LATEST: Shelter campaign forces lettings platform to change ‘No DSS’ policy

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SpareRoom has updated its site in a bid to stop landlords posting blanket bans on housing benefit tenants.

Instead of ‘housing benefits considered’, the large lettings portal now has a search option to ‘hide ads that can’t accept housing benefit (due to mortgage/insurance restrictions)’, as it says some landlords are prevented from renting to tenants claiming benefits due to the nature of their buy-to-let mortgages.

The change follows an investigation by the Oxford Mail that found more than 90% of landlords on SpareRoom in the city appeared to be avoiding tenants on housing benefit despite the county court ruling earlier this year which makes blanket ‘No DSS’ rental bans by letting agents unlawful and discriminatory under the Equality Act.

SpareRoom acknowledges that the percentage of landlords accepting housing benefit has historically been very low.

A spokesman tells LandlordZONE that it will have to rely on them to be honest about their circumstances.

He says: “In some ways it would have been simpler just to remove the option to say no altogether, but we know some mortgage and insurance terms have specific clauses in them preventing landlords from renting to tenants who pay their rent with benefits.

“We wanted to make sure that option was available to them, while letting tenants see which rooms were affected.”

Although the DSS judgement was from a low-level court, charities and campaigners hope it will stick. Polly Neate, chief executive of Shelter, says: “Anyone who is still being turned away from rental properties they can afford, purely because they receive benefits, should write a formal email or letter to the agent asking them to reconsider and reminding them that DSS discrimination is unlawful.”

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – LATEST: Shelter campaign forces lettings platform to change ‘No DSS’ policy | LandlordZONE.

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Housing Associations/Charities – want my property?

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I am coming to the end of a 4 year contract with a Managing Agent that has a direct link with the Local Authority to provide emergency/temporary accommodation.

I want to move to another Housing Association/charity to do the same

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BRITISH SUCCESS: Rental pioneer SpareRoom set to become global giant

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Rental platform SpareRoom is to become a global phenomenon with some 40 million registered users in the UK, US and 18 other countries following its purchase of rival Roomgo.

The deal, which is for an undisclosed sum, triples the size of SpareRoom’s user database and makes it one of the biggest property rental platforms on the planet, building on its existing success in both the UK and US.

Used by landlords to find tenants and by tenants to find people to share properties with, SpareRoom is one of the UK’s unspoken digital success stories.

Started in 2004 by Rupert Hunt (pictured, above), a wannabe rock star who built websites in his spare time, the site has grown organically without the kind of start-up razzamatazz (or investor cash) that is standard these days for proptech firms. It now has two million visitors a month to its website.

Global markets

Following the purchase of Roomgo off its London-based owner Digital Ventures Group, SpareRoom now has a presence in key global rental markets including France, Italy and Spain as well as Brazil.

“We’re excited to strengthen our position in the US and significantly add to 11+ million global registered users,” says Hunt.

“SpareRoom has long been the clear market leader in the UK. This acquisition gives us the platform to do the same in the US and beyond, and gives flatmates across the world the safe, simple and effective service we’re renowned for.

“Living with flatmates is a global way of life. Millions of people around the world share their homes and that’s only likely to increase over the coming decade. But it requires a different approach to simply renting or buying a property.”

Read more Spareroom news.

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – BRITISH SUCCESS: Rental pioneer SpareRoom set to become global giant | LandlordZONE.

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HF Assist and Landlord Action to host Rent Arrears and Eviction webinar

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Following the further extension to the ban on evictions announced on 21st August, HF Assist, together with Landlord Action, will be hosting a special ‘Rent Arrears and Eviction’ webinar on 9th September from 10am-11am

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Exclusive: ‘Secret landlord’ dishes the dirt on being a multi-property landlord

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An anonymous professional landlord has written a book claiming to lift the lid on the world of buy-to-let for the first time.

Parasite: The Secret Diary of a Landlord is a warts-and-all account of everyday life in the sector, drawing on two decades in the business.

The author, known only as The Secret Landlord, admits to being a large-scale portfolio landlord with properties nationwide, and explains it was prompted by her recent experiences.

She tells LandlordZONE: “While you get used to the hostile environment, this era of Government intervention and public hatred ushered in by Covid-19 feels new.

“There have been moments where I’ve wondered is this the right time to share the truth the other side of the door, but now more than ever, I think it’s important for people to hear the landlord’s side of the story.

“I think other landlords, potential landlords, tenants, potential tenants, in fact anybody who’s interested in other people’s lives will enjoy reading it.”

The book claims to reveal what it’s really like to be a landlord and the shocking reality of renting out a property. 

The Secret Landlord reckons the real life of a professional landlord is very different to the public perception; dealing with burglaries and break-ins, drug raids, police warrants, crazy tenant antics, bailiffs, squatters, lawsuits, wrecked properties, interfering council officers and game-playing freeholders.

She adds: “It’s not just misbehaving and non-paying tenants you’re up against, you’ve also got errant tradesmen, local councils and ever-changing Government regulations to contend with. There are some good times, but nowadays they’re few and far between.”

Parasite: The Secret Diary of a Landlord is published on 15th October by Alethea and is available to pre-order on Amazon.

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – Exclusive: ‘Secret landlord’ dishes the dirt on being a multi-property landlord | LandlordZONE.

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Meet Mark Smith (Barrister-At-Law) Landlord tax planning strategies – PIN

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Our Hon. Legal Counsel, Mark Smith, Head of Chambers at Cotswold Barristers will be presenting an overview of several landlords tax strategies at the pin Glasgow property networking event Tuesday 8th September and the next day at the pin Sheffield event Wednesday 9th September

The events will be held Online and Attendees can expect first-class speakers and great networking opportunities.

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House Prices up 5.2% on August last year

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The Halifax have just released their House Price index report for August with prices 5.2% higher than in the same month last year. However, there remains a great deal of uncertainty for the market in the coming year.

On a monthly basis

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LDC (existing) HMO C4 Application Rejected – What Next?

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I have a small property in Leytonstone which has been let to 4 Sharers since 2007 and Walthamstow brought in a regulation last year to apply for a change in class HMO (C4). On the website, it mentioned that if it can be proven that this was in occupation by 4 sharers before 2014 then the LDC (Lawful Development Certificate) will be given.

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Is the DWP fully complicit in ensuring evictions?

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I sent off a complaint to the DWP regarding them paying the rent direct to a (self declared) vulnerable tenant (drink and drugs, mental health issues, depression, severe medical issues, previous homelessness etc), where even before the tenancy began an MPTL was agreed and put into place.

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Covid heralds dramatic change for retail and office working

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The Covid pandemic has disrupted the way business works as much as it has disrupted life in general. As the number of infections grew governments and businesses across the globe shut down physical work sites in an attempt to reduce the spread of infection.

As with retail, so with office work, the pandemic has not actually brought a change in direction, just more of the same, it was heading that way before. Covid has merely accelerated existing trends by several years, and then some. From bricks and mortar to online shopping, and a shift to working from home, or working flexibly on the move, the change over the last 4 months has been staggering.

Around 40% of workers are still based working at home and online retail sales jumped from under 20% in February to 33% at the peak (ONS), before dropping back a little since. These swings have serious implications for landlords and property investors; whether they remain permanent or temporary, or what’s more likely, something in between, the direction of travel is evident and too stark to ignore:

1. City centres such as London, Manchester and Birmingham, plus the UK economy as a whole will suffer – a PwC study finds that £15bn (1% GDP) could be wiped from the UK economy with the loss of coffee shops, cleaning jobs, service workers etc, and the likes of Pret A Manger laying off 3,000 staff is just a start.
2. At the same time landlords in urban centres may benefit as smaller stores and “hub-offices”, where staff can meet-up in small teams, are returning to properties in demand.
3. Large commercial landlords are finding that their retail and some office property values are being decimated, with tenants in serious arrears with their rents. Write offs will be commonplace as overall less than half the rents due have been collected since lockdown, and as landlords realise a smaller amount collected is better than nothing at all.
4. Many commercial landlords are now contemplating turnover linked rents with all the problems that will bring in terms of landlord-tenant relationship trust, transparency, more administration and the uncertainty of property valuations – a major problem for pension funds that need certainty investing in property.

Retail & Leisure

Retail and leisure landlords are concerned that rent arrears will build-up to a level that not only puts their own loan covenants in peril, it will be impossible for their tenants to pay off the debt, even when payments are stretched-out over a long period of time.

Some landlords will be thinking about whether they want to forfeit leases after the business rates holiday and the eviction moratorium end, but this in itself is a trap: taking back a vacant commercial property, if there’s no prospect of re-letting in the short-term, becomes a liability for the owner.

Landlords could easily face a higher financial burden by taking back the property before the lease ends because they not only become liable for business rates, insurance rates usually double in cost with an empty unit, and there’s the added worry and cost of security and a lot more administration work for the landlord managing services and utilises etc.

Where there has been a lease assignment some previous occupiers may be in for a nasty shock if they are “on the hook” under an authorised guarantee agreement, which means they will find themselves liable to cover the rent if the new tenant defaults om payments.

As lock-down started and these changes became evident, the belief that large-scale adoption of online shopping, and working from home, signalled a dramatic and permanent shift is quite understandable. But the true long-term impact is as yet unknown, but likely to be somewhat less severe than feared.

Whilst few retailers are likely to survive online only, the so called omni-channel model is likely to catch on – a mixture of a bricks and mortar and online sales, giving customers the best of both worlds.

Officer Workers

Likewise, most office workers are unlikely to spend all their working lives at home as the effects of the virus recede. There are some real negatives that working from home presents, aside form the obvious ones of lack of social contact, office gossip and the productive networking effects of being with others in a team.

Homeworking tends to extend outside normal working hours and even into weekends, and many companies will want to employ “employee monitoring software” such as Time Doctor or Teramind to ensure that productivity is maintained, a scenario likely to lead to mental health issues in some.

So, in both cases – shopping and homeworking – a compromise is the most likely outcome. It is thought likely that long-term there will be a gradual drift back to the office, though that’s not to say there won’t be less need for offices housing thousands, as a hybrid model takes on a new life.

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – Covid heralds dramatic change for retail and office working | LandlordZONE.

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