is warning rogue landlords to get their house in order after recovering £100,000 in rent from them over the past year.

The London borough used rent repayment orders to claim back tenants’ cash from landlords who were caught with unlicensed properties.

It runs two borough-wide property licensing schemes – a mandatory scheme for HMOs with five renters or more and an additional scheme covering flats or houses with three or more renters – along with a selective scheme covering all rented properties within the Weavers, Whitechapel, Spitalfields and Banglatown areas.

Councillor Sirajul Islam, deputy mayor and cabinet member for housing, says that while most of its landlords play by the rules, some put profit ahead of the people who live in their properties.

“We want to work with landlords to ensure that the licensing process is safe, regulated and improves the lives of managing agents and tenants,” he adds. “Given the penalties that can be incurred by falling foul of our regulations, it really isn’t worth the risk of letting an unlicensed property.”

Rent payment orders can claim up to 12 months’ rent back for tenants from landlords who have committed an offence, although they don’t need to have been convicted.

The National Residential Landlords Association has questioned how workable or effective rent repayment orders are but expects there to have been an uptake in their use across the country since the changes made in October 2018.

Deputy policy director John Stewart says: “It’s vital however that funds raised are properly used to root out those criminal landlords wilfully ignoring their legal obligations, whilst much greater support is provide to the vast majority of landlords who are doing the right thing and providing safe and secure housing.” 

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – Council hammers landlords with rent repayment orders totalling £100,000 in 12 months | LandlordZONE.

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After forcing tenants to take court action (and losing), DWP brushes off impact of judgement

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The impact of a landmark Universal Credit payments legal case has been diminished significantly by the government after it claimed that only 1,000 people and not the 85,000 originally claimed by campaigners had been affected, and would appear to be why it has decided not to appeal the judgement.

As LandlordZONE reported last week, the Court of Appeal gave its decision on the case of four women who had challenged the government on its Universal Credit ‘fixed assessment period’ payment policy. It was brought as a test case on behalf of the claimants by campaigning group the Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG), and was successful.

The policy was irrational and unlawful, the judges argued, and forced people into debt including rent arrears, causing problems for them and their landlords.

“Between them, the claimants fell into rent arrears, defaulted on council tax, incurred bank overdraft charges, borrowed money and even become reliant on food banks to make ends meet,” says CPAG.

“The threshold for establishing irrationality is very high, but it is not insuperable,” the judge said. “This case is, in my judgement, one of the rare instances where the [Secretary of State’s] refusal to put in place a solution to this very specific problem is so irrational that I have concluded that the threshold is met because no reasonable [Secretary of State] would have struck the balance in that way.”

The four claimants – Johnson, Woods, Barrett and Stewart – said that, because the DWP’s fixed assessment periods often straddle two pay dates, the system then assumes their pay has increased significantly and reduces or cancels their benefits including the housing element.

“We’ve raised this problem with Ministers repeatedly but to no avail and it shouldn’t take four months and going all the way to the Court of Appeal to have this obviously daft policy declared irrational,” said Baroness Sherlock yesterday during a House of Lords debate.

The government’s Department of Work and Pensions representative in the Lords, Baroness Stedman-Scott, replied that her department is now considering retrospective payments to claimants caught up in this red tape loophole.

But she went on to say that the figure of 85,000 ‘did not resonate with us’ and that she believed the figure to be closer to 1,000 people, but nevertheless agreed to keep parliament up to date on progress to prevent claimants being impacted in the future.

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – After forcing tenants to take court action (and losing), DWP brushes off impact of judgement | LandlordZONE.

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ARLA write to Secretary of State for Justice over possessions backlog

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ARLA Propertymark have written to Robert Buckland QC Secretary of State for Justice voicing concerns over how the massive possessions backlog will be handled when/if the eviction ban is lifted on the 23/08/2020 and is calling for government to urgently develop a “robust and co-ordinated strategy to ensure no one is denied or delayed the right to justice”

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Expensive insurance due to sensitive 3rd party information?

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My freeholder is responsible for building insurance for a flat that I own in a building with 8 flats. The insurance premium is 3 times (£450) what I pay for a similar flat about 200 yards away (£175).

When I challenged this

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Justice! Landlord wins battle to have HMO conviction quashed after council’s errors uncovered

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A landlord who was prosecuted for ignoring improvement notices on two HMOs has had his convictions quashed.

Jaswinder Khatkar was fined £19,000 after being found guilty of 11 charges of failing to comply with orders relating to properties in Hartington Street, Derby.

However, an appeal hearing at Derby Crown Court quashed these convictions after his defence cited “fundamental errors and defects” in the council’s case while the process used to prosecute him was found to have not complied with the Housing Act.

During an inspection at the two properties, housing standards officers had found a number of areas for improvement and recommended fitting secondary glazing, new insulation and a new heating system.

Khatkar said he was only made aware of the notice after the 28-day appeal period, which meant he could not appeal against it, but that 99% of the work was done very quickly at a cost of about £30,000.

He said: “The council gave me 12 weeks over Christmas to sort it out. But for all of the works you’re looking at six months to complete. It takes nine weeks for just the glazing to go from call to order because they have to be custom-made.”

Khatkar, who owns a number of properties in Derby, said he had had the property inspected and declared safe by the time he was charged for non-compliance.

He added that the court case had affected him getting an HMO licence. “Given the way I have been treated I will now be considering further legal action for damages.”

A Derby City Council spokesperson says: “Following a re-evaluation of the council’s position, after considering the grounds of the appeal which raised a number of technical points, the decision was taken not to contest the appeal.

This resulted in the appeals being allowed unopposed. At all stages, the council made it clear that its position on the triable issue of ‘reasonable excuse’ remained unchanged.”

Read more about HMO fines.

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – Justice! Landlord wins battle to have HMO conviction quashed after council’s errors uncovered | LandlordZONE.

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BREAKING: Leading organisations urge Ministers to give tenants more help to clear rent arrears

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Three leading organisations representing both tenants and landlords have called for the government to introduce additional financial support for renters when the eviction ban ends at the end of September.

These are Chris Norris of the NRLA, Caitlin Wilkinson of Generation Rent and Ruth Ehrlich of Shelter.

The trio were grilled today by MPs during a 60-minute hearing held by the Housing, Communities and Local Government Select Committee chaired by Clive Betts MP.

This session started with Shelter claiming that 58,000 households in the private rental sector have already left properties at their landlord’s request since March, and that 174,000 renters have already been told that they will be evicted once the ban is lifted.

But despite their different outlooks, the session saw all three witnesses agree on a surprisingly wide range of topics.

This included that arrears are running at approximately twice the normal rate of 2-3% of all tenancies and that none of them supported the concept of ‘rent forgiveness’, a popular #hashtag on Twitter.

Instead, both Shelter, Generation Rent and the NRLA said they are urging the government to introduce more support for tenants who get into rent arrears, something that may appear in next week’s mooted emergency budget.

The NRLA says this could be achieved through ‘zero or no interest’ loans whereas Shelter and Generation Rent said they would prefer to see additional support via the benefits system, and not for tenants to be driven further into debt.

Chris Norris of the NRLA also said that he doesn’t believe there will be a cliff-face of evictions if the ban is lifted in September.

Instead, he said the NRLA favours a selective lifting so the courts can prioritise those tenants who had been served with notices prior to the Covid pandemic due to deliberate non-payment of rent or anti-social behaviour. He also suggested a geographic lifting of the ban to help in areas where court backlogs are the largest.

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – BREAKING: Leading organisations urge Ministers to give tenants more help to clear rent arrears | LandlordZONE.

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Landlord’s ‘bonus’ to student tenants goes viral on social media

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A leading Leeds landlord who rewarded his tidy student tenants with a bonus says he’s overwhelmed by the positive response after one of their grateful tweets went viral.

John Falkingham, who’s run Falham Properties in Leeds for 35 years, returned their deposits with a £50 bonus each as a thank you for looking after his property, telling the seven tenants to ‘buy something nice’ as the shops had reopened after lockdown.

The Leeds University students had lived in the house for three years and were hoping to get their £250 deposit back, says psychology student Maisie Gardner who was shocked when he messaged her saying she would be getting £300 back instead.

She was so touched by the gesture she shared the news on Twitter, saying: ‘A nice student landlord!!! Love you John.’ Her tweet has now been shared more than 11,000 times.

Good tenant relations is second-nature to Falkingham, whose company has previously been awarded ‘Most responsive landlord’ and ‘Best large landlord in Leeds’ by Leeds University Union.

Maybe unsurprisingly he’s also had no issues with students refusing to pay their rent during the crisis.

However, Falkingham tells LandlordZONE he’s been overwhelmed by the feedback and the viral tweet, saying the bonus was deserved as it was important to make sure landlords told good tenants that they’re valued.

He says: “These students were in the house for three years, always paid their rent on time and were good to deal with. I know that some of them have also lost their part-time jobs because of the Coronavirus crisis – I just thought it was a nice gesture as they also left the place very clean. It’s important to recognise all good tenants and I always at least tell them that I appreciate them.”

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – Landlord’s ‘bonus’ to student tenants goes viral on social media | LandlordZONE.

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