Council desperation U-turning Government attacks on Landlords!

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Golden Welcome cash payment to landlords

Central Government is doing all it can to deter private landlords from providing housing to people on benefits and now Local Councils are desperate enough to do this:

Monmouthshire Lettings Service Scheme will offer landlords a cash payment of up to £1,200 just for joining

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What do you do if tenants leave you to clean up?

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Cleaning Services:

Most residential landlords have been in the painful situation of a tenant leaving their property in a poor condition.

Despite clear rules in most rental contracts, a minority of poorly-behaved tenants cause huge amounts of problems for the owners of their homes. This is particularly difficult when the owner has worked hard to purchase their property and renovate it to a high standard.

To avoid these problems when renting out your property, it is important to communicate with your tenant and provide sensible advice. This process should start as soon as you hand over the keys.

Regular rental property maintenance

In your early conversations with your tenant, you should mention:

• That not venting bathrooms and kitchens causes mould growth
• That not hoovering the carpets or soft furnishings on a regular basis ruins them
• Mention the jobs you expect to be done on a regular basis, whether this is maintaining the garden areas or cleaning the carpets
• Indicate your expectations for the condition of the property when they leave

You may also want to share useful tips for looking after your property – and therefore the tenant’s deposit.

For example, regular vacuum cleaning will prolong the lives of carpets and soft furnishings. And carpet spillages are not best dealt through the use of products like Vanish. This may work on synthetic carpets, but generally, it is best if a professional can deal with carpet damage.

To make sure these things are done, you are within your rights to ask for regular inspections of your property. As long as you give at least 24 hours’ notice, you can reasonably do these as often as you wish. Quarterly, or even monthly, visits are not hugely unusual. You will, however, need to balance the urge for these visits with your tenants’ rights to peace and quiet.

Information to give rental tenants

To keep things moving smoothly in a tenancy, it’s sensible to also give your tenants a laminated list of contact numbers, just in case anything happens. These could be numbers to use if you’re not available or just useful information. Think about things like a plumber’s number or a local taxi company.

The other information that you need to share is about how to manage the moving out process. This way there is a clear expectation for your tenants to understand from the beginning of the tenancy. This could be:

• Details of a good end of tenancy cleaning company
• Details of a professional carpet cleaning company

Local estate agents can also be a good source for recommendations for these types of services. They use them on a regular basis.

The general advice you should give for example is that cheap end of tenancy cleaning London companies may not always deliver a great service for the price they charge. And this may mean tenants end up paying anyway thanks to avoidable deductions from their deposit.

What’s really needed, for the benefit of the tenant and the landlord, is a really thorough, high-quality cleaning service. After working with the majority of the top estate agents and property management companies, we at Cleaner Cleaner have seen it all.

If all of your tenants could maintain our standards, you’d never have a problem at all.

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – What do you do if tenants leave you to clean up? | LandlordZONE.

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Annual house prices increase 4.5% and continue affordability concerns

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The Halifax Price Index figures for the last quarter August to October show the price of an average house is now a record high of £225,826.

House prices in the last quarter were 4.5% higher than in the same three months last year.

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Labour Councils Teach Us How To Invest In Commercial Property !

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Two Labour Councils made investment purchases of commercial property. (Strange when councils are meant to tax us for the provision of local essential services, not for running a property investment business!)

The councils have purchased these properties using offshore companies in Luxembourg and saved £12bn in SDLT.

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Can I deduct my time as an expense if I perform emergency repairs?

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My tenants arrived back from hols to find water pouring in through a leaking roof vent down via a 9inch pipe connected to an en suite extractor fan.

I couldn’t get a local trades person to attend despite spending a full morning of calling.

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Personal to Limited Company

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We are the process of change from personal to limited for our property portfolio. Do all of the properties need to be transferred to one company or can they be transferred to two companies as long as they are all transferred.

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Penetrating Damp – how to deal with it

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Penetrating damp, just as its name implies, is where water leaks into a building from outside the structure, through the walls or roof. Less common is where an internal leak from a water or drain pipe leaks into the structure of the building.

Common causes of penetrating damp are:

• Porous Walls — aging and crumbling bricks lose the ability to keep out rain penetration.
• Spalled Bricks & Degraded Mortar
• Bridged cavity or defective cavity tray
• Damage to stone and brickwork such as wall cracks allowing water to penetrate.
• Defective guttering and downpipes, roof damage, dilapidated or poorly installed windows.

As with rising damp and condensation problems, a thorough investigation is needed to establish the cause and decide on a cure, which may need some expert guidance.

For example, a leaking internal water pipe can cause signs of damp some distance away from the actual leak – water can travel externally along a pipe.

Look for lose or missing tiles on the roof, ridge pointing coming away, overflowing gutters or damaged downpipes and joints – binoculars are useful for this.

Examine the gutters and downpipes and the brickwork or other masonry around them for signs of water leakage and damage – usually it will leave a greenish stain over time. Never allow these types of leaks to continue for long without treatment as they will inevitably cause expensive damage if left.

Look for cracks in external walls and especially inspect the walls that get the most severe weather, driving rain will penetrate if the mortar is defective, soft or has gaps. Consider re-pointing and silicon sealing or even complete rendering of a problem wall.

Check flashings on roof joins and valleys and the roof underfelt for any holes or deterioration. Particularly check flashing where a roof meets a chimney wall. If any of these are loose or missing, they’ll need patching, re-fixing or re-pointing.

Check all the window frames for any gaps or cracks or masonry distortion around them. These may need filling with a flexible frame sealant. Also check the window sills for a ‘drip groove’, which will stop water running down the walls.

Cracks in the external walls or missing mortar will cause ingress of water over time. In old buildings, lime and sand mixes are often used. These are more porous and so will allow the building to “breath” and take away water from the bricks or stone. You may need professional advice for this.

The cavity wall may need to be cleared of debris or a damp-proof cavity tray added. It is quite possible that penetrating damp is caused by problems with cavity walls, in which case again you may need professional help.

Later built properties (post 1920s) will usually have a cavity between the inner and outer walls, so there is air space for moisture penetrating through the exterior wall to evaporate before it gets to the inner wall. However, a debris build up at the bottom, or faulty cavity wall insulation can bridge the gap causing water penetration form outside.

Where the wall is ‘interrupted’ with a window or pipework for example, there needs to be a cavity tray. These come in various forms but effectively act as a way to drain any water away from the inner wall to the outside through ‘weep’ holes (holes in a part of the outer wall).

If a cavity tray is defective, or there isn’t one present, then it needs to be repaired or a new one installed. As with clearing out a cavity, this is a professional job.

Keep an eye on all outside walls of a property for signs of water running down the brickwork or stonework leaving a tell-tall trail, as although this may not result in water penetration immediately, it will deteriorate the structure over time.

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – Penetrating Damp – how to deal with it | LandlordZONE.

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Serviced apartments – the new opportunity in US property investment

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There are 826,759 serviced apartments around the world (GSAIR), and 61% of them are in the USA (Knight Frank). Over there, they’re often known as ‘extended stay apartments’ and were originally conceived with the business traveller in mind.

The concept of a serviced apartment works in favour of guest and hotelier alike. Consisting of at least one bedroom (often two or three), a bathroom, a living area and a fully-equipped kitchen, guests have a generous space to spread out in and call their own. Hotel owners are able to cut down on overheads and do away with large area, low margin facilities like public lounges, restaurants, kitchens and full-service lobbies.

The resulting cost savings and lower than hotel rates meant the idea took off quickly and the appreciation of a ‘home-from-home’ accommodation option gained momentum, particularly with families and groups.

It also extended the appeal of serviced apartments beyond business travel to the leisure and vacation market. City centres are no longer the sole focus of the serviced apartment sector; families want to go on vacation together to popular destinations, meaning that serviced apartments represent some of the best investment properties in Florida, for example.

The Airbnb phenomenon has transformed travellers’ expectations, and traditional hotel accommodation is less appealing to millennials. Serviced apartments, on the other hand, are finding huge favour; average occupancy has been higher than 74% since 2010, and higher than 75% since 2013.

Even allowing for the fact that supply has increased by 23% since 2013, occupancy rates in the USA have maintained their level at around a healthy 76%. In fact, according to sector analysts The Highland Group, demand has been up by between 5% and 7% per quarter for the last two years.

As a consequence, US serviced apartments have been able to raise their rates faster than hotels; revenue per room has increased for serviced apartments in 2017 but has dropped slightly in hotels.

Nor does the popularity of serviced apartments show any sign of abating; over 27,400 are scheduled to open in America by the end of 2017, and a further 35,000 during 2018 (Lodging Econometrics).

What’s also interesting is that serviced apartments are no longer the exclusive preserve of the big hotel chains like Hilton and Marriott. James Harrington, Business Development Manager at sector specialists Emerging Property explains “Many private investors are unaware that they can actually own an individual serviced apartment in the USA, but in fact they can. What’s vital, though, is to be completely satisfied that the developer has a really good track record in the sector, and that the property will be professionally managed 24/7 by a company with a solid background in resort hospitality. And because overseas property investment can be quite different from here in the UK, it’s important to get expert advice before committing to anything.”

Overseas investors accounted for $153 billion of residential property sales in the USA in the year to March 2017, attracted by the country’s economic opportunities, economic security and political stability. It’s also a great place to visit and stay in your own property.

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – Serviced apartments – the new opportunity in US property investment | LandlordZONE.

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Repossession of your property for non-mortgage debt?

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An article from Mortgage Strategy which explains that six of the top ten lenders say they use ‘all monies charges’ in residential mortgage documents, letting them repossess homes if borrowers struggle with non-mortgage debts.

Click here to see the full article..

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Agent Orgy

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Victoria Whitlock, writing in the London Evening Standard tells of her Landlord friend’s decorator catching the new (unnamed) letting agent holding a ‘party’ at an empty property.

Click here to read the full article

The landlord has several properties in South London

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