LATEST: PRS management firm under investigation as rent payments falter

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Some landlords have been discovering this week that expected rent payments have not popped into their bank accounts, a problem that has been traced back to property management firm ARPM.

The company is well established in the private rental sector and is used by many lettings agents to outsource management of their inbound maintenance requests by tenants, and to collect rental payments and sometimes deposits too on an agent’s behalf.

But in recent days many landlords have discovered that their monthly rent payments have been missed, only to be told by their letting agent that ARPM is not taking phone calls or returning emails.

The company’s boss and senior team are also not returning calls, emails or text messages, and agents report that many of its employees’ out-of-office messages show they have left the company.

Investigating

ARPM is registered with both Client Money Protect and mydeposits and a spokesperson for both organisations has told LandlordZONE that they are aware of potential issues with the holding of deposits and client monies via ARPM and are ‘currently investigating’. 

“This is a potentially complicated scenario and we have limited information at the moment. 

“Any landlord, tenant or agent who thinks they may be affected should contact mydeposits or Client Money Protect immediately. 

“We would also suggest that in the meantime, affected agents should also notify Action Fraud on 0300 123 2040, the Insolvency Service on 0300 678 0015, your relevant CMP scheme, and make your local Trading Standards team aware. 

“We will endeavour to provides updates as more information materialises.”

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – LATEST: PRS management firm under investigation as rent payments falter | LandlordZONE.

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Landlords join 100 organisations calling on Boris to U-turn on £20-a-week benefits cut

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The National Residential Landlords Association (NRLA) has joined forces with Generation Rent and Shelter to urge the government not to go ahead with its planned £20-a-week cut to Universal Credit and Working Tax Credit at the beginning of October.

The landlord body is one of 100 organisations including Citizens Advice and the National Housing Federation as well as children’s charities and advice services which have signed a letter to Boris Johnson, warning that the cut risks causing “immense, immediate, and avoidable hardship”.

It says that imposing what is effectively the biggest overnight cut to the basic rate of social security since World War Two will pile unnecessary financial pressure on about 5.5 million families, both in and out of work.

Same mistakes

The letter adds: “We are at risk of repeating the same mistakes that were made after the last economic crisis, where our country’s recovery was too often not felt by people on the lowest incomes.

“The erosion of social security support was one of the main drivers of the rise in in-work and child poverty, and contributed to a soaring need for food banks, rising debt and worsening health inequalities.”

It says that at the start of the pandemic, the Chancellor’s £20 increase to “strengthen the safety net” was a tacit admission that a decade of cuts and freezes had left it unfit to provide the support families need.

Joseph Rowntree Foundation’s latest research shows the planned cuts risk plunging 500,000 people into poverty, including 200,000 children, and will take the main rate of out of work support down to its lowest levels in real terms since around 1990.

The letter concludes: “We all want a social security system that supports families to escape poverty rather than pulling them deeper into it. However, this cut risks causing immense, immediate, and avoidable hardship.”

Read more about Universal Credit.

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – Landlords join 100 organisations calling on Boris to U-turn on £20-a-week benefits cut | LandlordZONE.

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SNEAK PEEK: Barratt reveals micro flat concept being built in London

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House building giant Barratt has revealed what it claims to be the future of UK housing – a 37 sq metre one-bedroom apartment for sale at £285,000.

The 160 initial ‘Smrt’ homes are within the company’s huge Eastman Village development in Harrow, North London where eventually some 2,000 people will live.

But while the properties are being aimed at 20 and 30-something first time buyers initially outside of the government’s Help to Buy scheme, Barratt has told LandlordZONE that they are also attractive to buy-to-let investors – although it says landlords are not their target market.

The one-bedroom apartments, which have been carefully laid out to look as spacious as 37 sq metres can be, and have high-end fixtures and fittings, offer gross returns of 6.7%. This is based on an annual rent of £19,200 or £1,600 a month, although Barratt says its figures suggest yields of up to 5% for the overall site.

By comparison, standard one-bedroom apartments at Eastman Village are 50.7 sq metres but start at £337,000.

First endeavor

Barratt London says the Smrt apartments, which are officially launching on September 11, are its first endeavour to offer both affordability and quality within a micro home, a concept it is looking to introduce at other sites.

The company says the only way to offer affordable homes in expensive cities like London is to make them small but cleverly designed.

Its Smrt properties are the minimum required by law – the London space standard for a couple living in a one-bedroom, single-storey property without a bath is 37 sq metres.

Nevertheless, each property has a balcony, access to a communal courtyard garden, bedroom (pictured), utility cupboard, separate bathroom with shower and a kitchen/diner/lounge (main pic) as well as access to a nearby communal gym.

There are no covenants within the Eastman Village development preventing properties being rented out by their owners, although short-lets Airbnb rentals are banned.

The properties are owned on a 999-year lease and owners are automatically given membership of the site’s management committee body.

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – SNEAK PEEK: Barratt reveals micro flat concept being built in London | LandlordZONE.

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Why technology can give your business a big break

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As a landlord, your life is far from idle as you work hard to find new tenants, manage your current ones, do the admin, find reliable tradespeople and much more.
Faced with this, more and more landlords are turning to technology to get things done, usually a property management platform.
Here are a few ways that technology can help you save valuable time, ease your workload, and benefit your business.

Advertising changes

Do you remember the days when landlords found tenants via local newspaper ads?
Some still do, but the internet is fast taking over, now that websites such as Facebook Marketplace, Rightmove and Zoopla offer national reach to a much wider range of tenants, all via your laptop.
There are even mobile apps and platforms that allow you to view and adjust your property listings as and when you need to. Relying solely on ‘To Let’ signs are becoming a thing of the past.

Property management platforms

These platforms simplify the many processes involved in property management.
This includes helping keep track of and securely processing rental payments; storing valuable documents; sourcing and hiring skilled tradespeople and more.
Some offer in-app messaging, giving landlords control of the properties on-the-go via a single, simple, easy to use platform, while overseeing everything personally and on your own time.

Social media

Having regularly updated personal blogs, Instagram accounts and Twitter profiles is a growing and new way to attract potential tenants.
Technology is becoming increasingly important; those without a social media presence can unfortunately get left behind or ignored completely.
With something as simple as a few keyword ‘hashtags’, you can broaden your reach to a wider audience and encourage interaction with your posts and build your local professional network.
This will ensure that your voice within the industry is always fresh, up to date and, most importantly, one that prospective tenants will want to listen to.

Better photos and videos

Logging onto a property management platform or property advertising website, the last thing tenants will want to see is a dimly lit or badly shot preview video or photo.
Prospective tenants want to see alluring but honest imagery of their potential future home.
And apps like Lightroom, VSCOcam and FilmoraGO have free versions readily available to help achieve that, without needing to be a pro.

Online rent payments

Some landlords are dubious about online rent payment processing services, and it’s understandable.
But as technology develops, the internet is becoming a safer place and it’s increasingly becoming impractical to keep tabs on payments manually: storing documents, collecting payments in person, driving to the bank to deposit said payments, doing it all over again for your other tenants. It eats up valuable chunks of your day and can be exhausting.
Property management apps solve this problem by enabling safe and hassle-free digital rent processing.
Any reputable property management platform will work alongside an equally reputable and secure payment service.
Doing this ensures that your finances are handled professionally and safely. And that includes Clooper, LandlordZONE’s preferred property management platform.
With Clooper, you can do all this and more. Clooper makes it easier for landlords to list properties, network with reputable tradespeople and tenants already on the platform, communicate with them efficiently through their in-platform messaging service, manage paperwork, track repairs and so much more.
Clooper’s guided onboarding processes ensure landlords carry out all necessary checks in a compliant way including referencing, Right to Rent, gas safety checks and more.
Their secure payment provider, Stripe, are certified as a PC1 Level 1 Service provider: the most stringent certificate you can get in the industry, ensuring your financial security.
The platform is efficient, transparent, and most importantly, designed for you. You are in control of everything, while Clooper helps simplify your life as a landlord.
Also, as LandlordZONE’s Official Property Management Platform Partner, Clooper has extended an exclusive 30-day free trial for

LandlordZONE subscribers.

By utilising the code CLLZ0001, you can benefit not only from the free trial period but from free rent processing, free property advertising and much more.
You’ll even net yourself a free Clooper t-shirt if you sign up to an annual plan! Offer lasts until September 30th, 2021.
Save valuable time, broaden your network, keep your payments safe and stay securely at the helm of your properties with Clooper. Sign up here today.

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – Why technology can give your business a big break | LandlordZONE.

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Section 24 Tax Is Now Hitting Tenants Hard

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Rental demand and hence the average price of UK rent is at an all time high and continues to sky-rocket, but why?

Well, we predicted this six years ago when the UK Government first announced the introduction of the Section 24 Tax.

The post Section 24 Tax Is Now Hitting Tenants Hard appeared first on Property118.

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EXCLUSIVE: Number of Rent Repayment Order cases rising every year

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Rent Repayment Orders (RROs) in England are rising each year as local authorities look to cause errant landlords maximum pain.

According to government figures, there were just 73 RROs made in 2018, rising to 282 in 2019 and 349 in 2020. So far this year there have been 202 orders made – no doubt impacted by hold-ups in the court system.

The figures were easy to access, despite the Ministry of Justice rejecting LandlordZONE’s Freedom of Information request on the subject; civil servants claimed that finding out the information would be too time-consuming and expensive.

First introduced in 2004, tenants could originally only take action once their landlord had been convicted of a criminal offence, however since 2016, they’ve been able to apply directly to a First Tier Property Tribunal for a RRO without the need of a prior conviction.

Both tenants and councils can seek to have up to 12 months of rent, Housing Benefit, or Universal Credit repaid – usually in addition to a fine or civil penalty.

LandlordZONE regularly covers tribunal cases, most commonly because a landlord has failed to licence an HMO, such as landlord Karen Merricks who was recently handed a whopping £47,000 bill in Tower Hamlets. Like hers, landlords of large HMOs are particularly at risk of large fines, as a RRO consists of a year’s worth of rent for each tenant.

London surge

There’s been a huge 532% increase in orders in London between May and July, according to geospatial technology firm Kamma, which reports that the largest single fines ever recorded are £100,000 for a landlord and £167,000 for a letting agent.

Gavin Dick, local authority policy officer at the National Residential Landlords Association, says the pandemic has focused local authorities’ attention on RROs, which are now a big part of their armoury.

He tells LandlordZONE: “Both tenants and local authorities are more aware of them, and once one authority uses them, others see this and do the same. They want to hit landlords – those who don’t have a licence or haven’t properly collected a deposit – with as much as possible and I’m sure we’ll see them used even more in the future.”

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – EXCLUSIVE: Number of Rent Repayment Order cases rising every year | LandlordZONE.

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A national rogue tenant database would be ‘open to abuse’ says industry expert

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A national rogue tenant register to combat the issue of renters trashing properties and leaving landlords out of pocket could be open to abuse, a leading expert has warned.

Sean Hooker, head of redress at the Property Redress Scheme, says there would be issues over how any potential register could be regulated and controlled, while the information on it would need to be verified.

“It shouldn’t be a blacklist of tenants that could be prejudiced against them – they would need to be on there for a legitimate reason and not because a landlord didn’t like them asking for repairs,” he tells LandlordZONE.

Many landlords responded to LandlordZONE’s story about Vic and Jane Shoulders who face a huge bill after a rogue tenant family left behind a trail of destruction, 18 months after moving in, in the Toothill suburb of Swindon.

Serious offendors

One said that such a national register would be useful, adding: “I could start it off with at least 20 names of serious offenders who have abused my property and owed thousands in rent arrears. Black-listing these offenders would soon prevent other landlords from taking these thieves on in future.”

Another added that it might make tenants think there were serious consequences to abusing landlords and their properties, with the consequence that they would find it very difficult to find accommodation in a decent landlord’s property again.

There are plenty of landlord review websites such as marksoutoftenancy.com and rateyourlandlord.org.uk where tenants can be brutally honest about property owners.

Hooker says the issue of people posting unsubstantiated ratings on these would apply to any tenant equivalent and adds that landlords can protect themselves in other ways.

“It’s amazing how many landlords don’t do robust referencing and don’t go through rigorous due diligence. Doing that right – not only checking credit history but with previous landlords and employers – is how you protect yourself.”

Read more: How do we get rid of rogue tenants?

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – A national rogue tenant database would be ‘open to abuse’ says industry expert | LandlordZONE.

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£8.6 billion for affordable housing

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Thousands of people will be helped onto the housing ladder as funding worth £8.6 billion is allocated across the country. Part of the largest single investment in affordable housing in a decade, the Affordable Homes Programme funding will deliver around 119,000 homes

The post £8.6 billion for affordable housing appeared first on Property118.

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Revenge is sweet, but are you prepared for the consequences

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A case in point is the story this week of a commercial landlord shop owner in the Edgware Road, West London, who it would appear, hired two chaps to go along to the shop with sledge hammers and smash-in all the front windows.

The commotion caused by the raid, in broad daylight, alarmed nearby shoppers and must have frightened the life out of the lady shop tenant who ran out screaming onto the pavement.

As it happened two men were filmed smashing the shop windows before the two were arrested by a swarm of batten waving police officers, as the stunned shopper crowd watched on.

And there’s no shortage of stories in the press of residential landlords taking revenge on their tenants, cutting off services, throwing their possessions out on the street, changing locks, hounding them out of their homes.

Sometimes the boot’s on the other foot. Tenants also take revenge. According to one recent press story a tenant from hell in Andover, Hampshire, filled a home with 8,000 beer cans and full of waste after telling the landlord that he had left “a bit of a mess”.

One landlord of my acquaintance contracted a life-long infection after cleaning up the mess left in one of his properties, a trashed house with dog and cat excrement strewn all over the carpets and floors.

Clearing up the stomach-churning mess left by some tenants can be not only highly unpleasant, it’s extremely dangerous as my friend discovered. The task is best left to specialist cleaners.

So what are the consequences?

Most acts of revenge carried out by landlords are criminal acts. The protection from Eviction Act 1977 protects residential tenants from harassment and illegal eviction, making the offence a criminal matter, as is an act of criminal damage, such as the shop window smashing.

If you want to avoid getting a criminal record don’t even think about taking the law into your own hands. I know from personal experience how frustrating it can be when tenants don’t pay their rent or cause property damage and seem to be getting away with it.

Right now, in the middle of a pandemic, sensible landlords have had to be accommodating to their tenants, helping them when they see hardship and taking the view that a tenant who is paying what they can is better than no tenant at all – some commercial premises are virtually impossible to re-let at this time.

Tenants taking advantage

Of course, some tenants are taking advantage of the government’s protection measures, such as the ban on evictions for commercial tenants until next March 2022, but the courts are still available for rent arrears claims and landlords must be prepared to go down the proper legal route if their tenants really are taking the proverbial!

In my experience of letting both residential and commercial properties for more than 40 years, most tenants are anxious to pay their rent and also look after the premises. When tenants get themselves into difficulties however, as is more likely now during a pandemic, some degree of leniency and negotiation is called for, but that can only go so far.

Some landlords are not in a financial position themselves to forgo rent payments altogether, so frustrating as it may seem, if tenants are taking advantage, resorting to property damage or violence is not the answer.

Temporary Government restrictions

The temporary restrictions introduced by the Government to help tenants ride out the Covid pandemic limit the options landlords can take, but there are things they can still do when arrears are building up.

A couple of recent cases have shown that while the use of CRAR, commercial tenancy forfeiture or company winding up petitions are currently either restricted or prohibited under Covid rules, there is no ban on issuing debt recovery proceedings for longer term rent arrears.

There is also no ban on what is known as the court summary judgment procedure in respect of commercial rent arrears claims, that’s providing the money is properly owed, i.e., where the tenant can’t put up a valid defence or show why the claim should go to trial. A summary judgment considerably reduces the wait time for your claim to be dealt with and it means you can minimise a build-up of arrears quickly.

Residential tenants are still obliged to continue to pay their rent and abide by all other terms of their tenancy agreement to the best of their ability. Where there is financial difficulty landlords are often accommodating and the government has made a strong package of financial support available to tenants, but where they can pay the rent they are expected to do so as normal.

If you are experiencing the frustration of a tenant with growing long-term rent arrears, or otherwise breaching their contract terms, especially during this time of Covid, don’t be tempted to take the law into your own hands, it’s simply not worth it. There are remedies available and as things get back to normal it will become easier again to deal with delinquent tenants.

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – Revenge is sweet, but are you prepared for the consequences | LandlordZONE.

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Landlord Haters wanted Pet deposits banned – Now they wish to reverse that decision

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This shows how backwards and imbecilic this Government, Generation rent and Shelter are. They called for the banning of an extra £100 to £200 deposit etc. for tenants with pets, so the government banned Landlords from charging an extra deposit for pets.

The post Landlord Haters wanted Pet deposits banned – Now they wish to reverse that decision appeared first on Property118.

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