Guaranteed rent firm takes down website after LandlordZONE probe

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A guaranteed rent firm has taken down its website after being exposed for using spurious claims about its connections with reputable bodies.

London-based UK Housing Group Ltd, which boasts of being, ‘the largest social housing agency in London and the Midlands’ featured out-of-date logos on its website and was set to be investigated by Trading Standards.

The firm included logos from the Residential Landlords Association, which become the NRLA more than two years ago, along with the Safeagent accreditation scheme logo, although the body says it is not accredited. UK Housing Group was using two of its logos which are no longer in use, says a spokeswoman.

Ceased

“They are displaying the London Rental Standard logo,” she adds. “This ceased to operate in 2017. There is also a logo for Ombudsman Services Property – this redress scheme used to operate in the PRS…however, they withdrew from the sector in August 2018.”

However, following the LandlordZONE investigation, the website is no longer working. The Safeagent spokeswoman adds: “It was our intention to contact Trading Standards but when we had looked back for a screenshot from their website, it was no longer active.”

LandlordZONE has tried to contact UK Housing Group which, according to Companies House, is now late in filing its annual accounts.

Read more about Trading Standards.

View Full Article: Guaranteed rent firm takes down website after LandlordZONE probe

The North West is England’s leasehold hotspot

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There has been a surge in leasehold property purchases in the North West of England – thanks to affordability and the region’s fast-growing cities, research reveals.

The findings from peer-to-peer real estate investment platform, easyMoney, show that nationally

View Full Article: The North West is England’s leasehold hotspot

Business ratepayers will have to report any changes, and annually, under new bill…

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The Non-Domestic Rating Bill going through Parliament (House of Lords) will require business ratepayers to report any changes and also report annually to the Valuation Office Agency (VOA).

These changes to the operation of business rates will apply to all organisations responsible for paying business rates and it is thought that the Valuation Office Agency will provide an online reporting system making the process as quick and simple as possible, though this is just another chore that tenants and landlords will be responsible for.

These changes will come as part of a package of reforms to modernise the business rating system, which will include reducing the time between rating revaluations from five years to three. It is thought that the reason for the necessity of ratepayers to update annually, and for any material changes, is to ensure that future revaluations will be easier for the VOA to perform and more accurate.

The move will be more of a burden for larger organisations with multiple properties, keeping track of up-grades and property maintenance. However, all ratepayers failing to report annually, even when there have been no changes, will be subject to a fine.

Business Rates payable for a property are determined by the Valuation Office Agency, a branch of HM Revenue and Customs HMRC). The rateable value is based on an assessment of the annual rent the property would let for if it were available to let on the open market, at the fixed valuation date.

The rates payable are calculated (see How your property is valued for business rates) by applying a multiplier, before any relief is applied. The multiplier is set each financial year by the government.

In 2022 the multiplier for premises over £51,000 rateable value was 51.2p. Until the revaluation 31 March 2023, the rateable values were based on a valuation date of 1 April 2015 and from April 2023, the rateable values will be based on a valuation date of 1 April 2021.

What are Business Rates?

Non-Domestic Rates, or business rates, are collected by local authorities in the same way that domestic Council Tax is collected and they contribute towards the cost of local services.

Under the business rates retention arrangements introduced from 1st April 2013, local authorities keep a proportion of the business rates paid locally. This provides them with a direct financial incentive to work with local businesses to create a favourable local environment for growth since authorities will benefit from growth in business rates revenues.

Unless the property is exempt from business rates, each non-domestic property has a rateable value which is set by the valuation officers at the Valuation Office Agency (VOA), an agency of Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs. The office draws up and maintain a full list of all rateable values.

The rateable value of your property is shown on the front of your business rates bill, and there is online account access to report changes. This broadly represents the yearly rent the property could have been let for on the open market on a particular date. For the revaluation that came into effect on 1st April 2017, this date was set as 1st April 2015.

The valuation officer may alter the rateable value if circumstances change and hence the requirement in the new bill to complete a return. The ratepayer and others who have an interest in the property such as the landlord / owner can request a change to the value shown on the list if they believe it is wrong.

You can do this through a reformed online Check, Challenge, Appeal (CCA) process introduced in April 2017. The billing (local) authority will only backdate any business rates rebate to the date from which any change to the list is effective.

Ratepayers and owners can find a business rates valuation for a property by using the online Find a Business Rates Valuation service to find the ‘rateable value’ of a property in England or Wales.

This is the amount set by the VOA and used by the local council to work out the business rates bill for the property. Using this service you are also able to check the rateable value of similar properties and see how the rateable value was calculated.

Appeals

If you disagree with any decision the VOA makes about your business rates you can appeal against it. But you can only appeal under certain circumstances:

• you are responsible for business rates on a property
• a decision the VOA made is wrong
• the amount you are asked to pay is wrong, for example, if you think a relief or discount should be applied.
• the date given on a completion notice is wrong
• rateable value appeals are done online, as above of through the Valuation Office Agency on 03000 501501.

If you disagree with the VOA decision after a review, or you do not hear from them within two months, you can appeal to the Valuation Tribunal Service. You will need to fill in a Valuation Tribunal Service appeal form which you can download or complete online.

The Non-Domestic Rates Bill 2023

The Non-Domestic Rating Bill 2022-23 had its First Reading in the House of Commons on 29 March 2023. Second Reading 24 April 2023 and it is currently passing through the House of Lords. The Bill, and its explanatory notes, can be found on the Parliamentary website above.

Following a consultation process the new Bill aims to modernise and make a number of technical changes to the non-domestic rating system, better known as ‘business rates’. The majority of the changes have been the subject of Government commitments from 2021 and 2022. These commitments include:

• The power to introduce ‘improvement relief’ – intended to comprise a twelve-month grace period after a property has been improved, during which any rise in business rate liability consequent to ‘qualifying Improvements’ will not apply;
• Introducing business rate relief for low carbon heat networks;
• Introducing improvement relief and charitable relief for the central rating list;
• Introducing three-yearly business rate revaluations in place of the previous pattern of five-yearly revaluations;
• Removing the legislative requirement for transitional relief schemes to be revenue-neutral;
• Permitting the government to adjust the central rating list by means of a direction instead of requiring secondary legislation;
• Permitting the VOA to disclose analysis of rental information to ratepayers, to enable ratepayers to understand how their rateable value has been calculated;
• Permitting the VOA to disclose valuation information to Northern Ireland rating officials (closing a gap in existing legislative provisions);
• Creating a duty on ratepayers to provide information to the VOA regarding properties in respect of which they are liable for business rates, permitting the VOA to impose financial penalties when a ratepayer provides no information or misleading information, and creating a new criminal offence where false information is provided;
• Providing that property valuations cannot take account of the effects of legislation, advice or guidance between revaluations;
• Adjusting the way in which the small business multiplier and standard multiplier are calculated.

  Most of this Bill applies to England only though some parts will extend to England and Wales. Clause 11 extends also to Northern Ireland. None of the Bill extends to Scotland.

More information about the basic operation of the business rates system can be found in the House of Commons Library briefing paper Business rates.

View Full Article: Business ratepayers will have to report any changes, and annually, under new bill…

Less that 20% of PRS homes within LHA rates reveals shocking research

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Fewer than one in five private rental properties in England were within the Local Housing Allowance (LHA) rates last year, according to new joint research by the Chartered Institute of Housing and Shelter.

The groups say the average renter now faces a £151 monthly shortfall because the allowance fails to cover their costs – with the figure set to rise even further.

The LHA, which is set by the Valuation Office Agency, determines how much housing benefit some tenants receive towards paying their rent, but it has been frozen since 2019.

In every local area, LHA fails to cover the cost of the cheapest 30% of two-bedroom family homes, according to the research, and in some parts of the South West one in 10 or fewer two-bedroom rents are affordable.

The issue is not confined to the south however, as there are low numbers of affordable two-bedroom rents in the north too; just 9% in Leeds, 10% in Bolton and 5% in Tameside.

Huge shortfalls

Charlie Berry (pictured), policy officer at Shelter, says these huge shortfalls leave private renters at high risk of going into rent arrears and push families towards homelessness.

“With fewer and fewer affordable private rentals for people on housing benefit and a severe shortage of social housing, we are sadly left with a homelessness crisis,” she adds.

“The evidence is clear: the government must end the damaging freeze to local housing allowance which is leaving low-income families with nowhere they can afford to call home.”

Earlier this year, the NRLA criticised the government for its complacent attitude to the LHA freeze and its effect on both tenants and landlords, following an admission by Work and Pensions Minister Mims Davies MP that he had made no estimate of the number of people unable to meet their housing costs due to the freeze.

View Full Article: Less that 20% of PRS homes within LHA rates reveals shocking research

Leading property figure calls for ‘tenancy register’ in England and Wales

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The government has missed a trick by not introducing a tenancy register instead of an ‘anti-landlord’ landlord register, one property consultant has claimed.

Blackbird Real Estate founder Richard Berridge says the proposed register fails to see the bigger picture and suggests it should be replaced with something similar to that introduced by the Irish government’s Residential Tenancies (Amendment) Act 2019 which makes registering every private tenancy mandatory.

Updated yearly

As well as recording landlords’ details, this captures essential data about who is renting, how many people, their age, rent paid, tenancy start date, type of home, how many bedrooms and the size. Data must be updated yearly or when there’s a change in the tenancy and is uploaded to a portal.

“Such a register would also level the build-to-rent playing field,” explains Berridge. “It removes the thorny subject of IP, secretive behaviour or commercially sensitive data, and lays bare the performance of each building.

“It could also go some way towards creating a dynamic pricing model.”

The annual cost of registering a tenancy in Ireland is €40 and those landlords who have more than one property can take advantage of a ‘composite registration fee’ of €170 for up to a maximum of ten properties, he says.

Pay to register

“Landlords are going to have to pay to register under the current Renters Reform Bill proposals anyway.” 

Why doesn’t the UK government follow the lead of the Irish? asks Berridge, who insists there is still time to amend proposals.

“Perhaps government’s rather dismal record with anything to do with technology has something to do with it, or perhaps it’s a reluctance to do anything akin to what an EU country does. But unfortunately, I think it’s more to do with their somewhat blinkered view and a landlord hard-line approach.”

Berridge's comment have been made within BTR News.

View Full Article: Leading property figure calls for ‘tenancy register’ in England and Wales

Increased demand has resulted in much improve choice of Ltd co Buy to Let options

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As often discussed on Property118, owning rental properties through a limited company offers full tax relief on finance costs such as mortgage interest and mortgage arrangement fees, access to potentially lower tax rates and flexibility for planning, including inheritance tax.

View Full Article: Increased demand has resulted in much improve choice of Ltd co Buy to Let options

Increased demand has resulted in much improved choice of Ltd co Buy to Let options

admin    Uncategorized     agents

As often discussed on Property118, owning rental properties through a limited company offers full tax relief on finance costs such as mortgage interest and mortgage arrangement fees, access to potentially lower tax rates and flexibility for planning, including inheritance tax.

View Full Article: Increased demand has resulted in much improved choice of Ltd co Buy to Let options

EXCLUSIVE: Conveyancer reports big drop in landlords buying BTL properties

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The number of BTL investors buying properties has plummeted in the last six months while long-term landlords are selling up, according to one large conveyancing firm.

Basildon-based PCS Legal reports that before Kwasi Kwarteng’s ‘fiscal event’ last September when the then Chancellor announced a cut in stamp duty, landlords’ property deals made up 20% of its workload – but this has dropped to 5%.

“Both BTL investors and homeowners were impacted, and we saw a big downturn between September and January,” says partner Stuart Forsdike. “For homeowners that has come back – but that’s not the case for investors.”

Uncertainty

He blames uncertainty in the market as well as a reduced volume of available deals, changes in lending criteria, inflation and rising interest rates, which has particularly hit those would-be investors who were previously lured in with promises of a passive income.

“It become quite fashionable to buy buy-to-lets a few years ago, and for people to split properties into HMOs, and the market was saturated with property educators, but since then, margins have got tighter, people are looking at deals with more scrutiny and some of them have got panicked,” he tells LandlordZONE.

Disposals

PCS Legal has also seen plenty of landlord clients disposing of their portfolios. “I can’t recall seeing this in the 25 years I’ve been a conveyancer,” adds Forsdike.

“These are people whom we’ve dealt with for maybe 10 or 20 years. Some of them bought 20 or 25 years ago and are now looking at retirement and want to monetise their assets – often at the lower end of the market or leasehold properties – as they’re probably also worried about the upcoming renters’ reforms.”

View Full Article: EXCLUSIVE: Conveyancer reports big drop in landlords buying BTL properties

Property Investors Awards – Co-Living Deal of the Year winner

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Scott Baker Properties was founded in 2017 by Niall Scott and Matt Baker, who, as working professionals spotted a need in the community for quality shared accommodation for like-minded people.

In recognition for being community driven and achieving first-class results with their development in Portsmouth

View Full Article: Property Investors Awards – Co-Living Deal of the Year winner

Investors rush to convert office space as homeworking re-shapes the marketplace

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According to the Financial Times (FT), property investors have pumped around £2bn into converting under-used and unwanted London office space as the trend to Working from Home (WfH) continues, and as it looks like becoming an embedded employment practice in many inner city offices.

Property agents CBRE say that around £1.3bn of London office space has been bought up at bargain basement prices over the last 12 to 18 months, with plans to convert the vacant space to alternative uses. Other deals now in progress amount to a further £700mn, say the agents.

Ed Bradley, head of London office investment for CBRE told the FT that around 10 per cent of all new investments in the sector now represent a significant proportion of all new investment generated, as companies adapt their businesses to new patterns of hybrid working.

Mr Bradley said the trend is on an unprecedented scale for these conversions of mainly secondary office space, to be converted for new uses outside the traditional city office market.

Market slowdown

The UK commercial property market has slowed considerably since last year as higher interest rates have begun to bite. Tightening monetary policy was a significantly factor over the second half of last year, resulting in a decline in buyer activity, with sizeable adjustments downward in valuations.

According to CBRE, the figures for all commercial property values dropped by around 20 per cent year to date as a result of many institutional investors changing their asset allocations, with the sharp rise in government bond yields.

With major structural change, such as WfH and online retail affecting office and retail commercial property, a trend accelerated through Covid, better returns on other financial assets are leading traditional investors to see commercial property in a different light, value wise.

Positive industrial and logistics

Contrary to office and retail, the industrial and logistics sector has seen an outstanding almost 60 per cent rise in values, but now it appears the sector has become overheated given the tougher environment where money has become much more expensive.

Otherwise, all the main UK commercial property sectors – particularly secondary – have experienced substantial declines in value since late last year following what looked like a fairly positive turnaround and correction immediately after the abatement of Covid.

Slower decline

Although values have continued to fall in 2023, there are signs that the rate of decline is slowing. Experts in the industry feel that the speed and depth of the price correction experienced in the latter half of 2022 could now have worked its way through the system. The conclusion is that there are definite signs of new interest by investors.

This has been particularly the case as said with the trend for re-purposing from office and some retail space to student accommodation, hotels, laboratories and leisure. CBRE’s Ed Bradley told the FT that:

“We have seen several examples of alternative use investors outbidding traditional office investors by 10 to 20 per cent.”

Examples cited are the conversion of the former Ted Baker headquarters near St Pancras station into lab space, given its convenient location near hospitals and universities. This development is being financed by the Singaporean sovereign wealth fund. The Millbank located Nobel House is being converted to hotels and serviced flats which will be conveniently located near the Houses of Parliament.

Demand for high-end office space

Demand for high-end office space has held up well but less desirable properties and locations means that leases are not being renewed for that use. This trend however coincides with increasing demand for research facilities, and international student and tourist accommodation following the worst excesses of the pandemic.

Not all office buildings however will lend themselves to be easily converted due to their physical construction, planning restrictions and the investment that would be needed to make a viable alternative use. Here values will suffer most.

The forecasts

Overall, average capital values for commercial property are forecast to end 2023 below where they started the year. Given the outlook for more interest rate rises until inflation is brought under control, back down towards the Bank of England’s sustainable 2 per cent target, nothing much will change – property values are set to remain under pressure.

Outside of the office and retail sectors, rental growth expectations are positive for industrial and logistics according to the latest RICS UK Commercial Property Market Survey. Both prime and secondary industrial space, according to the survey, are edging higher, which indicates that the recent downturn in industrial values is due to higher interest rates and not a shift in occupier demand or requirements.

No let-up for inflation

There’s no letup yet in the inflation outlook with the Office for Budget Responsibility predicting it will remain above 6 per cent for the rest of this year, though stronger than expected data coming from the Purchasing Manager Index is signalling an up-tick in industrial activity, after the major contraction during Covid.

While employment levels remains rock solid across the UK, which is helping sustain tenant demand for commercial property, regardless of the state of investor demand, there are signs this could change. Interest rate hikes have a delayed reaction as mortgage holders and borrowers are often on legacy fixed rates until renewal dates arrive. There are serious and credible concerns that there could yet be a further downturn in the economy, though a full blown recession is thought unlikely.

Property agents unaffected – flight to quality

Meanwhile among all these commercial property difficulties, there’s a failure to dent the prospects for the major property agents. Market movement, sales and conversions, it all seems like “grist to the mill” for the likes of Knight Frank, a company that hit record revenues in 2022. The agent whose stock in trade is the sale and leasing of commercial properties, as well as residential accommodation, internationally, says it is benefiting from a “flight to quality”.

What is meant by that is businesses are opting for “greener” and more modern buildings in an attempt both to reduce their carbon footprint and to adapt their space requirements their for staff in a post-pandemic era.

Chairman of Knight Frank, William Bearmore-Gray, has said about last year:

“…for our London leasing agents it was probably one of their busiest years. The majority of the interest we are seeing is from companies which realise very clearly now that the office is a strategic tool to attract the best talent and increase productivity.”

A similar story emanates from agents Cushman and Wakefield who report a record number of office moves in 2022. This reflects the move to hybrid working (WfH), with most companies wanting less space in modern and better located buildings.

View Full Article: Investors rush to convert office space as homeworking re-shapes the marketplace