Contract or deposit first?

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For those of you that manage your own properties (without using an agency etc), what is your sequence of events when you have a person(s) interested in taking a room or a property?

I ask this because I am having an abnormal amount of people saying that want to take a property and asking for a tenancy contract

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Evictions have a new look – at Landlord Action

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Leading evictions specialist Landlord Action has a new look after the company’s redesigned logo and website went live today.

Paul Shamplina, who is currently busy filming a special report on evictions with ITV, says the ‘powerful and bold’ branding signifies the strength of the company and goes hand in hand with the more complex legal cases that will be undertaken by the team.

Founded in 1999 as the UK’s first fixed-fee evictions specialist for private and corporate landlords and now employing over 200 legal professionals, it joined the Hamilton Fraser family in 2017.

This enabled the group to offer an end-to-end lifecycle service to landlords, covering everything from insuring their property and protecting the deposit, to protecting against poor service by their letting agent and helping landlords get their property back in the event of non-payment of rent or other tenancy issues.

Tumultous

The past two years have been tumultuous for landlords, with eviction suspensions and extended notice periods.

Since the ban on bailiff enforced evictions ended, the number of renters being evicted has increased and Landlord Action predicts that in 2022 possession figures will double when compared to 2020 and 2021.

“Supporting landlords in stressful times is what we do,” says Paul Shamplina, founder and also Chief Commercial Officer at Hamilton Fraser (main picture).

“Our business has evolved, and our team has grown to deal with the effects of the pandemic and changes in the market.

“We will continue to manage the rise in possessions, whilst also broadening our focus to encompass the more complex legal issues facing landlords in today’s market, given the shift of power in the tenant’s favour.

“Going forward, our services will become more and more important to landlords as the economy gradually unlocks following a tough winter.”

Paul Sowerbutts (pictured), who joined the company as Head of Legal last year, says: “This fantastic rebrand is the next step in Landlord Action’s move towards offering a one-stop shop for all of a landlord’s legal services.”

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – Evictions have a new look – at Landlord Action | LandlordZONE.

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January house price inflation at 11.2%

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The latest January Nationwide House price index is reporting the strongest start to a year since 2005 with inflation running at 11.2% up from 10.4% in December with January prices up 0.8% month-on-month.

The average price of a home in the Uk now stands at £255,556

Robert Gardner

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LATEST: Manchester goes live with ANOTHER new selective licensing scheme

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Manchester has extended selective licensing in more of the city, covering another 1,400 properties in The Ladders, Hyde Road, Trinity and Ben Street areas.

Four similar schemes already cover 1,800 properties in Crumpsall, Old Moat, Moston and Moss Side/Rusholme where 1,871 licences have been issued, along with 51 enforcement letters, fines totalling £108,000 and 12 suspended prohibition orders.

The scheme extension follows two consultations which the council says found that 92% of residents who responded agreed that private rented properties should be inspected. The NRLA went public with its opposition to the scheme.

Officers conducted 701 external inspections and 145 internal inspections in the new areas and found six category one hazards and 215 other hazards which led to three enforcement letters telling landlords to improve their properties.

Councillor Gavin White (pictured), executive member for housing and employment, says it’s clear that these schemes improve standards in private sector homes – and tenants are seeing the real-life benefits.

He adds: “The enforcement work carried out by council officers mean that residents in private sector homes in these areas can sleep soundly knowing that their homes have been made safe as a direct result of selective licensing.” ]

Eight more?

Manchester Council has flagged up another eight areas where it might consider schemes in future, including Claremont Rd/Great Western Street, Moss Side, and Royals, Longsight, which would cover another 1,031 properties.

Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham is a supporter of landlord licensing schemes and is also set on introducing a Good Landlord Charter in partnership with the city’s 10 councils to support landlord licensing and drive up standards in the private rented sector.

The licence fee for the new areas is £798 for five years, with an early bird offer of £591 if landlords apply before 30^th April.

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – LATEST: Manchester goes live with ANOTHER new selective licensing scheme | LandlordZONE.

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There’s a new podcast for Landlords everyone’s talking about you won’t want to miss

admin    Uncategorized     agents

There’s a buzz in the air, and it’s for good reason. This week LandlordZONE reported that: “in the wave of podcasts that have come out recently, none have made quite an entrance like the newest outfit on the block, Landlord Sales Agency – The Podcast.

View Full Article: There’s a new podcast for Landlords everyone’s talking about you won’t want to miss

LATEST: HMO trade body launches to help landlords find trustworthy agents

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A network of HMO property managers has been launched to help landlords find agents with specialist knowledge.

The new FIA HMO Network is made up of quality, vetted HMO letting and managing agents who landlords can trust, giving members the benefit of being part of a larger group by providing supplier offers and training.

Founded by Neil Baldock (pictured), director of Essex-based estate and letting agency group Charles David Casson, it is a subsidiary of the Federation of Independent Agents (FIA) in association with Graham Lock.

Baldock believes HMO management has been seen as the poor end of the industry for years, with poor quality properties and a lack of respect for agents managing these types of property.

He says: “This is a very outdated view and with the rise in demand for co-living and shared accommodation the quality of accommodation on offer is superb amongst our agents and this is a highly profitable area of business if done well.”

Gap in market

Baldock says that he saw a gap in the market where landlords could often not find an agent willing to manage their HMOs or one with the right level of experience.

He adds: “We have already started generating leads from landlords asking us to find them an agent in a particular area.”

Ten founder members range across the country in Chelmsford, Colchester, Canterbury, Ashford, Bournemouth, Portsmouth, Cambridge, Peterborough, Leeds, Hull, Selby & Goole and Liverpool, with more applications pending as the network plans to grow throughout the UK.  

Independent agents are invited to join by application only and must prove they have the right credentials and insurance. Interested agents should email Neil direct.

Read more about HMOs.

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – LATEST: HMO trade body launches to help landlords find trustworthy agents | LandlordZONE.

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OME GROWN! Portal launches to help landlords handle deposits better

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Alternative deposits platform OME has launched a new portal and app to help landlords onboard tenants quicker and more easily.

Ome was launched in March 2020 and provides landlords with the same level of security as a traditional deposit without the admin or legal requirements that come along with it, while relieving tenants of the need to worry about scraping together a deposit.

This means renting is more affordable for tenants via Ome’s Deposit Replacement Membership while landlords have access to a much wider pool of potential renters.

The service also offers five weeks’ rent value against damage or unpaid bills – the same as a cash deposit.

Its new portal, which has been in development since mid-2021, offers a much slicker experience for users including improved communications throughout the process, with multiple messaging options.

Better experience

Landlords using the portal now enjoy a much cleaner ‘member panel’ that will enable more sources of information to be displayed in a format that is clear and keeps them up to date.

Also, landlords will later this year also be offered more services than just deposits, supplied by members of the Hamilton Fraser family of businesses, which Ome is a part of.

Peter Agathangelou, Group CTO said, “This launch represents the first major implementation of our business transformation strategy which will enable our customers to manage their engagement with the Hamilton Fraser Group through a single portal.”

Eddie Hooker, CEO of the Hamilton Fraser Group (pictured) says: “Despite the pandemic, we have continued to push forward with our Group’s digital strategy.

“The launch of Ome’s new portal will pave the way for future development as the Group’s brands and products are added to the portal.

“The next step in our transformation will see mydeposits integrated into the tenancy deposit platform, enabling our customers to access all their deposit needs in one location.”

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – OME GROWN! Portal launches to help landlords handle deposits better | LandlordZONE.

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Coming changes to “feudal” leasehold laws to favour flat owners

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Flat owners (leaseholders) only own their leasehold property for a fixed period of time and during that period they pay ground rent and service charges to the freeholder (landlord).

There’s always a long-lease agreement, a detailed legal tenancy agremeent between the leaseholder and the landlord which lays down conditions of ownership, occupancy ad the number of years the lease has to run. If the lease were to end, ownership of the property reverts to the landlord, but it’s rare for this to happen – under law reforms leaseholders have an automatic right to renew / extend their lease.

Most flats are leaseholds and are usually controlled and managed day0to-day by managing agents on behalf of the landlord. Houses can also be leasehold and they usually are if they’re bought through a shared ownership scheme.

Feudal history

The leasehold system is virtually unique to Britain and dates back to the 11th Century. It is a legal system designed so that wealthy families could keep wealth, and the income from that wealth (namely property), in the family or firm, passing down through the generations.

Reforms brought in in the 1920s were introduced to hold-down rents and restrict the rights of landlords to evict tenants.

In time landlords realised that they could raise money by selling long leases (typically 99/125 years) of their houses and flats and still retain ownership. It is the basis of the system we know today.

In more recent times builders / developers started to realise extra value from a development by selling flats and houses as leaseholds, charging ongoing ground rents, and then selling the leases on to investors. The problem was that the system started to be abused. They got greedy: they started them off with expensive ground rent charges that were in some cases set to double every 10 years, making payments rise exponentially over time. Unsuspecting young couples were often lulled into buying properties which became unsaleable due their long-term lease liabilities.

Leasehold Reform

There have been several leasehold reform Acts in more recent years. The Leasehold Reform Act 1967 (‘the 1967 Act’) gave leaseholders the right to acquire the freehold and any intermediate leases.

The Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Act 2002 introduced the concept of the commonhold, a new way of owning land similar to the Australian and American condominium, into England and Wales. Unfortunately, for one reason or another they were rarely taken up.

Other reforms included in the Act gave leaseholders of blocks of flats in England the right to take over the management of the block from their landlords, subject to complying with certain qualifying conditions. Other rules strengthened leaseholders’ rights against unreasonable charges and improved the way the Leasehold Valuation Tribunals (LVTs) worked to address disputes between leaseholders and landlords.

Recent abuses

Given the recent abuses of the leasehold system, these 2002 changes and the more recent changes proposed in the The Leasehold Reform (Ground Rent) Bill 2021-22, which seeks to restrict ground rents on newly created long leases of houses and flats to an annual peppercorn rent, are deemed not to go far enough. Michael Gove, the new levelling-up secretary, is said to be prioritising the ending of leasehold abuses, with further legislation planned in the next Queen’s Speech.

The current Bill having progressed through the House of Lords and Commons is due to enter its final stages soon.

Under the new law thousands of homeowners will get the power to buy their freehold. The plans would effectively phase out many leaseholds in England. Rules that prevent flat owners from buying the freehold to their property if a small part (25%) of their building is given over to commercial use, such as shops, a common configuration is cities, will go.

The new law will also make it easier for leaseholders in blocks of flats to take over management of their buildings, bringing them into common ownership in an attempt to avoid the extortionate management fees and ground rents which many leaseholders have been subjected to.

Property developers will be banned from charging ground rents on new-builds. The practice of developers selling off the freeholds to private equity companies, racking up charges to homeowners and trapping them in the properties, finally cooked the goose that laid the golden egg!

Michael Gove has said he is happy to be “taking on dukes and developers” who have made fortunes out of the system. Gove has been warned by some that he should not pick a fight with developers, companies the government needs to meet it’s housebuilding targets, but he has ignored these warnings. He’s already in the builders /developers bad books over the cladding payments they are likely to have to make.

The cladding scandal

Despite even these most recent reforms, critics say the system is still inherently unfair to homeowners who lease properties, and the cladding scandal has simply served to highlight their plight.

Thousands of flat leaseholders, many of them young couples or singles just starting out in life, are faced with extortionate charges for ongoing fire-watches and building safety, life-changing amounts of debt needed to rectify unsafe cladding, and they cannot sell.

Gove is said to want to phase out the leasehold system altogether. He wants to come up with a formula for establishing the value of freeholds and to take the responsibility off leaseholders to pay the legal fees of the freeholder. These plans are now out for consultation

Chief losers from these reforms if they do arrive will be the likes of the Queen and the Duke of Westminster, large landowners, along with many others who own large tracts of freeholds prime residential properties in the capital. Pension funds, holding many peoples’ pension savings, also have many millions invested in these residential portfolios tenanted by long leaseholders.

These reforms if they match the proposals will have the potential to bring about a fundamental shift in the way property is owned and managed in Britain, and particularly in the capital where the majority of the leaseholds reside, leading to a major re-balancing of wealth.

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – Coming changes to “feudal” leasehold laws to favour flat owners | LandlordZONE.

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National rogue landlord database hits ‘new high’ of just 61 names

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Four years after it was launched, the number on the Rogue Landlord database has only crept up to 61 out of the thousands claimed to be operating within the private rental sector, the latest government figures show.

Asked by opposition MP Gill Furniss to provide an update, Housing Minister Eddie Hughes revealed that of those 30 councils who have put landlords on the database, Camden had reported the highest number with 10 landlords, followed by Liverpool and Salford (four), Bournemouth, Hinkley & Bosworth, Telford & Wrekin and Walsall (three).

The database is designed to enable local authorities to target the most prolific offenders – those who have been convicted of banning order offences or have received at least two financial penalties within 12 months. It also aims to encourage joint working to tackle rogue landlords working across council divisions.

Funding gap

However, many councils lack the funds to chase up rogue or criminal landlords, or the resources to identify landlords who meet the criteria. It has led to many calls questioning whether the list is of any use, and has informed criticism of the government’s current plans to introduce a national landlord database.

According to The Times, the government is set to announce a new national register of landlords this week as part of its levelling up legislation, with plans to eject rogue operators.

At the time of the Rogue Landlord database launch in April 2018, ministers said there were approximately 10,500 rogue landlords operating within the private rental sector.

Housing campaigners claim the government has hugely underestimated the numbers involved and believe a model similar to the GLA landlord checker would be more practical as this shares information over neighbouring London boroughs.

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – National rogue landlord database hits ‘new high’ of just 61 names | LandlordZONE.

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OFFICIAL: Action needed to woo back private landlords as stock dwindles alarmingly

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New landlords should be enticed into the sector as rental stock dips across the UK, says industry body Propertymark.

Its latest PRS report reveals that member agents had an average of just six properties that were empty and available for rent in each branch, while in London it was only four – a 71% drop from last December when the figure stood at 14.

The average number of new prospective tenants in December was the highest on record for the month, at 67 per branch; regionally, the West Midlands had the highest number with 106 and the lowest was in Wales where an average of 21 new prospective tenants registered last month.

The number of properties managed per member agent branch dropped from 212 in November to 204 in December, in line with the previous year. Humberside had the highest recorded number with an average of 313, while London – with an average of 131 properties managed per branch – had the lowest.

Propertymark reports that 56% of member agents reported rent prices increasing, which is an overall fall for the fourth consecutive month.

CEO Nathan Emerson (pictured) says as the private rented sector was under the microscope of policy makers last year and house prices boomed, some landlords decided to exit and consider other options.

“It’s important that new landlords are enticed into the market to provide much-needed homes,” he explains. “In particular, the London market has been uniquely affected by the pandemic with many people leaving the city as commuting routines relaxed.

“What we are seeing now is as people look to return to London, the landlords that were there before have left also. The lack of homes not only pushes up prices but puts more pressure on to social housing systems.”

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – OFFICIAL: Action needed to woo back private landlords as stock dwindles alarmingly | LandlordZONE.

View Full Article: OFFICIAL: Action needed to woo back private landlords as stock dwindles alarmingly