City firm to spend hoover up 2,000 rental properties and ‘professionalise’ them

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A big new business venture aims to give private landlords a run for their money by buying up and refurbishing thousands of rental properties.

Real estate fund manager, Moorfield Group, and PropTech residential investment platform, Bricklane, have joined forces to invest £600 million in buying up 2,000 one to four-bedroom houses and flats over the next two years, mainly in London, Bristol and the South East – and “professionalise” them.

They plan to target rental properties expected to outperform in those areas, and then to grow income and capital values through active asset management and refurbishing them to provide professional, high spec properties for tenants.

By focusing particularly on the 98% of the rental market owned by the UK’s 2.5 million buy-to-let landlords, it expects to deliver attractive returns and provide quality homes to a wider range of tenants, while also avoiding the carbon-cost of demolition and building new homes.

Rise of BTR

Bricklane this partnership sees the UK beginning to follow the example of the US single-family (or build to rent) residential market, where institutional investment in existing properties has grown from almost nothing to $40 billion in ten years.

Simon Heawood, CEO and co-founder of Bricklane, says: “The time is ripe for institutional capital to access and professionalise the mainstream private rented sector.

“Demand is at an all-time high, while it is becoming less financially attractive for individual landlords to operate in the sector. Moreover, tenants are rightly demanding higher quality service and more secure contracts for their homes.”

Properties will be managed by Bricklane through its proprietary technology platform, Compass.

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – City firm to spend hoover up 2,000 rental properties and ‘professionalise’ them | LandlordZONE.

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OMG! 18-34 year olds are getting into trouble with Buy now Pay later

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A quarter of young people making Buy Now Pay Later repayments haven’t been able to pay for food, rent or bills as a result, Citizens Advice has found.

New research from Citizens Advice shows 45% of 18 to 34 year olds in the UK have used Buy Now Pay Later in the last 12 months.

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New Class MA Is a Game Changer!

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New Permitted Development Rights will take effect from the 1st of August 2021. Class MA New Permitted Development Rights offer Commercial Property Investors new opportunities to profit from the commercial to residential strategy.

We’re talking Class MA, an absolute game changer! 

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Controversial landlord wins appeal against Scottish government register ban

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David Love, a landlord who was refused entry to the Scottish Letting Agency Register after the Scots government claimed that he was not ‘fit and proper persons to carry out letting agency work’ has won his appeal against the decision.

Love, who is both a landlord, former professional boxer and owner of estate agency David Love Property, has become of familiar face among those who read Scotland’s newspapers, who have written about his unusual eviction tactics.

He also appeared on TV show Judge Rinder two years ago to fight claims that he unfairly evicted a tenant when he ejected all her belongings from her apartment onto a communal lawn below. He won the case including costs.

Love has now won his latest legal wrangle after taking the Scottish government to a First-Tier Tribunal over their decision to exclude him and his agency from the Scottish Letting Agency Register.

Professional landlord

In his statements to the court, he said “I am a professional landlord and businessman. I have a clean criminal record.

“There is no legal reason for this decision. I have not committed any crimes. I have been accused of a crime, but the accusations are false”.

It is claimed by Love that the Scottish government did not give sufficient reasoning for his exclusion from the register other than a pending criminal prosecution and a failure to attend court.

Before the Tribunal’s judgement published yesterday, the Scottish government subsequently had already agreed with this point, and told the tribunal that it no longer opposed the appeal.

The Tribunal has directed that Love and his company should be entered into the letting agent register.

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – Controversial landlord wins appeal against Scottish government register ban | LandlordZONE.

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Landlord celebrates bittersweet eviction victory after tenant costs her £85,000

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A landlord is celebrating finally getting her flat back after waiting for more than a year to evict her errant tenant.

Lilyanna Markova, who works in a cosmetic clinic, built up losses totalling more than £35,000 in back rent and legal costs after the tenant refused to pay rent or move out – and was then caught up in the courts backlog. She’s extremely glad to have the flat back.

“I feel very happy,” Lilyanna tells LandlordZONE. “It’s been so much stress and I’m glad it’s finally over.”

However, her victory is bitter-sweet as she estimates it will cost at least £50,000 to carry out all the necessary repairs after the tenant left it in an appalling state.

She adds: “I had thought about moving into the property but I just want to sell it now as there are too many bad memories.”

Erratic payments

Lilyanna first rented out her two-bedroom flat to the tenant and her three children near London city airport in September 2017 and rent payments were erratic or non-existent from the start.

When she tried unsuccessfully to serve a Section 21 notice in 2018, the tenant countered with a compensation demand for problems caused by damp.

Since then, court hearings have been constantly delayed and she’s had a particularly difficult time during the pandemic after being herself evicted from her rented central London flat last September when the landlord needed it back.

She’s been living in an Airbnb for months and relying on friends’ help to pay bills ever since.

Her story was featured on BBC London News as part of an investigation into rent arrears and evictions, alongside Landlord Action’s Paul Shamplina who helped with the evictions process.

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – Landlord celebrates bittersweet eviction victory after tenant costs her £85,000 | LandlordZONE.

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BREAKING: ITV’s ‘mouldy homes’ probe prompts calls for compulsory landlord redress scheme

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An ITV news investigation aired last night has heavily criticised the government for its lack of progress to enable tenants in both the social and private rented sectors to complain about sub-standard homes.

Reported Daniel Hewitt spent six weeks touring mouldy and poorly-maintained homes interviewing tenants unable to prompt councils and housing associations into action.

The hour-long programme claimed the social sector’s Housing Ombudsman complaint system ‘clearly isn’t working’ and that tenants in private accommodation who rent directly off their landlords were largely powerless.

Private landlords are not required by law to join a redress scheme, and tenants usually have only their local Trading Standards or Environmental Health teams to turn to, many of which are either under-staffed or over-stretched.

Private tenants can also access redress if they dispute deductions from their deposit, assuming their landlord has lodged it with an approved scheme, or complain about their letting agent’s service if their landlord uses one.

But otherwise they are in limbo says Sean Hooker (pictured), Head of Redress at the Property Redress Scheme (PRS). He says it is time the government introduced a mandatory landlord redress scheme.

“When you are forced to live for long periods of time with a problem such as a disrepair or the condition of a property, the impact and distress on tenants is compounded,” he says.

“A requirement for all landlords to register with a redress scheme would mean that the whole private sector would be accountable to a complaint process.”

Hooker says the PRS is already working with the Housing Ombudsman, First Tier tribunals and The Property Ombudsman to move to a single gateway for all tenants to access the complaint service they need. 

“The concept would be that complainants would be able have their complaint signposted to the right service, that data could be shared allowing the complaint to be effectively dealt with as quickly and effectively as possible.”

Read more about the Housing Ombudsman.

Read more about the ITV investigation.

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – BREAKING: ITV’s ‘mouldy homes’ probe prompts calls for compulsory landlord redress scheme | LandlordZONE.

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