LATEST: Oxford first ever council to stop landlords and agents using ‘No DSS’ adverts

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Oxford has pledged to stamp out DSS discrimination against tenants on housing benefit and Universal Credit – the first council to take such a stand.

A cross-party motion has called on the cabinet to explicitly ban discrimination against welfare recipients by changing the wording of its landlord accreditation scheme to say: ‘You must not discriminate on the basis of age, gender, race, language, sexuality or any other factor that might place an individual at a disadvantage.

This includes indirect discrimination such as ‘no DSS’ or related practices, namely refusing to let prospective tenants on housing benefit or universal credit view affordable properties and requiring guarantors in cases where a prospective tenant’s income is sufficient.’

It wants to ensure that the city’s welfare reform team proactively looks out for, and acts upon, reported cases of discrimination and suggests that a new, formal tenants’ forum should be consulted on housing decisions.

The council’s housing and homelessness panel will monitor action taken to address discrimination against those on benefits while duty housing officers would refer cases to the welfare reform team and independent advice centres.

Green Party councillor Chris Jarvis (pictured) tells LandlordZONE that for too long, some landlords and letting agents have been acting with impunity. 

“DSS discrimination is often covert, however, community union Acorn has documented clear examples of letting agents in the city actively engaging in discriminatory practices against welfare recipients including ensuring that potential tenants are screened before landlords let properties and not letting properties to tenants on universal credit or housing benefit.”

Last July, York County Court ruled that landlords and letting agents risk prosecution if they won’t allow housing benefit claimants to rent their properties. However, last October, an investigation by the BBC Data Unit found Wokingham landlords were refusing to rent to benefits claimants; none of the landlords who listed 45 properties on the website OpenRent accepted ‘DSS income’.

Safieh Kabir, chair of Acorn’s Oxford branch, tells LandordZONE: “We’re proud that our members’ collective campaigning efforts have pushed the issue of covert DSS discrimination out from the shadows.

“Oxford has a deserved reputation as a divided city, and property owners discriminating against renters on benefits is yet another factor squeezing working class people out.”

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – LATEST: Oxford first ever council to stop landlords and agents using ‘No DSS’ adverts | LandlordZONE.

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EXCLUSIVE: Growing chorus of landlords slamming ‘unfair’ EPCs

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A growing chorus of landlords and housing experts have queried the EPC appraisal process with some claiming that expensive upgrades won’t make any difference to the final EPC score.

Landlords will be expected to raise their properties to band C for all tenancies by 2028, but in a recent survey of 70 valuers by Countrywide Surveying Services, more than 30% said EPCs were not accurate or a reliable source or of high quality.

“The quality of EPCs is often questioned as is the calculation methodology and the growing number of assumptions made to produce the report,” says Ana Bajri, senior technical manager – risk and compliance.

Professor David Emmerson, whose family owns five rental properties, says the country is struggling under a grotesquely unfit-for-purpose algorithm which rewards gas boilers and ‘modern’ night-time electric storage heaters from the 1970s.

He adds: “There are several flaws in the EPC methodology as the price of external energy purchased is factored in the EPC algorithm which makes a nonsense of the EPC being a measure of the intrinsic energy performance of the dwelling itself.”

Not objective

One landlord agrees the EPC method of rating properties is not objective or consistent. “I have two identical purpose-built flats in the same block that have been rated differently, which suggests that the rating process is not standardised or fair,” she says.

“How can landlords work out the effect of improvements if the ‘experts’ responsible for determining the ratings don’t even know?”

Another landlord’s property received a D rating but she discovered it needed thousands of pounds spent on improvements which she could never recoup as the rent is only £530 a month.

“Our rental house is stone built and our tenant is very happy, and states that the house is warm. If we sell up, what will happen to our tenant?” She adds: “I would be happy to support a campaign to fight this injustice.”

NRLA says…

An spokeswoman says: “EPC assessments don’t take into account measures which may be hidden, for example cavity wall insulation, unless the property owner has documentary evidence that they have been installed.

“This can mean that assessments and ratings are inconsistent. We are calling for building renovation passports to replace EPCs.

“These would provide accurate information about the measures already installed and identify what further works can be made to properties in the long-term. 

“They would also provide landlords with useful information about what measures will improve their property’s energy efficiency and provide easily comparable information for tenants.”

Read more criticism of the EPC system.

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – EXCLUSIVE: Growing chorus of landlords slamming ‘unfair’ EPCs | LandlordZONE.

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Evictions; The faster and more cost-effective solution

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There are thousands of County Court Possession Orders forming the backlog of cases awaiting an eviction date from the County Court Bailiff Service as a direct result of the pandemic.

Therefore, if you have a Possession Order in the system and are waiting for an eviction date from the County Court, you could be in for a long wait.

It could take months and possibly longer for the courts to clear the backlog alongside dealing with the new cases that are being added daily.

There is an alternative which is not only a quicker route to getting your property back but could also save you hundreds if not thousands of pounds in unpaid rent.

Transfer approved

The eviction can be expedited to the High Court with a simple application to the County Court seeking permission; a District Judge will review the matter and usually approve the transfer.

The up-front cost of High Court Enforcement is greater than those of a County Court Bailiff.

But, given you could be waiting a significant time for the County Court to allocate an eviction date, if you are not being paid rent, then the months of time this will save you makes it the most cost-effective option for you overall enabling you to re-let the property sooner rather than later.

If you have obtained an Order for Possession and in the position outlined above, then we can help.

The process from this point is to make an application to the County Court for permission to use High Court Enforcement. We will assist you with this.

Once the application has been granted, you can then issue a Writ of Possession in the High Court and we will assist you during the process.

Further instructions

Once this has been received, we can execute it in accordance with your further instructions, but only after we have served the mandatory 14-day Notice of Eviction on the tenants or any other occupiers of the property.

To execute the Writ, we will attend at the given time with a locksmith and take back possession of your property for you immediately.

At the point of the eviction, we also serve a ‘torts notice’ too. This is a legal document alerting the owner of items that have been abandoned on private land or property.

The notice period given on ours torts is typically seven days as it needs to be deemed as reasonable, for a larger scale operation you may consider allowing more time.

Items removed

If the tenant fails to act within the terms of the notice, you can then remove any items left behind yourself; you would not be permitted to do so if you had not served such a notice.

Torts are a good way to put pressure on tenants who try to cause further issues and delays; whether you follow through on it or not is up to you.

The test on a torts notice is that you have been ‘reasonable’ so we would not advocate providing less than seven days to protect your own position.

In addition to the eviction, as Enforcement Agents, we are in the unique position of being able to also pursue the tenant for the unpaid rent and costs as awarded as a money judgment on your Court Order (providing they exceed £600).

Pursue recovery

This can be done either at the time of the eviction or you may prefer to pursue recovery of the money later if it is likely that the former tenant’s financial position is going to improve.

Please do not be put off by the horrendously long lead times in the County Courts at the moment as there is an alternative solution which is quicker, more cost effective and from the point of such matters being transferred to us, we have a 100% success rate.

Please get in touch if you think we can help or if you would like more information or guidance.

Contact us and discover how we can speed up the eviction process for you:

Call: 01992 666396

Email: commercialservices@courtenforcementservices.co.uk

www.courtenforcementservices.co.uk

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – Evictions; The faster and more cost-effective solution | LandlordZONE.

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Are heat pumps a viable option for rental properties?

admin    Uncategorized     agents

We know that households across the UK will need to adopt a low carbon alternative to traditional heating solutions such as oil, gas, coal or wood burning in the future.

Air source or geothermal ground source heat pumps are being touted as just such an alternative to help the UK reach its net zero carbon emissions targets by 2050.

That’s a long way off of course, but we do know that the UK government has committed to a ‘decisive shift’ away from fossil fuel burning, with the most popular forms of domestic gas boilers to be phased out by the mid-2030s.

The drive for efficiency is only likely to intensify following the Conference of the Parties (COP 26), attended by countries that signed the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

The 26th Conference of the Parties to be held in Glasgow this coming November is the most significant COP since the Paris Agreement was signed in 2015 as nations will be reviewing their emissions targets. Six years ago world leaders committed to an historic agreement to keep global mean temperature rises well below 2 degrees C, and to strive to limit the rise to 1.5 degrees C.

A difficult choice

As with the shift away for the internal combustion (IC) engines in cars and vans, there is much debate about which way to go, which systems will win out in the end: fully electric, hybrid, fuel cells, hydrogen etc.

We are talking about new and in many cases untried technologies, heat pumps, biomass and hydrogen and solar, so making a choice as to which horse to back, whether with transport or home heating, is going to be a real challenge for manufacturers and the rest of us in the near future.

The government’s December 2020 energy white paper, ‘Powering our net zero future’ states that new measures are definitely to be introduced soon to start switching home heating, at scale, to low-carbon alternatives.

It means that at some point in the future a low-carbon heating system, or an appliance that can be converted to use a clean fuel, will have to be installed in domestic properties. It is thought that at this stage, though technologies are developing, heating systems using heat pumps or hydrogen-ready boilers, or a combination (hybrid) system, are likely candidates to replace current natural gas and oil fired boilers in the future.

Although heat pump systems are a relatively new technology in the UK, they are not a new idea or application, having been used successfully in Scandinavia, Germany and other parts of Europe for many years, where there is an abundance of renewable electricity – namely hydro or wind turbine powered generators.

How does the Heat Pump work

A heat pump takes energy from either the outside air (air source) and the outside ground (geothermal ground source) and transfers it into heat (similar to a refrigerator in reverse) to be circulated around a heating and hot water system. Electricity is used to run the heat pump, principally a fan, compressor and circulating pumps to transfer energy from the heat source into the heating system.

This renewable source of heat (air or ground) is used to create warm air or water (for space and central heating) as well as hot water (for both central heating and domestic hot water supply) by utilising the small differences in temperature from the source to a fluid. This fluid passes through a compressor, increasing the temperature, and transfers that higher temperature heat to the heating and hot water circuits of the home.

What are the arguments for fitting a heat pump system?

Warning, this assumes that you have chosen a reliable system supplied by a reputable manufacturer and fitted by an experience installer. You need to do thorough research before making a decision as the technology’s use is still at an early stage in the UK.

The main advantages are:

• Overall lower running costs than oil and gas boilers, even taking into account the extra electricity use
• There should be less regular maintenance with a reliable system properly installed
• No carbon monoxide risk
• Meets Carbon Emissions standards
• Can be used to provide cooling, acting like AC
• The system should have a long life-span
• It is eligible for the Domestic Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI)

What are the downsides to Heat Pumps?

There are some disadvantages to heat pumps, the primary one being the high initial investment required, but also a property needs to be very well insulated if the heat produced internally is to be adequate.

• High upfront cost – typically between £6,000 to £20,000 depending on installation and property size
• Requires a property with very good insulation
• Difficult to install so an experience supplier and installer is a priority
• Requires significant work and disturbance, particularly ground source which also require suitable ground space
• There can be issues in very cold weather
• Some questionable the overall sustainability and whether these systems are entirely carbon neutral
• Planning permission may be required

So is a heat pump system suitable for a rental property?

These are personal views, so take this with a piece of salt! When we are talking about a new-build with current specification insulation and where the property is off the mains gas grid, then fitting a heat pump system for the long-term is the most viable of the heat pump options. It should save money in the long run, cut down on maintenance requirements, add to safety and fitting the system along with the build will ease installation work and will likely reduce the payback time.

Retro fitting a system in a well insulated home, where the alternative sources of heat are electricity, oil or LPG, will also mean that a heat pump system can give substantial savings. But careful due diligence will be needed to calculate the payback time and chose a suitable manufacturer and installer.

It is likely to be less advantageous to fit these systems when mains natural gas is available, certainly in the short-term, ie., up to 2035.

My own experience, of staying in a well insulated holiday lodge, heated by a Panasonic air source heat pump, during a cold spell, was that an air source system (deemed to be not quite as efficient as a ground source system) provided very adequate room heating and hot water.

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – Are heat pumps a viable option for rental properties? | LandlordZONE.

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Pioneering virtual landlord show to stage final event as Covid retreats

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This Thursday landlords have a final chance to attend one of the sector’s leading virtual property shows before gatherings like this return to live events later this year.

Property investment expert Simon Zutshi is hosting the closing edition of his free all-day online conference via Zoom featuring eight leading experts who will be giving half-hour presentations throughout the day each followed by Q&A sessions.

He says advice for landlords is much needed at the moment – the pandemic has been a testing time for many residential and commercial landlords as the Section 24 tax relief changes, Covid eviction restrictions and other regulatory changes have rolled in.

“These are not sales pitches but advice sessions from some of the experts within the evictions, finance, entrepreneur, investment and service provider sectors, all available from the comfort of your own home,” says Zutshi.

He launched the initiative back in April 2020 after Covid prevented events like the Property Investor Show and the National Landlord Show from holding live events. Both are scheduled to return as face-to-face shows later this year.

“We’ve done these virtual shows a couple of times and they’ve been popular,” adds Zutshi.

“But this will be last time as the world’s opening up now that everyone’s been jabbed and the Property Investor Show, for example, is back at Excel in October – an event I’ve been attending since 2003.”

Bounce back

Zutshi’s experts will give landlords an update on the investment market and the current changes and opportunities within the market as it bounces back.

There will also be a presentation by evictions expert Paul Shamplina on the fast-changing possession regulations applicable to PRS landlords.

Other speakers during the day include Morgan Stuart of broker GPS Financial, Mike Bristow CEO of funding platform CrowdProperty, commercial property expert Ranjan Bhattacharya, Dan Hill from Property Entrepreneur and Stuart Scott, one of the pioneers of co-living. The events kicks off at 9.15am on 29th July.

Register for free for the virtual show.

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – Pioneering virtual landlord show to stage final event as Covid retreats | LandlordZONE.

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Pioneering virtual landlord show holds final event as UK shakes off Covid

admin    Uncategorized     agents

This Thursday landlords have a final chance to attend one of the sector’s leading virtual property shows before gatherings like this return to live events later this year.

Property investment expert Simon Zutshi is hosting the closing edition of his free all-day online conference via Zoom featuring eight leading experts who will be giving half-hour presentations throughout the day each followed by Q&A sessions.

He says advice for landlords is much needed at the moment – the pandemic has been a testing time for many residential and commercial landlords as the Section 24 tax relief changes, Covid eviction restrictions and other regulatory changes have rolled in.

“These are not sales pitches but advice sessions from some of the experts within the evictions, finance, entrepreneur, investment and service provider sectors, all available from the comfort of your own home,” says Zutshi.

He launched the initiative back in April 2020 after Covid prevented events like the Property Investor Show and the National Landlord Show from holding live events. Both are scheduled to return as face-to-face shows later this year.

“We’ve done these virtual shows a couple of times and they’ve been popular,” adds Zutshi.

“But this will be last time as the world’s opening up now that everyone’s been jabbed and the Property Investor Show, for example, is back at Excel in October – an event I’ve been attending since 2003.”

Bounce back

Zutshi’s experts will give landlords an update on the investment market and the current changes and opportunities within the market as it bounces back.

There will also be a presentation by evictions expert Paul Shamplina on the fast-changing possession regulations applicable to PRS landlords.

Other speakers during the day include Morgan Stuart of broker GPS Financial, Mike Bristow CEO of funding platform CrowdProperty, commercial property expert Ranjan Bhattacharya, Dan Hill from Property Entrepreneur and Stuart Scott, one of the pioneers of co-living. The events kicks off at 9.15am on 29th July.

Register for free for the virtual show.

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – Pioneering virtual landlord show holds final event as UK shakes off Covid | LandlordZONE.

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Fraudsters who target up-market rental properties a ‘growing problem’ says leading trade body

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Fraudsters who target high-end properties because they know long lead times for evictions will protect them when they stop paying the rent is a growing problem, a leading property trade body has claimed.

ARLA Propertymark, which represents lettings agents across the UK, says it is investigating the problem which sophisticated tech is making harder and hard to spot.

This includes the faking of documents such as bank statements, inco e tax returns, credit check documentation, references and payslips using widely-available and easy-to-use image manipulation software.

A typical example is multi-branch firm Tay Lettings in Scotland which says it was duped by a sophisticated scammer who began a tenancy in a prime property but, after Scotland brought in an evictions ban, was able to stay for a year without paying rent racking up arrears of some £60,000.

Lorna Taylor (pictured), a director at Tay Letting says: “To guard against these fraudulent applicants, we now send all applications to an independent referencing agency as a matter of course to verify as far as possible that the information we have received is legitimate.”

Propertymark says it is working to ensure that all governments across the UK are aware of this issue and to make sure that landlords can easily recover their properties where it has been established to have been let under a fraudulent tenant application.

Its CEO, Nathan Emerson (pictured), warns: “Fraudulent tenants who are acquiring often high-end properties fully knowing they cannot afford them is a growing problem which needs immediate attention.

“With the increase in cases and the sophisticated ways these people are producing falsified documents, agents can be completely unaware of this fraudulent activity until faced with the devastating consequences. “Agents should remain vigilant and do all they can to weed out the criminals from the law-abiding tenants.”

Read more about fraudulent rental applications.

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – Fraudsters who target up-market rental properties a ‘growing problem’ says leading trade body | LandlordZONE.

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Official claim that ‘all is well between DWP and landlords’ untrue – claim

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A Universal Credit expert has blasted the government’s claims that the benefits system is working smoothly for private landlords.

In answer to a Parliamentary question, junior housing minister Will Quince (main pic) said its online system allowed better interaction with Universal Credit.

“Private landlords are now able to request a Universal Credit tenant’s rent is paid directly to them online, which helps claimants who struggle with managing their money to pay their rent,” said Quince.

But Bill Irvine (pictured) at UC Advice & Advocacy, tells LandlordZONE that plenty of landlords are being treated very poorly by the DWP, unlike their social landlord colleagues who are notified when one of their tenants makes a UC claim and can apply and receive, within minutes, the redirection of the housing costs element.

For private landlords, once they’ve applied, there is no formal acknowledgement, no timescale indication for processing, no dedicated email or telephone number to enquire about what’s happening and, without the explicit consent of their ‘delinquent tenant’, no means of meaningfully speaking to DWP staff, says Irvine.

“During the past year, DWP have used a ‘trust and protect’ policy which effectively means it will accept the word from tenants and even illegal sub-tenants before anything offered by landlords.

“This relaxation of the normal checks allowed delinquent tenants to fraudulently download ASTs with false information about tenancies and rent levels. It also allowed tenants to illegally sub-let, with DWP paying ‘housing costs’ without any contact with DWP.”

He adds: “I’ve had a meeting with the National Audit Office and discovered its staff there were just as frustrated by DWP as we are.”  

Last week, the DWP admitted that spiralling fraud and overpayments in the benefits system now stands at the highest rate ever recorded. It estimates it overpaid £8.3 billion of the £111.4 billion that it spent on benefits in 2020-21, with nearly all of the increase in fraud and error on Universal Credit.

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – Official claim that ‘all is well between DWP and landlords’ untrue – claim | LandlordZONE.

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Government claims that ‘all is well between DWP and private landlords’ are untrue, says expert

admin    Uncategorized     agents

A Universal Credit expert has blasted the government’s claims that the benefits system is working smoothly for private landlords.

In answer to a Parliamentary question, junior housing minister Will Quince (main pic) said its online system allowed better interaction with Universal Credit.

“Private landlords are now able to request a Universal Credit tenant’s rent is paid directly to them online, which helps claimants who struggle with managing their money to pay their rent,” said Quince.

But Bill Irvine (pictured) at UC Advice & Advocacy, tells LandlordZONE that plenty of landlords are being treated very poorly by the DWP, unlike their social landlord colleagues who are notified when one of their tenants makes a UC claim and can apply and receive, within minutes, the redirection of the housing costs element.

For private landlords, once they’ve applied, there is no formal acknowledgement, no timescale indication for processing, no dedicated email or telephone number to enquire about what’s happening and, without the explicit consent of their ‘delinquent tenant’, no means of meaningfully speaking to DWP staff, says Irvine.

“During the past year, DWP have used a ‘trust and protect’ policy which effectively means it will accept the word from tenants and even illegal sub-tenants before anything offered by landlords.

“This relaxation of the normal checks allowed delinquent tenants to fraudulently download ASTs with false information about tenancies and rent levels. It also allowed tenants to illegally sub-let, with DWP paying ‘housing costs’ without any contact with DWP.”

He adds: “I’ve had a meeting with the National Audit Office and discovered its staff there were just as frustrated by DWP as we are.”  

Last week, the DWP admitted that spiralling fraud and overpayments in the benefits system now stands at the highest rate ever recorded. It estimates it overpaid £8.3 billion of the £111.4 billion that it spent on benefits in 2020-21, with nearly all of the increase in fraud and error on Universal Credit.

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – Government claims that ‘all is well between DWP and private landlords’ are untrue, says expert | LandlordZONE.

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New high-profile taskforce says private landlords not to blame for lack of affordable homes

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A new national taskforce of companies and organisations involved in the housing market has said private landlords should not be blamed for the current lack of affordable homes available for lower-income tenants to rent.

The report highlights what landlords have been saying since successive Conservative administrations have attempted to wash their hands of social housing while at the same time, ironically, reducing private landlords’ tax breaks and increasing regulation of the sector.

Instead, the Nationwide-led coalition 51 big-name organisations says, the UK should return to providing these renters with decent quality, affordable council-run rented accommodation.

The group includes the National Residential Landlord Association as well as key housing charities, the UK’s largest estate agency Connells, Rightmove, big house builders and several large insurance firms including Legal & General.

Research by Ipsos-Mori on the group’s behalf shows that 71% of renters consider the housing market to be ‘in crisis’.

Social housing

“Renting privately is not the best way to house large numbers of lower income earners,” says Affordable Housing Commission Chair, Lord Best. “We need social housing to do that.”

The report blames Margaret Thatcher’s ‘right to buy’ reforms introduced during the 1980s which, the report says, drastically reduced the supply of council houses, forcing many lower owners into the private rental market.

But many landlords are now actively avoiding this kind of tenant, a trend intensified by the complexities and frustrations of dealing with the Universal Credit system.

Sara Bennison (main pic), Chief Product and Marketing Officer at Nationwide Building Society, says: “Our research and cross-industry conversations show that the pandemic has served to exacerbate long-standing issues in the housing market.”

The report also includes the controversial claims by Lord Best that policy incentives could ‘encourage sales to homeowners and social landlords, rather than to investors’.

The Future of Home report also looks at many aspects of the housing market including housing availability, the UK’s ageing housing stock and to make our homes more sustainable.

Read more about renting initiatives backed by Nationwide.

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – New high-profile taskforce says private landlords not to blame for lack of affordable homes | LandlordZONE.

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