£2,173.86 recovered from DWP

admin    Uncategorized     agents

Two months ago I published a case study: Live Universal Credit horror case study

In short we were approached by a PRS Landlord, he had granted a Tenancy in March, the tenant was on Universal Credit.

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NAEA former President chases down answers to SDLT and CGT proposals

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The former President of the National Association of Estate Agents (NAEA), Simon Gerrard, has sent another open letter to Housing Minister, Alok Sharma, chasing for a response to his housing market proposals.

The first letter was ignored by the Housing Ministry and just passed on to the Treasury receiving a cursory reply.

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Issue with Management company random charges?

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Have a couple of flats in one block. The typical lease fee was £195 every quarter.

The solicitors acting on their behalf are now threatening to take us to court for breach of contract and are threatening to apply to the courts for a Possession Order if we do not pay the outstanding balance of the in 14 days.

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5-yearly mandatory electrical testing to be introduced

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Mandatory Electrical Checks:

A report into Electrical Safety in Rented Property has just been published which will make it a mandatory requirement to have five-yearly electrical checks. There is also a recommendation that a Residual Current Devices (RCDs) should be a part of the system.

A Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) working group has published its findings and 8 recommendations for electrics in rented property in England.

During the passage of the Housing and Planning Act in 2016, concerns were raised about electrical safety in rented properties in England. This followed some sweeping changes to the legislation in Scotland which brought in mandatory checks.

The Scottish Government recently introduced (1 December 2016) mandatory five yearly electrical checks, to be carried out by a registered electrician for all electrical installations and electrical appliances supplied in tenanted properties. The Welsh devolved Government is currently considering options to introduce duties on electrical safety standards in Wales.

In response to the concerns in England, the Government introduced an enabling power in the Housing and Planning Act 2016. This allowed for changes to electrical safety standards in the PRS to be set through secondary legislation at a later date, if this was deemed necessary.

The working group has made 8 recommendations for England:

1. 5 yearly mandatory electrical installation checks should be set out in secondary legislation.
2. Visual checks of the safety of the electrical installation by landlords at a change of tenancy should be encouraged as good practice and set out in guidance.
3. A report should be issued to the landlord which confirms that an EICR* has been completed along with confirmation that any remedial work necessary has been undertaken satisfactorily. A copy should be issued to the tenant at the beginning of the tenancy and should be made available to local authorities on request.
4. Landlord supplied electrical appliance testing and visual checks of electrical appliances by landlords at a change of tenancy should be encouraged as good practice and set out in guidance.
5. The installation of Residual Current Devices (RCDs) by landlords should be encouraged as good practice and set out in guidance.
6. A PRS electrical testing competent person scheme should be set up which would be separate from the existing Building Regulations competent person scheme.
7. DCLG should commission the Electro-technical Assessment Specification (EAS) management committee to consider the most effective method of assessing ‘competent PRS testers’ to carry out electrical inspections and tests.
8. Legislative requirements should be phased in, beginning with new tenancies, followed by all existing tenancies.

Landlords, as part of good lettings practice, are to be encouraged to work towards meeting these standards ahead of the enacting legislation.

There will be no mandatory requirement to PAT test appliances, though inspection and PAT testing is recommended and to be encouraged between tenancies.

Exactly who will be competent to carry out these tests has yet to be decided, but a qualified electrician can do these checks now.

*An Electrical Installation Condition Report (EICR) is an official document that is produced following an assessment an electrical installation, either domestic, commercial or industrial premises require inspection with varying degrees of frequency depending on the premises.

Read the full report here

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – 5-yearly mandatory electrical testing to be introduced | LandlordZONE.

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Iain Duncan Smith MP joined 450+ landlords and investors for the return of the Expert Property Panel

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Iain Duncan Smith MP joined 450+ landlords and investors for the return of the Expert Property Panel, held at the flagship National Landlord Investment Show Tuesday 7th November 2017, to give his take on the coverage surrounding Universal Credit.

The show has hugely grown in popularity and is now a must attend event for UK Landlords. It is hugely popular  and gets bigger every year. One of the key features is the quality of guest speakers.

The debate panel included:

Chair Marie Parris – CEO of George Ellis Property Services

Iain Duncan Smith – Conservative MP

Fionnuala Earley – Chief Economist for Countrywide

David Whittaker –  Chief Operating Officer, Mortgages for Business

Vanessa Warwick – Co Founder of Property Tribes

Simon Zutchi – CEO of Property Investor Network

The lively debate included, Universal Credit, The Autumn budget, Market trends & Interest rates

IDS stated that he has spoken to the Chancellor both privately and publically about the need for change for UK Landlords, he points out that we won’t know if this has been taken on board until the Autumn Budget is released and he encouraged the audience, largely Landlords, to write to the Chancellor with their thoughts and fears before November 22.

Iain also spoke further about Universal Credit, tax changes and which conditions can work in the favour of the landlord now and in the future.

Marie Parris, industry speaker and MD of George Ellis Property Services, presented the debate and spoke to Iain Duncan Smith about whether he thinks Universal Credit is actually working. With landlords having to wait 6 weeks or more for payments, claimants beyond despair, having no money to feed their families, or even a bus fare to travel to an interview, what does he say about it? The press coverage certainly doesn’t communicate a successful rollout. We’ve even had reports of Nick Forbes, leader of Newcastle City Council who said he believes the country is on the verge of a housing crisis as a result of UC.

Iain’s reply was that we have currently got the lowest number of workless households in living history in UK and the rollout is careful and slow deliberately, in order to make changes along the way. He stated the fact that only 5% in welfare are on UC currently as testament to this.

The idea, he says, is that UC allows the merger of a number of benefits together on a more efficient digital platform – and the problems have been caused by the fact that 60% of people on UC at the moment are already in debt, so this has caused the issues that landlords face, not necessarily the system itself.

He mentioned the advisors, via Universal Support, that stay with the tenants to combat this via debt reduction programmes etc. for a smoother future.

A key issue stated by landlords at the panel is that they don’t have visibility as to who is on benefits or not – and don’t know whether they want to rent to those on UC because of the risks involved.

Iain’s solution is that the next phase will be able to help them see this information via a new portal in the next rollout phase. The idea is that if there are issues, they can be placed on direct payment immediately. Arrears clearance in theory should clear quicker that on housing allowances.

There was a feeling in the audience that landlords were unable to get the money from the tenants on UC, as they were told in some cases by local councils that they would be given a council house as soon as they were evicted from their private accommodation, so there was no incentive for them to pay their rent.

Will this have changed by the next rollout of UC? – Iain Duncan Smith certainly thinks it will and UK landlords sincerely hope so.

The event also saw over 100 Property related services exhibit, in addition 37 seminars on a broad range of subjects in PRS were delivered throughout the day including a packed auditorium with David Smith, award winning Economist Editor of The Sunday Times, who delivered an outlook for Landlords including, interest rates, Brexit and the budget. Landlords were delighted with the services and advice that they received.

Since the shows launch in May 2013 they team at National Landlord Investment Show have ran 54 events throughout the UK’s buy to let hot spots. 2018 dates have been announced via their website www.landlordinvestmentshow.co.uk

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – Iain Duncan Smith MP joined 450+ landlords and investors for the return of the Expert Property Panel | LandlordZONE.

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All-Party Parliamentary group call for all landlords to fit CO alarms

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The All-Party Parliamentary Carbon Monoxide Group (APPCOG) campaign titled Carbon monoxide alarms: Tenants safe and secure in their homes is looking to improving current regulations for rented properties and make it compulsory to fit carbon monoxide alarms.

Alok Sharma MP

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Landlord’s ‘curry smell’ letting ban unlawful

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Landlord Discrimination:

One of Britain’s biggest buy-to-let landlords, Fergus Wilson, is in trouble yet again after setting out his letting criteria earlier this year. This time Wilson was in court yesterday for banning “coloured” tenants from renting his homes because of their “curry smell”.

The controversial millionaire landlord, reputedly worth £180m, that’s according to The Times Rich list, are doing the image of responsible landlords no good whatsoever with their antics, and their old fashioned views – they simply don’t seem to want to conform to legal convention, said one industry expert.

Fergus and his wife Judith bought nearly 1,000 homes in Ashford and Maidstone in Kent, but have recently been in the process of offloading them to foreign investors.

On the 1st January 2017 they introduced their so call Letting Criteria:

“Like any business we are consistently fine tuning to best advantage,” said Mr Wilson.

The following are not acceptable:

1)      Tenants with children under 18. A child over 18 can be a co-tenant

2)      Only tenants with a Rent Guarantee

3)      No single mums or single fathers

4)      No tenants on Housing Benefit

5)      No low income workers

6)      No single adults

7)      No Zero hours workers

8)      No plumbers

9)      No battered wives

10)   No smokers

11)   No tenants with pets

Although his criteria does not include the banning of Indian and Pakistani tenants “because of the curry smell” his actions in this have brought Wilson into conflict with The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), who applied for an injunction to prevent MR Wilson discriminating in this way.

Yesterday an injunction against the policy was granted at Maidstone County Court.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), which brought the action, said his remarks were unlawful.

The proceedings against Wilson began after he sent an email to his lettings agency, asking them to ban “coloured” people from renting his homes, a communication which was subsequently leaked to The Sun newspaper.

In court, Mr Wilson argued that his decision not to rent to people was made on economic grounds and not based on the colour of people’s skin. He described his remarks in the e-mail as “banter”.

Wilson insisted in court that he was not racist, and already has a number of non-white tenants in properties.

However, Judge Richard Polden rejected Mr Wilson’s assertion that he had been joking, saying:

“I find that this policy clearly amounts to discrimination. I find that the policy is unlawful.”

The injunction granted to EHRC orders that Mr Wilson cannot apply his lettings policy when it involves stopping Indian or Pakistani people renting his properties.

Following the proceedings Mr Wilson said the case was “political correctness gone mad” and that it could have a devastating effect on the lettings industry.

Wilson reportedly said that a property he had bought from an Indian couple cost him £12,000 to put right because the curry smell was a “massive problem”.

In the past, Mr Wilson had evicted all 200 of his housing benefit tenants. He said that they we unreliable and that he would rather have “migrants as tenants than people on benefits”.

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – Landlord’s ‘curry smell’ letting ban unlawful | LandlordZONE.

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Can anyone share their experience of similar projects

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Hi, I recently purchased (Aug ‘17) a property in Blackpool which has historically been converted into 5 self contained apartments.

The property is currently 80% Tenanted, however it is dated and would benefit from a complete refurbishment including some works to the roof.

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Splitting and refinancing?

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We own a free hold block of 11 flats in Birmingham area.

When we bought the property it was derelict. Since then we have done the work and now all 11 flats are tenanted and generating rentals with limited vacancy for past 2 years.

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Cleaning is still the biggest cause of deposit disputes

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Tenancy Deposit Disputes:

An analysis of deposit claims by agent’s professional body, ARLA Propertymark, shows that cleaning is by far the biggest cause of disputes between landlords and tenants, when tenants are leaving.

Tenancy deposits are taken from tenants to protect the landlord when damage is done, which goes beyond normal and acceptable wear and tear. It’s an important psychological lever that motivates tenants to return a property in good condition: will I get my deposit back when I leave?, is normally enough of a motivator to clean up and look after the property. Not it seems for some tenants!

Some tenants just don’t play the game, even to the point of cancelling the last month’s rent, leaving the landlord to claim against the deposit for the rent, and leaving them to whistle for their money, leaving nothing in reserve to cover for items like professional cleaning.

By far the majority of tenants get their full deposit back, but there are cases where a landlord needs to keep all or a part of the deposit for genuine damage or cleaning etc. The ARLA Propertymark study asked its agent members to give them the most common reasons why tenants don’t get their deposits back.

Cleaning Comes Top

The results of the study are interesting: almost nine out of ten letting agents said the main reason tenants don’t get their deposits back is because of cleaning issues. Basically they leave the property dirty. This leaves the landlord either to do a lot of hard and often distasteful work themselves (remember landlords cannot claim for work they do themselves) or employ a professional cleaner to do the work for them, in which case they have an invoice for charges they can use to claim against the deposit.

Most tenancies are professionally cleaned at the start, so while tenants can clean for themselves, landlords often expect a professional level of cleanliness, as was clearly documented in the inventory at the start of the agreement.  What is clean to a tenant is not always so to the landlord, and this is where the disputes start.

To avoid dispute losses a good quality check-in and check-out inventory report is vital as evidence in any dispute, and these reports (ideally prepared by an independent inventory company) should include good photos at the start and end of the tenancy.

Lack of maintenance

General basic house maintenance is the second main reason for disputes, in particular garden maintenance which is usually specified in the agreement. Tenants are under a contractual obligation to do this work and if they fail to do it they will lose out, but only if the landlord has enough paper evidence to win a claim.

The onus is always on the landlord, or the agent on their behalf, to prove their case and this means having good solid paper based evidence – the adjudicator (if the landlord decides to go to arbitration as opposed to a County Court) decides who gets what on this evidence and there is no appeal.

Damage to Contents

Hanging pictures on walls, although desirable to brighten up a plain room, often leaves holes and shaded areas on the walls which involves repairs and redecoration for landlords. Pictures should only be hung with agreement with a landlord, otherwise it’s an issues that causes disputes.

Unpaid rent

Deposits should be held until all rent is paid up to the day of leaving, and any overpaid rent should be returned to the tenant. To ensure that rent arrears can be claimed against the deposit the letting agreement should clearly state all the reasons why a deposit can be retained, usually for:

• Cleaning
• Basic maintenance
• Damage
• Rent arrears
• Keys and locks
• Storing tenants’ left belongings

Sally Lawson, President, ARLA Propertymark offers advice to tenants:

“When you’re leaving a property you’ve been renting, the general rule is to leave it as you found it. Make sure you haven’t left any personal belongings behind, and that the property is clean and tidy for the next tenants. You should flag any damaged items to your letting agent or landlord during the agreement, so that when you leave, it doesn’t come as a shock.

“This will also help you develop a good relationship with them, which will be useful for any reasonable negotiations about the deposit.

“Finally, you should always take photos of the property at the start and at the end of your contract, so that if you need to dispute any of the deposit deductions, you can evidence your points.”

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – Cleaning is still the biggest cause of deposit disputes | LandlordZONE.

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