Emergency Eviction??

admin    Uncategorized     agents

Had a few issues with my current tenant (Mr X), but it has all kicked off tonight. The other tenant nextdoor tells me the Police have been called to flat as Mr X kicked off and threatening to kill himself after a drink and drugs combo mixed with existing meds he has to take for medical issues.

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Is the lockdown a good time for landlords to get new-build deals from developers?

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London developer Galliard is well known to buy-to-let investors as a significant player in the new-build apartment market but the company, and its landlord customer base, have been through difficult times since the Coronavirus lockdown hit.

LandlordZONE talked to its sales boss David Galman to find out how far the company has been prepared to go to secure sales from landlords.

Galman is the first to admit that extraordinary times require extraordinary action, revealing that he’s signed off deals for purchasers that would have not been given the green light before the pandemic. Even before the lockdown, we featured claims that developers like Galliard were offering 20% discounts on properties being sold outside of the Help to Buy scheme.

Before that, he was prepared to do deals at completed developments with properties left unsold, but not the more desirable properties still under construction.

Lockdown

This kind of approach has had to be set aside to get sales during the lockdown, even if it means cutting margin. But for buyers who had already reserved but not completed on newbuild properties it was a different story.

“With our landlord buyers, we had completions happening at our developments in Canary Wharf and Romford – spanning both ends of the market – and the investors there obviously tried not to complete because they wanted to utilise the situation to their advantage,” he says.

“And who can blame them. But we got the letting agents on the case to persuade them that, despite the lockdown, there were tenants waiting to rent their apartments and that if they waited, they’d all be competing for tenants en masse once the lockdown ended.”

“We found that tenants were prepared to commit to a brand new furnished property after only a virtual viewing.”

Galman also tells LandlordZONE that his company has for the first time become a landlord itself at a site in the London Borough of Havering where all 98 flats are to be rented out directly, which he says is a PRS first or the company.

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – Is the lockdown a good time for landlords to get new-build deals from developers? | LandlordZONE.

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Dramatic increase in use of prosecutions, civil penalty fines and Rent Repayment Orders

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Over the past year we have seen Mandatory HMO licensing increased in scope to include all properties with 5 or more occupants, where they belong to two or more households. Since this we have seen a dramatic increase in the use of prosecutions

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MP kicks urges landlords to welcome foreign students as racism row erupts

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The chair of the UK’s
All-Party Parliamentary University Group has accused private landlords in
Cambridge of being unwelcoming to international students.

The city’s Labour MP Daniel
Zeichner, who is also shadow minister for Food, Farming and Fisheries, has
been reported as saying that issues with student
accommodation risked sending the wrong message to those thinking of studying in
the city.

He told local media that there had been examples of racism directed at Chinese students and that international students had also faced issues with private landlords. 

Said Zeichner: “What we don’t want is a
message going back to people that Britain is anything other than a welcoming,
helpful place, not least given that some international students, of course, are
paying a lot of money in a lot of cases. It’s in everybody’s interest.”

While universities have behaved
well during the pandemic, Zeichner claims, problems have arisen for students in the private sector accommodation.

He said: “You’ve got a whole
range of landlords, from the professional national providers who can take a
policy position, some smaller local providers who are perhaps a bit harder to
deal with and then, of course, a whole plethora of individual private
landlords, and there it has been very, very patchy.” 

Chris Norris, policy director for the
National Residential Landlords Association, says: “There is no place for racism
of any kind and we strongly condemn any landlords who might be engaging in such
activity.

“In view of the comments from Mr Zeichner we
are seeking clarification about the concerns that he has so that we might work
with him to address them.”

LandlordZONE
has not yet had a response from Zeichner’s office.

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – MP kicks urges landlords to welcome foreign students as racism row erupts | LandlordZONE.

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Property guru slammed over ‘satirical’ TikTok video

admin    Uncategorized     agents

A landlord and self-styled #makemoney property investment guru has stepped into a social media furore after posting a message on TikTok egging on investors to maximise their profits by running overcrowded HMOs.

Irish landlord Joe Doyle, pictured above, who is also a spokesperson for the country’s Residential Landlords Association, posted the 40-second TikTok video earlier this week, and was subsequently watched by 23,400.

Titled ‘How I get rent of €5,000 a month from one house’, Doyle was deluged by criticism on TikTok and other social media platforms after suggesting that landlords should buy council houses and then pack them with eight people – he suggests by having two families live in it – and “pack them in and then collect the money”.

Doyle has today posted another video revealing that the original TikTok post was a satirical attempt to lure in more followers to his account, and that he wasn’t serious about any of the advice given.

Readers can decide themselves of course and watch the video, but his presentation style makes it hard to tell.

And many of the 600+ commentators on his video have not been forgiving, one calling him a ‘landlord leech’.“The trouble is Joe is that your video isn’t outrageous enough to be satire, and [this kind of HMO] is a reality for some people,” said TikTok user @guieireann.

“Even though this is probably a joke, there are landlords that think like this. No wonder there’s a housing crisis,” added @pipfanpage.

Doyle is not the first person to get into trouble for a ‘jokey’ TikTok post about being a landlord. Last month a New York landlady had to quit the platform after making jokes about stealing tenants’ mail when they got into rent arrears.

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – Property guru slammed over ‘satirical’ TikTok video | LandlordZONE.

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Appeal to Scottish Government on energy efficiency improvement works

admin    Uncategorized     agents

Landlords of private rented homes and their agents are urging the Scottish Government to consider the consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic on Scotland’s ongoing efforts to improve the energy efficiency of Scotland’s private rented homes.

Four membership organisations representing the private rented sector have joined forces and written an open letter to Kevin Stewart

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Still working on the new claim form N5B – give me strength?

admin    Uncategorized     agents

Okay so we are working through the new extended claim form for possession of property (tenant wants to be evicted…… so she can get her council house). Doing very well, but stumped at Question 14 which appears initially to be a very simple question:

Has the claimant given the defendant

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Regulator forces high profile letting agencies to refund clients after Coronavirus complaints

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The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has threatened to come down hard on the holiday home rental sector, prompting at least one company to change its cancellation refunds properly.

After the CMA announced an investigation into
cancellations and refunds, Vacation Rentals voluntarily changed its policy on
offering refunds to all customers whose trips were cancelled.

The company – which operates sites including
Hoseasons and Cottages.com – had told customers they couldn’t have a full
refund if a booking was cancelled due to the coronavirus outbreak.

It’s now reversed that decision and has promised to communicate its new policy clearly on its website and via social media, and to update the CMA with monthly reports on the number of refund offers that have been made and accepted.

Covid taskforce

It was one of a number of companies reported
to the CMA’s COVID-19 Taskforce. Common complaints include companies
refusing to provide full refunds at all or offering only vouchers instead of
cash refunds.

The CMA has vowed to continue its inquiries into the holiday accommodation sector, which could lead to court action against companies which don’t comply.

The CMA says it would expect a consumer to be
offered a full refund where a business has cancelled a contract without
providing any of the promised goods or services, or when no service is provided
by a business.

Or, for example, because the delivery is prevented by Government public health measures, or if a consumer cancels, or is prevented from receiving any services, because public health measures mean they aren’t allowed to use the services. 

Read more about the CMA.

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – Regulator forces high profile letting agencies to refund clients after Coronavirus complaints | LandlordZONE.

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Concern grows among landlords and legal experts over proposed Coronavirus insolvency legislation

admin    Uncategorized     agents

Draconian new insolvency laws are set to
cause commercial landlords big problems.

The second reading of the Corporate Insolvency and Governance Bill – being debated in the House of Lords today – aims to help tenants stave off insolvency during the crisis but has big implications for landlords.

While the Government wants
to safeguard tenants, particularly those on the high street, against aggressive
debt recovery actions during the lockdown, there are fears the result will be landlords
with reduced negotiating power and less incentive for corporate tenants to pay rent.

The Bill effectively removes the insolvency
process from the landlord’s armoury in rent recovery as they’ll be blocked
from chasing rent payments for at least 90 days.

It includes a temporary ban on landlords using
winding up petitions between 27^th April to 30^th June,
where a tenant can’t pay its rent bills due to coronavirus.

Landlords also won’t be allowed to start recovering rents
unless they’re owed at least 90 days of unpaid rent, while the previous minimum
was seven days.

Accountancy group Moore claims the legislation weakens property investors’ negotiating power.

Tip too far

Director Chris Tate says: “The
scales now threaten to tip too far in favour of big multinational corporate
tenants against landlords who might be small private investors or pension
funds.

“For some smaller landlords the
suspension of rent payments could put them under acute financial pressure.”

He adds: “This latest bill will further
incentivise corporate tenants to not pay rent even if they can afford to. The
legislation should at least allow landlords to charge a sensible level of
interest for the late payment of rents over the last few months, if this is not
stipulated in the lease.”

Moore suggests the Government should consider asking businesses that have reported a turnover of £45m or more last year and forecasted free cash-flow for the next quarter of 5% of sales to pay the rent due or a proportion of it.

Read more about government attempt’s to regulate the commercial property market during the crisis.

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – Concern grows among landlords and legal experts over proposed Coronavirus insolvency legislation | LandlordZONE.

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What Planet Are They On?

admin    Uncategorized     agents

If it wasn’t enough that we are now expected to provide housing services for free for very lengthy periods – due to the eviction ban – where tenants decide not to pay the rent, the left are also trying to get rent arrears cancelled and even rent-free housing.

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