Delayed heating bill issues?

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Hello, I have an apartment in Islington which is rented out. Since completion 10 years ago, the managing company has never been able to issue the hot water and heating bills in time.

Initially, it was a few months late but now they have yet to issue 2022 bills.

View Full Article: Delayed heating bill issues?

Landlords panic to fuel BTL remortgaging searches surge

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Landlords and homeowners alike scrambled to find out how much it would cost to remortgage after the Bank of England’s base rate increase last Thursday, a data firm says.

Twenty7tec says there was a 39% surge to 40,902 inquiries compared to an average Thursday –

View Full Article: Landlords panic to fuel BTL remortgaging searches surge

Tenants pocket £16,000 after landlord and agent’s regulatory mistakes

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A landlord has failed to convince a court that stress and financial difficulties excused her from paying a rent repayment order.

Instead, Jaya Sanah’s four tenants will share £16,191 after a First Tier Property Tribunal ruled that there was no reason not to licence her four-bedroom HMO which was covered by Hackney Council’s additional licensing scheme.

Sanah didn’t provide a statement or attend the hearing and tried to adjourn it due to her ill health. This was rejected on the basis that she was only suffering from stress-related issues.

The tenants told the tribunal that neither Sanah nor her agent had given them a Right to Rent Guide, electrical and gas safety certificates, or an EPC. They believed she was a professional landlord as she had boasted to them about looking after several properties. However, despite telling the court she had financial difficulties, Sanah said this information was confidential.

Voluntarily

They had paid £2,842 a month rent in full for the two years they lived at the property in Victorian Grove, London, which they voluntarily left in August last year.

The court deducted universal credit payments to one of the tenants, leaving a £26,986 sum from their £34,104 rent repayment order application for the 12-month period.

It ruled: “The tribunal finds the respondent is or holds herself out to be a professional landlord. As such, the tribunal finds she should be or should have made herself aware of the local authority’s licensing requirements as well as the legislative requirements for landlords in the private sector.”

As the offence wasn’t the most serious and was not accompanied by allegations of harassment or attempts at retaliatory eviction, it awarded them 60% of the maximum rent prepayable.

Read the ruling in full.

View Full Article: Tenants pocket £16,000 after landlord and agent’s regulatory mistakes

Rental market reaching crisis point as ‘perfect storm’ hits landlords and tenants

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Landlord Action’s Paul Shamplina (main picture) has explained to Radio 4 listeners how an almost broken court system and higher interest rates are driving a rush in Section 21 evictions before rent reform laws kick in.

Speaking on the You and Yours programme, Shamplina said Section 21 evictions had already gone through the roof.

“I’ve been in the industry for 32 years and I’ve never known such a rental crisis. We’ve seen a 91% increase in Section 21 accelerated possession claims issued at court between April 2022 and April 2023.”

The programme featured interviews with two tenants in the same Manchester block who had been served with eviction notices before they could accept a rent rise and were now struggling to find new flats.

Biggest losers

“The biggest losers will be tenants,” Shamplina told listeners. “You will have decent tenants paying rent on time, and either landlords are putting rent up because of interest rates or they want to sell – it adds to the crisis because of a stock shortage.

“One agent had 80 applicants fighting over one property in Islington, which then becomes a bidding war.”

He added that he had never seen so many landlords selling properties as well as anti-landlord feeling in the press.

“Historically, a lot of landlords haven’t put rents up but they are panicking. A lot will be whacking in Section 21s as they feel they can’t get their properties back because the court system is on the brink of being broken.”

GUIDE: What to do if your tenant gets into arrears.

View Full Article: Rental market reaching crisis point as ‘perfect storm’ hits landlords and tenants

Sadiq Khan repeats calls for an ‘immediate two-year rent freeze’ AND S21 ban

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London’s Mayor Sadiq Khan has called for an immediate two-year rent freeze AND a ban on section 21 ‘no-fault’ evictions in London to help 160,000 Londoners who are behind on their rent.

His call comes as a survey from City Hall reveals that 30% of private renters in the capital are struggling financially –

View Full Article: Sadiq Khan repeats calls for an ‘immediate two-year rent freeze’ AND S21 ban

Landlord pays £40,000 fine after large HMO found ‘shoddy and unsafe’

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A landlord in Norfolk has payed fines totalling £40,000 after he was found to have housed tenants in a shoddy and unsafe property.

Issues were reported at the Watton property (pictured) to Breckland Council last year, which prompted an inspection by officers who found a blocked fire escape, damaged fire doors, dangerous electrics and broken and rotten windows, causing them to flag the property as unsafe.

The landlord of the property, which was home to multiple tenants, was given time to carry out repairs. However, a follow-up inspection found insufficient progress had been made so the council issued a £20,000 fine to the landlord company and £20,000 to the company’s director.

Fines paid

Work to address the issues has now been completed by the landlord who has also paid the fines which will be used to fund further investigations in the Norfolk district. The council has refused to name the landlords after LandlordZONE made enquiries because the person involved has been cooperative and the ‘civil matter has been resolved’.

Councillor Claire Bowes (pictured), executive member for housing and homelessness, says the vast majority of Breckland’s landlords provide well-maintained homes for their tenants and the quality of housing overall is very good.

She adds: “However, this case shows that the council will not tolerate a decline in housing quality or for residents to be put at risk and we will take action to protect our residents’ right to live in a safe home.”

View Full Article: Landlord pays £40,000 fine after large HMO found ‘shoddy and unsafe’

Landlord secures huge victory in £18,000 Rent Repayment Order case

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An Upper Tribunal has slashed a landlord’s Rent Repayment Order by £16,000 after taking pity during an appeal hearing on her “precarious financial position”.

A First Tier Property Tribunal had ordered Renee Daff to pay two tenants £18,000 for failing to licence her flat under Tower Hamlet’s selective licensing scheme, but a judge found the first tribunal had labelled her a professional landlord without taking her financial circumstances into account.

Daff rented out the property in Tannery House after becoming seriously ill and returned to her native Australia. After moving back for a while, she rented it out again in 2018 for six months – unaware of the new licensing scheme – and then moved back in 2019.

When the former tenants applied for an RRO, she tried to get a licence but was told the property was exempt.

Judge Martin Rodger KC said that although Daff was to blame for not finding out about her licensing obligations, there was no evidence that she had deliberately sought to avoid her responsibilities.

Interest payments

The court heard that although she owns two more flats in the UK and one in Australia, the income was no longer sufficient to service the interest on her portfolio.

The judge ruled: “While the appellant’s property portfolio is not insignificant, she has never sought to make a living from it, and to treat her as if she is running a professional letting business would be unjustified.”

He added that the circumstances of the case were exceptional as Daff was of limited means, had no earning power, and was in very poor health which had “contributed to her lack of attentiveness to her licensing obligations”.

Rodger said: “She is in a precarious financial position. In my judgment the achievement of the statutory objectives of punishing defaulters and deterring future offences does not require the imposition of disproportionate penalties.”

View Full Article: Landlord secures huge victory in £18,000 Rent Repayment Order case

Lloyds Bank’s plans to build ‘thousands’ of rental homes prove over optimistic

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Lloyds has grown its rental portfolio to 1,000 properties and has another 700 in the pipeline as it bids to become one of the UK’s biggest landlords, albeit far off its original objectives.

The bank has some way to go if the publicly-owned institution is to meet its target of buying and operating 10,000 homes under its Citra Living brand by the end of 2025.

When it launched in 2021, Lloyds boasted that it intended to acquire 50,000 build-to-rent properties by 2030 which would oust Grainger as the nation’s number one.

Grow and build

A spokesman tells LandlordZONE that Citra Living, “continues to grow and build relationships with significant UK homebuilders under a strategy of helping more people live in the kinds of homes they want in the places they want to live”.

He adds: “Citra has a healthy pipeline of future properties with locations such as Scotland, Wales and the East Midlands, covering more than 700 homes.”

Citra operates 1,000 homes in locations including Chesterfield, Yate, Ashford (main picture) and Brentford, and those under development include Northumberland, Cramlington, and Gaydon. Last week it bought 124 BTR apartments at a regeneration project in Warley.

Shared ownership

Earlier this year, the firm launched a pilot shared ownership scheme – Pathways by Citra Living – in 26 BTR properties at Keepmoat’s Coney Green development in Derbyshire. The scheme aims to help would-be homeowners, who can buy between 25% and 75% of their home and rent is charged on the balance.

It’s not always plain sailing for large financial institutions looking to diversify into property; John Lewis’s rental property boss Chris Harris resigned last week after playing a key role in the retailer’s plans to expand into rental housing, with a target of constructing 10,000 new homes.

View Full Article: Lloyds Bank’s plans to build ‘thousands’ of rental homes prove over optimistic

What remortgaging landlords think about fixed rates

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Fixed-rate remortgages continue to be the preferred choice for buy-to-let property owners – but the gap between choosing a two-year or five-year fixed rate is narrowing, a survey reveals.

Landbay says that 79% of landlords will choose a fixed-rate mortgage when it’s time to remortgage though the preference for a five-year fixed rate has seen a decline.

View Full Article: What remortgaging landlords think about fixed rates

Brace Yourself for Shocking Mortgage Rates!

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Hold onto your seats because we have a jaw-dropping revelation about mortgage rates today that will leave you stunned.

Did you know that a seemingly modest 6.43% rate offered today is equivalent to a whopping 25.7% rate back in 1980?

View Full Article: Brace Yourself for Shocking Mortgage Rates!