BREAKING: Fines for Right to Rent breaches to rise from £80 to £5,000 per tenant

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The Home Office has revealed plans to hugely increase the level of fines that landlords can face if they are found to have not checked tenants properly to see if they have the right to rent in a property or deliberately been involved in evading the rules.

Immigration minister Robert Jenrick, who is also a former housing secretary, announced the massive ramping up of the fines, which will apply to businesses who employ people not entitled to work in the UK and are part of a wider attempt to reduce the number of migrants crossing the channel.

For landlords the fines will increase from £80 per lodger and £1,000 per occupier for a first breach to up to £5,000 per lodger and £10,000 per occupier.

Repeat breaches will be up to £10,000 per lodger and £20,000 per occupier, up from £500 and £3,000 respectively. The higher penalties will come in at the start of 2024.

320 penalties

At the same time Jenrick has also revealed that landlords have been hit with over 320 civil penalties worth a total of £215,500 since the start of 2018 when the Government’s Right to Rent rules were first introduced.

Jenrick says: “Making it harder for illegal migrants to work and operate in the UK is vital to deterring dangerous, unnecessary small boat crossings.

“Unscrupulous landlords and employers who allow illegal working and renting enable the business model of the evil people smugglers to continue.

“There is no excuse for not conducting the appropriate checks and those in breach will now face significantly tougher penalties.”

Landlords should already be checking the eligibility of anyone they employ or let a property to and there are a number of ways to do this, which are not changing, including via a manual check of original documentation and a Home Office online checking system.

Read the full details.

View Full Article: BREAKING: Fines for Right to Rent breaches to rise from £80 to £5,000 per tenant

Long term tenancy agreement – thoughts?

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Hi, According to my agent, my tenants have said they would like to re-carpet throughout at their expense which they say would cost them about £2,500.

In view of the expense, they have asked for a guarantee of a long term agreement

View Full Article: Long term tenancy agreement – thoughts?

High interest rates and reform worries hitting landlords, warns Halifax

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The Halifax has issued an unusual warning over the private rental sector within its regular housing market update, saying it is “under some pressure”.

Its monthly index says that elevated interest rates are just one factor impacting landlords’ business models, together with considerations of future rental market reforms.

“It remains to be seen how many may choose to exit and what that could mean for the supply of properties available to buy,” says Kim Kinnaird, Director of Halifax Mortgages (main image).

She also reports that house prices are also being impacted by higher interest rates and a mortgage market in turmoil, revealing that average UK house prices edged down slightly in July, with the monthly fall of -0.3% equivalent to a drop of around £1,000 in cash terms.

“While this was the fourth consecutive monthly decrease, all have been smaller than -0.5%,” says Kinnaird.

“In reality, prices are little changed over the last six months, with the typical property now costing £285,044, compared to £285,660 in February.

“The pace of annual decline also slowed to -2.4% in July, versus -2.6% in June.

“These figures add to the sense of a housing market which continues to display a degree of resilience in the face of tough economic headwinds.”

First rung

Kundan Bhaduri, director of London-based property developer and portfolio landlord, The Kushman Group: “At long last the ongoing fall in house prices will achieve what many have been waiting for, namely a chance to get onto that first rung of the property ladder.

“This decline is helping improve affordability for first-time buyers, who have been struggling to enter the market due to high deposit requirements and rising costs of living.

“This slowdown in house price growth was a long time coming and is a perfect opportunity to rebalance the market and prevent a potential bubble.”

pic credits: Barts NHS Health Trust and The Kushman Group

Read its index in full.

View Full Article: High interest rates and reform worries hitting landlords, warns Halifax

Landlord told to act as guarantor in bizarre twist

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In a strange situation, a letting agency has asked a landlord to be a guarantor for their own tenants.

This means should the tenants stop paying the rent it will be the landlord who covers their payments.

View Full Article: Landlord told to act as guarantor in bizarre twist

Landlord fined £36,000 by court after fire reveals his property wasn’t licenced

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A landlord in the North West has been handed a £36,000 fine after a fire at his property revealed it had not been licenced.

The local council, Sefton, was alerted to his lack of licence after a fire in December 2022 gutted the  property (pictured).

Council investigators discovered that the house did not feature smoke alarms and that the landlord, who has not been named, had failed repeatedly to obtain a licence between 2018 and the date of the fire.

Sefton has for several years operated both a selective licencing scheme and an additional licencing scheme for HMOs, and a new selective scheme started in March this year – with landlords given until the end of this month to comply or face fines.

During sentencing, the magistrates said a reckless failure to apply for licensing over several years made the landlord ‘highly culpable’.

Smoke detectors

They also said that if the property had been licensed, there was a greater chance that safety issues such as a complete lack of smoke detectors would have been dealt with.

Councillor Trish Hardy (pictured), Sefton Council’s Cabinet Member for Communities and Housing says: “This is a positive result for the council and acts as a reminder to landlords that failing to obtain a licence under our Selective and Additional (HMO) Licensing schemes can be very costly.

“Specific areas of the Borough are covered by our Selective Licensing Scheme and two Additional (HMO) Licensing Schemes, and any landlords affected need to apply for licence by the end of August, or face enforcement by court action or a Civil Penalty fine.

“In most cases, we can work with landlords to resolve the situations informally, but as this recent case has shown, the Licensing schemes do give us additional powers for formal enforcement action, which we are fully prepared to use.” 

Read more about licencing.

View Full Article: Landlord fined £36,000 by court after fire reveals his property wasn’t licenced

Landlords tell court about ‘terrifying’ flame thrower attack by tenant at flat

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A court has heard the terrifying story of a tenant who attacked his landlords with a home-made flame thrower within his shared apartment.

Landlords Waldemar and Justyna Fijakowski were cleaning the common areas of the property in Warrington in March when 31-year-old tenant Piergiuliano Atzori (main picture, inset) started shouting Justyna’s name from his room.

After Mrs Fijakowski then walked to his door to investigate, Atzori fired a makeshift flame thrower at her, with the blaze passing within inches of her face.

She ran out of the house and called the police while her husband, on hearing the commotion, also investigated and was fired upon.

Flames

Mr Fijakowski then hid behind the kitchen door and, when he opened it to see if Atzori had retreated, a plume of flame ripped between the door and the frame.

ITV News reports that Mr Fijakowski then began wrestling with the tenant  punching him several times to the face, taking him to the floor and restraining him with the help of another occupant.

When officers from Cheshire police arrived and Atzori was arrested he was also found to have a Stanley knife in his possession.

The court heard that in previous days Atzori had sent dozens of abusive messages to Mrs Fijakowski.

Weapon

He had previously admitted two counts of making threats with an offensive weapon and harassment, although Mrs

Fijakowski told the court in a prepared statement that she remained fearful of him and that “he knew where they lived”.

Atzori, who was described as having mental health problems and a previous conviction for a public order offence in 2019, was jailed for two years and given a restraining order preventing him from contacting Mr and Mrs Fijakowski for 10 years.

Read more about attacks on landlords. 

Pics credit: Google Streetview/Mersey Police.

View Full Article: Landlords tell court about ‘terrifying’ flame thrower attack by tenant at flat

Landlord prosecuted for second time after failing to disclose maintenance costs

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A landlord has been prosecuted for a second time for failing to provide one of his leasehold tenants with the correct paperwork.

48-year-old Gunes Ata (inset, main picture) who operates several apartment blocks within Sheffield, was ordered by a court to pay £1,982 made up of £862 costs to the Council, a fine of £800 and a £320 court surcharge after failing to provide certified information to a tenant about service charges for a property within St Mary’s House, London Road in Sheffield.

In court his legal representative said this was due to a software error while the council said it expects landlords to act with professionalism and good management practice to comply with their obligations and Mr Ata’s management practice was deemed to have “fallen short of the standard required in law and those of a reasonable landlord”.

The Council’s prosecution told the court that the Council had written to Mr Ata three times, but he had failed to supply certified information.

Second prosecution

It is the second time Mr Ata has been prosecuted for failing to provide information to tenants in less than a year.

He was prosecuted in 2022 for failing to provide information about the insurance of the building he owns at Printworks, Hodgson Street, Sheffield.

The council says the number of people living within leasehold flats within the city has increased significantly in recent years, and that access to transparent information about service charges was essential for those seeking to challenge these costs when unreasonable.

It is a criminal offence for landlords not to provide information about service charges and insurance when it is properly requested, and the local authority has powers to prosecute these kinds of offences. 

Councillor Douglas Johnson (pictured), Chair of Housing Policy Committee at Sheffield City Council, adds: “This is another example of the City Council using the law to bring about a successful court prosecution and, on this occasion, someone who has been prosecuted before. It is our duty to protect tenants from landlords who do not abide by the law.”

View Full Article: Landlord prosecuted for second time after failing to disclose maintenance costs

Warwick to charge landlords £1,116 as it prepares to double size off HMO licencing

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Warwick is the latest local authority planning to more than double the size of its HMO licencing scheme, starting in January 2024. This follows a public consultation earlier this year.

Its full cabinet is to meet on Wednesday (9^th August) to approve the scheme after reviewing the results of its survey.

The new scheme will see its existing HMO additional licencing scheme continued and expanded to include smaller HMOs comprising three and four persons as well as tenants living in purpose-built blocks of flats including student accommodation.

Under the current regulations only HMOs with five or more persons living as two or more households are subject to mandatory licensing.

There are roughly 600 HMOs already licensed under ‘mandatory licensing’ within Warwick and approximately 800 HMOs which would be required to obtain a license under the expected ‘additional licensing’ scheme.

A report to be considered by councillors says “a significant proportion of known non-licensable HMOs, are being managed sufficiently ineffectively as to give rise/or to be likely to give rise to issues including fire safety, poor housing conditions/hazards, noise nuisance and ineffective waste management.

“It can also be inferred from the data that unknown non-licensable HMOs are also generating similar types of
problems. Additional Licensing offers an opportunity to bring all HMOs within the district up to a minimum standard ensuring that those homes are well managed and maintained.”

Umbrella

Councillor Paul Wightman (pictured), Portfolio Holder for Housing, adds: “Including more homes under our umbrella would ensure that landlords of HMOs submit detailed information regarding themselves and their properties including important safety documents such as fire alarms, gas and electrical safety certificates.

“If approved, it will also mean that properties are thoroughly inspected by Council Officers before a licence is issued to ensure they meet minimum standards with conditions requiring the landlord to maintain and manage the property effectively.

“This measure can only increase the level of assurance that can be provided to residents who live in these properties and will undoubtedly help to keep people safe.”

If the Cabinet agrees to proceed with the additional scheme, further approval will be required by the borough’s Full Council in the autumn to agree the licence fees. These will range from a discounted rate of £800 for a smaller HMO to £1,116 full-fee for a larger one.

If these are approved, it will then become a legal requirement to obtain a licence in order to operate any HMO in Warwick District from January 2024.

Read more about HMO licencing across the UK.

View Full Article: Warwick to charge landlords £1,116 as it prepares to double size off HMO licencing

Is another interest rate rise really bad for landlords?

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With interest rates on the rise, landlords may face some challenges, particularly those without fixed mortgages. However, amidst the potential uncertainties, there are also opportunities that can be harnessed within the Private Rented Sector (PRS).

One immediate benefit is the increased demand for rental properties.

View Full Article: Is another interest rate rise really bad for landlords?

Heat pumps – a load of hot air?

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We’ve all been hearing about the government’s green plan for the private rented sector. But are the plans actually as ‘green’ as they make out to be?

The government believe heat pumps could be the answer to help tackle the energy-efficiency problem in PRS homes.

View Full Article: Heat pumps – a load of hot air?