BREAKING: Gove conference speech side-lines housing as ‘levelling up’ takes over

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The keynote speech by Michael Gove, the new housing secretary, to this week’s Conservative party conference has revealed just how far his newly-named department has swung away from housing.

During his 10-minute speech to the main hall at the Conservative Party Conference in Manchester, over half of Gove’s speech was taken up by the levelling-up agenda while housing took up just 46 seconds before he returned to levelling up once more, commenting that ‘every department within the government is now for levelling-up’.

Gove dealt with just a few of the key housing policy areas his department is currently grappling with, but left almost all the rest alone.

He namechecked the Grenfell fire, making homes safer and greener, tackling urban regeneration, building new homes on brownfield sites, better social housing, and helping more renters into home ownership.

Housing market

But his speech omitted many other key topics vexing the housing market at the moment including the leasehold scandal, the promised reforms of the private rental market, rent arrears, evictions, pets and commercial landlords’ difficulties on the high street.

The rest of his speech at the conference sounded more prime ministerial than his predecessor Robert Jenkin’s ever did, spending the rest of his oration talking up the UK’s success including its diversity and economic success as well as the benefits of the Conservative’s devolution efforts, and laying into Labour’s economic, home and foreign policies.

He also nodded to criticism of the levelling up scheme – including voter unhappiness resulting in June’s lost Chesham and Amersham by-election – by saying that it would ‘level up every part of the United Kingdom’.

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BTL purchase inside a new LLP?

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Hi, I am looking to purchase a new Buy to Let investment property. However, I would like to make the purchase of the property inside a newly created Limited Liability Partnership (LLP)  i.e. I am not transferring an existing property to the LLP.

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Muslim Charity Increases Housing Grant by 50%

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In response to the recent change in renting law, UK Muslim Charity, National Zakat Foundation (NZF), are introducing a Covid recovery scheme to support those at risk of eviction.

The charity which collects Zakat, an obligatory payment in the Islamic faith of 2.5% of annual qualifying wealth which is then distributed back into the Muslim community

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Star line-up for first live landlord show since Covid is released

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The full list of speakers and conference topics to be tackled during this month’s Property Investor Show has been released.

Taking place on October 15^th and 16^th visitors will have 90 exhibitors to visit and be able to hear many of the industry’s big names speak at 68 different panel sessions.

These include evictions expert and TV star Paul Shamplina, Rightmove’s David Cox, NRLA chief Ben Beadle, Vanessa Warwick of Property Tribes, PIN founder Simon Zutshi, auction guru David Sandeman and journalist Richard Bowser.

The Property Investor Show will be the first large-scale in-person event staged for the sector since the Covid pandemic hit 18 months ago.

Outspoken property industry figure Russell Quirk, who famously launched hybrid property firm Emoov and more recently correctly called the post Brexit/Covid housing market, will also be hosting two industry discussion panels on both days.

“Join me on Friday 15^th October where I’ll explain what will happen in the next 12 months and why,” he says.
Panel debates include the following (and a full list of speakers and panels) can be found here:

• Is now a good time to be investing in UK property?
• Holiday Lets – expert advice on how to maximise yields
• How to buy and sell at property auctions – the way the pros do
• Fraudulent Tenants – identifying them and avoiding them
• How to fund every property deal – dispelling the myths
• Using data to boost your investment outcome
• How to mitigate the three big tax traps for landlords
• Starting and growing your property development business
• The State of the PRS (Keynote Panel)

Nick Clark, Managing Director of the Property Investor Show says: “It’s the first opportunity in two years for anyone interested in investing in property and for suppliers that want to reach investors, to network together and to benefit from each other”.

“Networking is such an important part of our sector and I suspect that most of us are rather Zoomed out now after many months of sitting in front of a screen’.

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – Star line-up for first live landlord show since Covid is released | LandlordZONE.

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Landlords should be taxed more than home owners, voters tell poll

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More people think that landlords should be forced to pay higher taxes than they do investors or homeowners, according to a new poll for the TaxPayers’ Alliance.

Only 10% believe homeowners should be taxed more, while 43% think those who earn money from investments should pay more tax, but 47% say landlords should be hit harder – 29% say they should pay the same and only 11% say they should be taxed less.

Interestingly, those who own their homes outright are more likely to want landlords paying more (50%) compared to renters (48%), while Conservative voters are least likely to want higher landlord taxes (48%) compared to Brexit voters (59%) and Labour voters (50%).

The poll, conducted by policy research group Public First, found that young people (28%) and families (27%) are deemed to be most negatively affected by the tax system, while only 5% reckon landlords have been hardest hit and 10% think renters have been badly affected.

The Tax Payers Alliance, which opposes almost all unnecessary government spending and tax raising, has the ear of government and its chief executive John O’Connell is due to interview the Chancellor Rishi Sunak at a Conservative Party Conference fringe event this week.

The poll found that working class voters are turning on the Conservatives over tax and the cost of living. Asked whether they trust the Conservatives or Labour more on “keeping taxes low for people like you”, 34% of people trust Labour more compared to 31% who chose the Conservatives; 35% of working-class voters chose Labour compared to only 22% for the Tories.

O’Connell says taxpayers are facing the highest burden in 70 years.

“They are crying out for politicians to relieve the pressures whittling away the money in their wallets,” he adds. “Hard-working households and struggling firms know that things are only likely to get worse over coming months. The Budget in October is an opportunity for the Chancellor to prove the Tories still care about cutting the cost of living for ordinary taxpayers.”

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Rental demand in cities strengthens as workers return

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Research by Barrows and Forrester, has revealed that rental demand has continued to climb across the vast majority of major UK cities during Q3, as a slow but steady return to the workplace, amongst other things, spurs a greater demand for rental homes within major urban areas.

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One HMO tenant left after Section 21?

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I own a 6 bed HMO and wish to renovate it and rent out as a whole house. Having served a section 21 several months ago (via my solicitor and agent) all the tenants have now left, except one. The remaining is refusing to leave.

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NRLA launches national property licensing compliance checking service

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Landlords worried over local selective and HMO licensing compliance can now access a free service provided via the National Residential Landlords Association (NRLA) by digital platform Kamma.

Available to the NRLA’s 90,000 landlords as part of their membership, they will be able to access both live licensing updates via Kamma’s Licensing 365 service or via the trade body’s telephone advice line.

Until now, the Kamma service was available to letting agents only and other property market suppliers such as conveyancers, surveyors and lenders.

The service also enables landlords to significantly speed up the often time-consuming and arduous task of filling in a property licensing application form.

Headache

Property licensing is becoming an increasing headache for landlords within the UK’s urban areas as councils use selective and HMO licensing zones to enforce housing standards.

Kamma reckons the average fine for a landlord under these schemes is just shy of £4,000, although the rules vary and are applied haphazardly across the UK, although these can run into the tens, and occasionally hundreds of thousands of pounds.

“We know from experience that the complexity of local regulations can often be a barrier to compliance,” says Kamma CEO, Orla Shields (pictured).

“By partnering with the NRLA we’re able to provide immediate answers to member questions through the NRLA advice line and continuous monitoring of their properties through the Kamma Licensing 365 platform. “We know that a significant proportion of non-compliance is due to the difficulty of well-intentioned landlords not knowing what laws apply to their local area.”

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – NRLA launches national property licensing compliance checking service | LandlordZONE.

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