May

Landlord says protecting tenants during portfolio sale will cost him £500,000

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Nottingham benefits landlord Mick Roberts (main picture) has made another bid to sell 40 of his properties by offering to cut the sale price by a tenth if a landlord buyer keeps his existing tenants on.

The regular LandlordZONE contributor has previously suggested paying his tenants’ deposit if they buy their home from him.

During an interview with The Telegraph newspaper, he says the average property in his portfolio is worth £130,000 so by paying their 5% deposit for each of the 40 houses it would cost him a total of £260,000 – but he’s had no takers for his offer so far.

Now he plans to take a 10% hit on the sale price if a buyer will buy the properties with the tenants in situ, a discount which could cost him more than half a million pounds.

Mick, who operates one of the largest private property portfolios in the city, blames government policies, licensing schemes and a tortuous Universal Credit system – with the latest EPC regulations being the final straw – for his decision after 25 years as a landlord housing mainly benefit claimants.

He had hoped to slowly dismantle the portfolio by selling the properties as and when his tenants moved on, but as the supply crunch deepens, Mick’s low-income tenants are increasingly unable to move anywhere else.

Crappy landlords

He tells LandlordZONE: “I don’t want to sell my houses to some crappy landlord – I’ve got a duty of care to these tenants, some of whom have been with me for 24 years.

“Someone has offered to buy the whole lot in the past, but I wasn’t comfortable with the deal and my tenants would have been petrified to have had some armchair investor in charge, who might not do their repairs like I do and would probably put the rent up.”

However, he isn’t particularly hopeful that many landlords will take him up on the offer. Mick adds: “I’ll give it three years and if the plan doesn’t work, I’ll just have to go ahead regardless.”

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