Lost deeds from 1956?

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A solicitor has been holding the deeds to my father in laws house since 1956. He has now moved into a nursing home so there is now a need to put it on the market and sell it.

However, it now turns out the solicitor could not find the deeds  and they say they gave them to a third party in 1978 who was negotiating a £3000 advance. This person cannot be found and solicitor has no proof of releasing Deeds.

Land registry will not give full title deeds only possessory title because of this and the solicitor refuses to except any responsibility for loss are there any other avenues other then taking legal action open to us.

Many thanks

Steve

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Oakwood House – Sheffield student accommodation opportunity

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Oakwood House is a new student accommodation investment development in Sheffield. Home to over 63,000 students and located nearby to both universities’ campuses, good occupancy levels are expected and a 8% rental income is assured for 3 years.

Sheffield is home to a significant student population as many are attracted to the city due to its affordability, buzzing nightlife and top tier universities. Currently, there are over 60,000 students studying in the city, split between the University of Sheffield and Sheffield Hallam.

Oakwood House seeks to offer luxury living for the modern student in the city. The development consists of 102 units over 5 floors, housed in two separate buildings. Sheffield’s major attractions, university campuses and shopping facilities are just a short walk or tram ride away – attractive to the discerning student who does not want to spend time and money traveling large distances to their lectures and seminars. The development is also conveniently located next to a Tesco and a five-minute walk from Sheffield’s main train station.

Shared spaces include kitchens, dining rooms and communal lounges. These come fully-equipped with state of the art features such as flat screen TVs.

Oakwood House Investment Fundamentals

• Purchase an apartment from just £57,950
• Assured rental yield of 8% for three years
• Fully managed, hands-off investment
• Fully furnished en-suite studios within walking distance of both university campuses

Why Invest in Student Accommodation?

A lot of investors are attracted to the idea of student property due to its easy maintenance. Developments are often fully managed, which is ideal for the overseas investor or busy individual who does not have the time to oversee its day-to-day running. These types of investments are becoming more and more popular, and Knight Frank estimates the purpose-built student accommodation market to be worth £46bn. The largest transaction was the purchase by the property arm of Temasek of a portfolio of 25 student buildings in various cities including London and Manchester. Hiew Yoon Khong, chief executive of Mapletree (Temasek’s real estate section), commented “Student accommodation is a big business and relatively low risk.”

Students are evidently willing to pay for good quality housing, which allows investors to achieve excellent yields. According to research by Knight Frank, over a fifth of students are willing to pay over £160 per week if the facilities impress them. Features most discerning students seek out include having an en-suite bathroom and a range of communal spaces – both of which Oakwood has.

For further information please complete the contact form below.

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PRA and Section 24 changes and what they mean for property investors

admin    Uncategorized     agents

How will lenders, brokers and investors alike be affected now and in the future by ongoing tax changes with Section 24 mortgage interest relief restrictions now being phased in and the PRA’s final wave of BTL underwriting standards, coming into effect on 30^th September 2017?

You can watch Shawbrook Bank’s Head of Sales Sarah Woolf, property investor Kim Stones and Laura Rodriquez from Property118 partner broker Brooklands Commercial Finance discuss these controversial issues in the video below.

If you require assistance with any type of property finance from Buy to Let mortgages, commercial mortgages, Development finance and Refurbs to Bridging finance for investors and developers please complete the contact form below and we will be pleased to get our team at Brooklands Commercial finance to help.

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Am I entitled to a refund

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Hi Guys – I have been a tenant in this property for 2.5 years – I was just coming up to my tenancy renewal – when I was informed that the landlord will be selling, I was then served with a section 21 notice .

I have now been told that I need to be out of the property by the 25th Sep

In the area where I live rental properties are very very hard to come by – I have now found something I like.

I spoke with the agency – who verbally told me that the LL would be happy for me to vacate the property on the 18th of August – I totally forgot to get this in writing. Based on what was discussed over the phone, I have told my new landlord I could move in by the 11th August – and hand the keys back (after a professional clean ) on the 18th has agreed above.

I have now emailed the the agent, and have been told that the LL is unhappy about this and will not be refunding me for the rest of the month 18th – 25th this should be around £430.

Am I able to get a refund or would this be dead in the water – I have honestly loved living there and have been quite frankly a model tenant – in fact I would buy the place if he wasn’t asking a crazy amount for the place.

Any help or advice on what to go back with would be great

Thank you so much

Zozo

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Did Buy-to-Let landlords cause the housing crisis?

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Media reports have long blamed landlords for causing the UK’s housing crisis, a phenomenon that is by no means confined to the UK. You only need to look at events in the Irish Republic, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and the USA to see that rising asset prices have had the same effect across the world, and this has hit first time buyers the hardest.

That did not stop the UK Government’s assault on UK landlords, with a series of tax hikes that have hit the sector hard, driving some to leave the buy-to-let market for good. The Government’s clear intention according to Peter Armistead, a property investor in South Manchester, was to reduce BTL profits and contract the market, in an effort to stabilise house prices and help first time buyers onto the property ladder.

The big question is, says Mr Armistead, will this strategy work, or have landlords simply been used as a scapegoat for the housing crisis?

According to former Bank of England economist, Professor David Miles, the buy-to-let assault has been ‘profoundly wrongheaded’ and the government has wrongly blamed landlords for rising house prices and a shortage of new homes available to first-time buyers.

Professor Miles has said the government’s move to make buy-to-let less attractive than homeownership would serve only to push up rents and make it even harder for young people to save for a deposit.

Landlords and all second home owners have been hit hard by the introduction of a 3% surcharge in stamp duty payable on buy-to-let purchases from April last year, together with a staggered reduction in the tax relief on mortgage interest payments they can claim from April 2017.

Previously, landlords could deduct both mortgage interest and other allowable costs associated with a let property from their rental income, before calculating how much tax was due. This meant the income they had to declare to HMRC was much lower than their rental income, keeping their costs down and keeping many in a lower income tax bracket.

Since 6 April 2017, landlords have seen the amount they can write off for tax purposes drop by 25% each tax year until 2020, when they will have to declare all of their rent as income, pay income tax on the total and then claim back for 20% of it as a credit.

According to Peter Armistead, Managing Director of Armistead Property, although the government is trying to curb the buy-to-let market, property investment is robust in the long term.

Mr Armistead commented:

“It is estimated that two million Britons are now private landlords collectively renting out five million properties.  With rising demand for rental property and a growing shortage of accommodation, the buy-to-let market will continue give a good return on investment.

“The good news for landlords is that while the new tax rules are challenging for most landlords, rising asset values and rental income will go a long way to protect profits.

“Landlords have plenty of options available that will help offset the increased taxation.  The first thing landlords should do is carry out a serious portfolio review and work out how the tax changes and tougher mortgage lending will affect them and what options there are to save, or make more money.  For example, mortgaging to get a better deal; renovating some old stock – these costs will be tax deductible; selling some properties; or increasing the rent.

“Landlords need to think outside the box and ask themselves questions like can I buy with cash or with far less leverage?; should I incorporate?; can I change a house into an HMO and increase the rental income?; can I get planning on an existing property to increase its value?; or can I add an extension, or convert the cellar?”

Peter Armistead has put together some options that landlords can consider to protect their profits:

• Review your properties and see if you can get planning on an existing property to increase its value, by adding an extension, or converting the cellars?
• If you have a one bedroomed property, can you make it into a small two bedroomed property?
• If you lack building skills/knowledge, but have equity or cash may be partnering with someone more skilled in building/renovation work would be profitable.
• Consider changing a house into an HMO and increase the rental income.
• There is a real shortage of properties right now and prices are at a record high so consider selling some stock.
• The tax changes don’t affect Limited Companies. Consider setting up a Limited Company and using this structure to hold your properties
• Are you an active or passive investor? Passive investors will get hit hardest by the changes.  May be active investors can find deals for other investors and create income streams there.
• It will become far more important to buy property below market value. You can’t just buy £1 of property for a £1 anymore.  Buying with a built-in discount will help ensure your investment is just that (i.e. an investment)
• Consider other specialist areas of property investment which compliment traditional BTL. For example, can you manage properties for other landlords and charge a fee for that service?  Can you sack your lettings agent and do the job yourself or use a cheaper online lettings agent?

Author Peter Armistead is a property investor in South Manchester.  He has developed and sold over 400 properties and has a portfolio of over 100 properties in Manchester.

www.armisteadproperty.co.uk

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – Did Buy-to-Let landlords cause the housing crisis? | LandlordZONE.

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Fresh start with £150k what would you do?

admin    Uncategorized     agents

If you had to start all over again from scratch and had £150k as starting pot what would you do considering in this world of additional SDLT and Section 24?

Would you leverage with bridging loans for the flipping company and use those profits generated to buy more properties to flip or would you start to build the BTL portfolio and use the profits as deposits? Or a bit of both?

I can give the investment/business my full time attention and I am based in London with a young family. I would appreciate if someone experienced is able to offer advice and pointers.

Many thanks

RBZ

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Important PRA changes to BTL lending from 30th September

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The following is another 90 second video produced by our friends at Shawbrook Bank to explain how BTL mortgage underwriting will change from September this year.

Is it a good thing that mortgage lenders are being forced to lend more prudently or do you see it another way?

Please discuss.

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Landlords losing confidence in rental profits

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Landlords are losing confidence in their ability to rely on steady rental yields, according to recent figures from the National Landlords Association (NLA).

The figures show that the proportion of landlords who are optimistic about their ability to rely on a steady rental yield has fallen 15% in the past two years, down from 64% in Q2 2015 to just 49% in Q2 2017.

The drop-off in confidence coincides with the period since the announcement from the then Chancellor George Osborne in July 2015 that mortgage interest relief would be removed for landlords.

However, the sentiment contrasts with actual rental yields achieved across the UK, which have remained fairly stable. Over the past few years, the average yield has fluctuated around the 6% mark.

Regionally, landlords in the East Midlands currently generate the highest rental yields at 6.9%. By contrast, landlords in outer London generate the lowest yields at 5%. A full regional breakdown can be found below.

The news comes during a time when property prices in many areas of the United Kingdom are stalling. The average price of a home rose in July by 0.3% following recent declines in May, April, and March.

Richard Lambert, Chief Executive Officer at the NLA, said:

“Average rental yields have remained fairly stable over the past few years, yet there is a steady increase in landlords losing confidence in their ability to make a profit from letting property.

“This perception probably exists because many will now be feeling the impact on their businesses of greater taxation and the costs of complying with regulation, which are eating away at their profits and making it harder to provide homes.

“Like any business, the increasing value of the capital assets on your balance sheet will be of little help if you are treading the fine line between profit and loss, especially if you can’t keep up your mortgage payments in the short term”.

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Guardian’s current onslaught against private landlords

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It’s getting very hard to keep up with the Guardian’s current onslaught against private landlords; it’s also supremely ironic that they should be engaging in this one-sided tirade whilst simultaneously stating that the paper provides: ‘quality, independent journalism, which discovers and tells readers the truth.’

I would beg to differ.

Just in the last few weeks we have had article after article attacking private landlords and presenting inaccurate, biased and illogical arguments in order to do so.

The first in a recent spate of articles was written by the Policy Editor, Michael Savage; it contained a highly selective interpretation of a recent report commissioned by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, which in itself was significantly flawed.

100 tenants a day lose homes as rising rents and benefit freeze hit

The mistakes in the article by Savage were multiple; for example, he referred to ‘the spiralling cost of renting a property’ (when, in fact, rents have increased over recent years largely in line with inflation and earnings); to ‘no-fault evictions’ (there is no such thing. He was referring to Section 21 of the Housing Act 1988 which allows landlords to apply to court for possession without giving a reason; this does not mean no-one is at fault); he stated that Section 21 gives tenants two months to leave, but for the sake of accuracy, he should have said in practice if the tenant decides to sit tight (as local authorities, the Citizens Advice Bureau and ‘homelessness’ charities often advise), it takes a minimum of 5 months during which many tenants enjoy a rent-free stay, while the landlord has to still pay the mortgage and running costs.

Finally he presented an uncorroborated case study of a tenant who allegedly had to move many times over recent years. This is not ‘evidence.’ When case studies like this are offered there should be corroboration by the landlord. How do we know this person wasn’t a nightmare tenant and/or serial defaulter on the rent? It seems very suspicious to me that so many landlords should have allegedly served her with a notice to quit, as changes of tenancy are very expensive to landlords who prefer decent tenants to stay put for many years (the average tenancy length in the private rented sector is 4.3 years, meaning many tenants stay a lot longer).

As if it wasn’t already enough to read his partial analysis of the deeply flawed JRF report – there is a critique of it here:

Who hijacked the JRF project “Poverty, evictions and forced moves”?

Dan Wilson Craw of the vehemently anti-private landlord organisation, Generation Rent, was given the opportunity by the Guardian to piggy back on to the previous article. The Guardian thereby allowed him to ramp things up even more with inflammatory language about landlords ‘turfing people out of their homes without reason.’

Landlords are turfing people out of their homes without reason – and it’s completely legal

Wilson Craw stated that the primary cause of homelessness is the ending of a private tenancy. The ending of a private tenancy, however, is a process and not a cause. Private tenancies end for all manner of reasons, notably for non-payment of rent and other breaches of tenancy or the landlord wishing to sell (especially now because punitive tax rates and persistent attacks on the sector are creating an intolerable and unviable atmosphere in which to run a business).

If an employer sacks an employee for stealing, it is tautological nonsense to say ‘losing the job caused the employee’s joblessness’. These self-appointed ‘experts’ must stop repeating this inane comment.

The other logic that they seem oblivious to is that evictions are only possible because the private landlords have provided the housing in the first place – and as private landlords now provide slightly more housing than the social sector (because of the  Government sell-off of social housing), then so the rate of evictions from the former has risen, proportionately.

Conversely, organisations like Shelter and Generation rent do not evict anyone, because they don’t house anyone (additionally, when landlords evict someone, they then house someone else, so they still provide the same amount of housing; they are not engaged in ‘buy to leave’ and leaving properties empty; but rather maximising the use of housing as is needed in a housing crisis).

Wilson Craw also used the JRF report for his organisation’s political ends of aiming to get Section 21 notices scrapped (even though the JRF recommended firstly observing the Scottish experiment with this before considering following suit).

He then stated: ‘Landlords should be legally accountable for ending a contract early.’ This is completely inaccurate as landlords cannot end contracts early and if they did try they would be legally accountable.

He then squeezed in a call for rent controls (which have in fact a highly destructive impact in practice). He presented no case for how they would be a solution to anything; as Kristian Niemitz of the Institute of Economic Affairs has pointed out, when rent controls are proposed, it is always deemed self-explanatory that they provide a solution. Well, capping the price of bread in Venezuela under Maduro hasn’t worked; shop owners simply stopped selling it, rather than operate at a loss.

Similarly, if landlords have their ability to charge a market rent denied and, under the new tax regime whereby they cannot offset finance costs, operate at a loss also, then many will simply withdraw from the market and exacerbate the housing shortage in the rented sector.

In response to these articles, I proceeded to write to several journalists and section editors at the Guardian, including Michael Savage, as the Policy Editor. I attached an article I had drafted which would have provided some balance had the Guardian printed it.

Michael Savage suggested however that I send it in as letter (yes, a summary of my article in letter format would help balance all the inaccuracies and bias of the two prominent articles which had been published by this stage).

Instead, yet another article appeared, this time from a freelance journalist, Abi  Wilkinson, declaring that the housing market is ‘corrupted’ (whatever that means) and that the profit motive must be removed from it.

Britain’s corrupted housing market needs more than a lick of paint

It’s not clear how this would be done. Perhaps Ms Wilkinson thinks one can instantly magic up millions of new properties for the social sector (where there is presumably no ‘profit motive’ apart from needing to get the rent collected so that the properties will be maintained, the finance costs on the loans to build the properties will be paid and the staff will receive their remuneration, so actually that is the same kind of profit motive that exists in the private sector).

Ms Wilkinson may also think private landlords will run their businesses for nothing (‘at cost’).  For those of us who provide housing to many people and do this as a full-time occupation, I assume we will then live on fresh air whilst also going out each day dealing with our tenants’ issues.

I assume she would then like other business people to run their services and provide their goods at cost.  In this new utopia, I assume she won’t mind also working on her ill-informed articles, getting them published and also not being paid for her work.

Following this piece, the Guardian then published a case study of one woman (who is using the article to flog her new book as a novelist) who, according to the headline, made ‘a profit of £190,000 almost entirely due to house price rises’ on one flat in Oxford.

Goodbye to buy-to-let: why I’m moving on after 13 years as a landlady

In fact, the figures presented in the article were completely inaccurate as was the headline. Ms Lafaye bought the property for £155,000 and sold it for approximately £270,000. That is an initial profit of £115,000, but deducting costs and capital gains tax leaves a profit of £94,000, not including the cost of any capital improvements done during the 13 years of ownership.  So her profit is less than half of what is declared in the article.

I believe the exaggeration/false reporting feeds into the narrative of landlords making a killing out of house price increases, when in recent years gains like this have been very localised in areas like the south-east, London and towns like Oxford. Also, as landlords pay capital gains tax and owner occupiers don’t, the latter make far more from any increase in value and yet the Guardian isn’t talking about them cashing in on house prices and it isn’t calling for owner-occupiers to pay tax on their vast ‘unearned’ profit as landlords have to.

I would suggest that publishing a case study of one landlord compounds the distorted representation of the private rented sector. If the Guardian wants to be seen as independent, it would have been more appropriate to have three case studies; one with a landlord who had done well (but with accurate figures), one with a landlord who had broken even and one with a landlord who had lost out from their investment (there are plenty of landlords in this category).

Being a landlord does not give you a golden ticket to success; if it did everyone would do it. In fact most people are far too frightened to take the risks associated with this line of work and also do all the dirty work that can come with it (over the years I’ve had to clean dog poo off carpets, clean away broken, bloody glass after a self-harm incident, hold a tenant’s bloody head while waiting for the ambulance and so on. In fact, it was only afterwards that I realised I could have been infected with HIV).

Moving on, as I write this, we now have yet another article from the Guardian.

Outrage at eviction company advert calling tenants ‘household pests’

And in this, once more, the Guardian is serving as a mouthpiece for Generation Rent and Shelter. Although the article is about an eviction company referring to tenants as ‘household pests,’  the Guardian quotes Seb Klier, campaigns manager at Generation Rent, saying that ‘comparing tenants to vermin provided a shocking insight into the way renters are viewed by some landlords and agents.’

But landlords and agents had nothing to do with the advert. It was from a company based in one area of the UK. This company’s insensitive publicity campaign also did not merit a whole article, in which once more gross generalisations could be made about  ‘colossal rents, being forced to live in flats crawling with mice or rats, and having the threat of eviction hanging over them…’.

The Guardian is wittingly or unwittingly allowing itself to be used to push the propaganda of anti-private landlords groups with these inaccurate, illogical, biased and distorted ‘analyses.’ It is shoddy work and I call upon the Guardian to now publish a set of counterbalancing articles to put this right.

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Oh The Irony Of It All

admin    Uncategorized     agents

When one of our established members compared the functionality of the new Property118 website to that of The Guardian yesterday I must admit to being flattered.

Naturally, The Guardian was held up as being the better of the two in terms of functionality, and much as I disagree with much of their content, I have to agree that their website functionality is better than ours. But so it should be. They have a champagne budget to play with (Krug Grand Cru at that), whereas we are operating with a comparatively Tesco Value Lemonade budget, R Whites at best.

And there lays the irony, they are a left wing Newspaper group bordering on socialistic journalism whereas Property118 is run by for the benefit of capitalistic rental property business owners.

Our mission is to facilitate the sharing of best practice. For this reason alone, we must do all that we can to improve commenting functionality. Last year the Property118 website served over 5 million unique user sessions. If just 1% of those visitors had contributed to discussions by sharing their knowledge, just imagine how much more useful information they would have added to the Property118 shared knowledge bank.

The discussion ended in our established member offering the following ‘wish-list’ in regards to Property118 commenting functionality.

“I click on the ‘Reply’ link for the message that I want to comment on

If I am not logged in I am offered a popup dialog in order to be able to do so.

If I am logged in a popup dialog appears that invites me to enter my comment text

I enter my comment text

I click on ‘POST COMMENT’

The web site reloads the page with my new comment in context (i.e. attached to the message that I was commenting to but offset slightly (to the right) to make it clear that it is a response rather than a new message and aligns the view window so that I am presented with the page I was looking at when I made the decision to comment in the exact same pixel perfect place that it was before subject only to my additional comment.”

As you maybe aware, Property118 is only a small operation, just a team of four at the moment. We outsource our website development to an amazing company in Norwich called Accent Design, whose passion for what they do for the money we pay them is off-the scale! Nevertheless, our budget to develop the Property118 forum comes entirely from donations and whatever money we can spare from our own funds.

If you like the suggestions above in regards to commenting, please help us to make that a reality sooner rather than later by clicking on the button below.

Show DONATIONS FORM

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