Something to keep you smiling

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When I first started Property118 I tried to post a landlord or tenant-related joke or video once a week. My Uncle reminded me about this a while back and said he really enjoyed reading our newsletters because the fun parts cheered him up.

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Tenant damage – repairs via instalments?

admin    Uncategorized     agents

Hello, My tenant has damaged the panel heater in a bedroom and it is now beyond repair. The quote is just under £700 to fully replace and fit and dispose of the old one.

He has in the past been slow to pay for the call out charge when a contractor was pre-booked (twice) and he failed to be in despite agreeing to the date and time so I know its like getting blood from a stone already.

View Full Article: Tenant damage – repairs via instalments?

Accountants are on their knees

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For the last few months Accountants have been focused on filing tax returns for their clients. It’s an annual sacrifice this profession makes, trading long hours and family time for mountains of paperwork and HMRC portals.

Imagine feeling physically and mentally depleted and instead of being thanked for your hard work

View Full Article: Accountants are on their knees

‘Tories are trying to blame landlords for PRS mess of their own making’

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The Tories should take the blame for the landlord exodus and crisis-hit private rental sector, according to one leading investment guru.

Financial columnist and author Matthew Lynn says that for the last decade, the party has been in an all-out war against buy-to-let landlords, imposing extra taxes that don’t apply to any other form of commercial operation and making them responsible for everything from controlling immigration to ensuring the country hits net zero “by sometime next week”.

Writing in The Telegraph, Lynn (pictured) explains: “The UK needs a healthy, functional owner-occupied and rental sector, but we are further away from both than ever.

“In fact, the UK now faces a full-scale landlord exodus – and the dismal truth is that this is a crisis entirely of the Conservative government’s own making.”

He believes that if the Tories hadn’t imposed so many extra costs on landlords over the last decade, we wouldn’t be witnessing the numbers leaving the market.

“Nor would tenants be facing a catastrophic shortage of supply, and crippling increases in the cost of finding somewhere to live. The net result is that a sector that includes 4.9 million homes and accounts for 19% of the total housing market is now a total mess.”

Lynn adds that the Tories have not built anything like enough new homes to keep pace with the extra demand for housing that mass immigration creates.

Blame

“The Conservatives have tried to fix that by pinning the blame on buy-to-let landlords,” he says.

“And yet the crisis in the rental market is entirely of the government’s own making and has been brewing for a decade or more.

“Until we stop demonising landlords, and recognise that they are part of a functioning, mixed-ownership housing market, we won’t have any chance of fixing that.”

Data recently released by Savills shows that almost all rental markets in the UK have seen significant reductions in stock. Its data compares the final three months of last year with the 2017-2019 average, highlighting reductions varying from -21% in Edinburgh to -64% in Newcastle.

Read his column in full. 

Picture credit: Flickr/Matthew Lynn.

View Full Article: ‘Tories are trying to blame landlords for PRS mess of their own making’

Future of private rented sector will be the ’15-minute’ home say experts

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The future of new rented accommodation in the UK will be developments where all facilities including transport, shops and services including schools are all within 15 minutes of a tenant’s property, it has been claimed.

This comment was made during a webinar hosted by Savills, Bristol developer YTL Developments and local lettings firm Abode.

All three are keen to plug a huge new district being built in North Bristol on the site of the city’s former Filton airfield where all the Concords were built called Brabazon (main picture) – and say it’s the next big opportunity for buy-to-let landlords in the south west of England.

Both Jon McDiarmid, a director at YTL Developments and senior lettings manager Deborah Mitchell say more and more developments within the UK will soon be ’15-minute communities’.

Dog walking

“That means everything residents need for their daily lives whether that’s going to work or taking your children to school, walk the dog, do the shopping or have a night out will be a short walk or cycle journey away,” says McDiarmid.

Brabazon’s scale is considerable and will include a 15-acre park, a new train station, huge music venue, shopping centre and a property range that will include both apartments and houses.

It  will include some 2,700 properties to buy or rent from £800 to £2,400 pcm.

“This kind of development where everything you need is extremely attractive to tenants who don’t come from Bristol including those from overseas and who know nothing about the wider city and who often want to rent a new property,” says Mitchell.

Read more stories about Bristol.

View Full Article: Future of private rented sector will be the ’15-minute’ home say experts

Repeat rogue ‘luxury’ landlord firm fined £30,000 for licencing breaches

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A rogue Liverpool landlord has been fined £30,000 for failing to get licences for two student HMOs – three years after it was fined £45,000 for similar offences.

Trophy Homes, which claims to operate within the ‘luxury’ student, co-living and general rental sectors, admitted failing to apply for an HMO licence for the homes in Silvester Street in Vauxhall and Highgate Street in Edge Hill.

It had issues with safety and poor management including ineffective fire doors, overflowing drainage in the shared living room and intermittent electricity and gas supplies.

The court also heard that a manhole had been placed over a hole in the living room floor of the Highgate Street property.

At Liverpool Magistrates Court, district judge Hatton said the company had not learned its lesson and described the company as one that was “not very well run” and demonstrated a “lack of regard, lack of compliance and a lack of cooperation”.

Struck off

Details published by Companies House show that the firm is behind on its financial filing and currently faces being struck off by the Government service, a measure it has faced at least three times before.

Liverpool Council cabinet member for strategic housing and development, councillor Sarah Doyle (pictured), says Trophy Homes was happy to take the rent from students, yet provided them with sub-standard accommodation that put them at risk of injury, or much worse.

She adds: “I’m pleased that the court has imposed a substantial fine which will hopefully persuade the firm to change its ways and comply with the law in future. We won’t hesitate to step in when we have evidence of rogue landlords giving tenants a raw deal.”

Rubbish fine

Another Liverpool landlord has been handed a bill of almost £2,800 for failing to clear rubbish and maintain his vacant property.

Alex Howard, of Old Farm Road in Crosby, had not complied with notices concerning the house on Newark Street which was previously used as a cannabis farm. The house had domestic waste, including a wardrobe, dumped in the front garden and a hole in the roof that was attracting vermin.

Read more about landlord fines.

View Full Article: Repeat rogue ‘luxury’ landlord firm fined £30,000 for licencing breaches

Can I add my daughter as a landlord to an existing tenancy agreement?

admin    Uncategorized     agents

Hello, my daughter part owns a rental property with me, but I have always been listed as the landlord on Tenancy agreements (she was a minor when the property was bought)

My daughter wants to buy the property from me and move into it as her main home (she currently rents) and I served the tenant a Section 21 mid January

View Full Article: Can I add my daughter as a landlord to an existing tenancy agreement?

Agent has invalidated my buildings insurance through mismanagement?

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Hello, My tenant of 5 years recently ended up in hospital for 3 months. My building’s insurance stipulates that the property cannot be empty for more than 31 days in a row.

The tenant’s family informed the agent what had happened

View Full Article: Agent has invalidated my buildings insurance through mismanagement?

Tenant changed locks and not left property after end of tenancy?

admin    Uncategorized     agents

Hello, My tenant’s 12 month tenancy ended over a week ago. One of them is still in situ. No more rent has been paid.

On attending the property with my agent 3 weeks ago to allow a new prospective tenant to view

View Full Article: Tenant changed locks and not left property after end of tenancy?

Landlords call for PRS tax review to solve rental crisis

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In a bid to show how serious the current rental housing crisis is, landlords are calling on the government to carry out a review on how the sector is taxed.

The call has been made by the National Residential Landlords Association (NRLA) after a survey revealed that 65% of landlords say that tenant demand for housing in the private rented sector (PRS) had increased in the last quarter of 2022 in England and Wales.

View Full Article: Landlords call for PRS tax review to solve rental crisis