BTL purchase inside a new LLP?

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Hi, I am looking to purchase a new Buy to Let investment property. However, I would like to make the purchase of the property inside a newly created Limited Liability Partnership (LLP)  i.e. I am not transferring an existing property to the LLP.

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Muslim Charity Increases Housing Grant by 50%

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In response to the recent change in renting law, UK Muslim Charity, National Zakat Foundation (NZF), are introducing a Covid recovery scheme to support those at risk of eviction.

The charity which collects Zakat, an obligatory payment in the Islamic faith of 2.5% of annual qualifying wealth which is then distributed back into the Muslim community

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Star line-up for first live landlord show since Covid is released

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The full list of speakers and conference topics to be tackled during this month’s Property Investor Show has been released.

Taking place on October 15^th and 16^th visitors will have 90 exhibitors to visit and be able to hear many of the industry’s big names speak at 68 different panel sessions.

These include evictions expert and TV star Paul Shamplina, Rightmove’s David Cox, NRLA chief Ben Beadle, Vanessa Warwick of Property Tribes, PIN founder Simon Zutshi, auction guru David Sandeman and journalist Richard Bowser.

The Property Investor Show will be the first large-scale in-person event staged for the sector since the Covid pandemic hit 18 months ago.

Outspoken property industry figure Russell Quirk, who famously launched hybrid property firm Emoov and more recently correctly called the post Brexit/Covid housing market, will also be hosting two industry discussion panels on both days.

“Join me on Friday 15^th October where I’ll explain what will happen in the next 12 months and why,” he says.
Panel debates include the following (and a full list of speakers and panels) can be found here:

• Is now a good time to be investing in UK property?
• Holiday Lets – expert advice on how to maximise yields
• How to buy and sell at property auctions – the way the pros do
• Fraudulent Tenants – identifying them and avoiding them
• How to fund every property deal – dispelling the myths
• Using data to boost your investment outcome
• How to mitigate the three big tax traps for landlords
• Starting and growing your property development business
• The State of the PRS (Keynote Panel)

Nick Clark, Managing Director of the Property Investor Show says: “It’s the first opportunity in two years for anyone interested in investing in property and for suppliers that want to reach investors, to network together and to benefit from each other”.

“Networking is such an important part of our sector and I suspect that most of us are rather Zoomed out now after many months of sitting in front of a screen’.

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – Star line-up for first live landlord show since Covid is released | LandlordZONE.

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Landlords should be taxed more than home owners, voters tell poll

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More people think that landlords should be forced to pay higher taxes than they do investors or homeowners, according to a new poll for the TaxPayers’ Alliance.

Only 10% believe homeowners should be taxed more, while 43% think those who earn money from investments should pay more tax, but 47% say landlords should be hit harder – 29% say they should pay the same and only 11% say they should be taxed less.

Interestingly, those who own their homes outright are more likely to want landlords paying more (50%) compared to renters (48%), while Conservative voters are least likely to want higher landlord taxes (48%) compared to Brexit voters (59%) and Labour voters (50%).

The poll, conducted by policy research group Public First, found that young people (28%) and families (27%) are deemed to be most negatively affected by the tax system, while only 5% reckon landlords have been hardest hit and 10% think renters have been badly affected.

The Tax Payers Alliance, which opposes almost all unnecessary government spending and tax raising, has the ear of government and its chief executive John O’Connell is due to interview the Chancellor Rishi Sunak at a Conservative Party Conference fringe event this week.

The poll found that working class voters are turning on the Conservatives over tax and the cost of living. Asked whether they trust the Conservatives or Labour more on “keeping taxes low for people like you”, 34% of people trust Labour more compared to 31% who chose the Conservatives; 35% of working-class voters chose Labour compared to only 22% for the Tories.

O’Connell says taxpayers are facing the highest burden in 70 years.

“They are crying out for politicians to relieve the pressures whittling away the money in their wallets,” he adds. “Hard-working households and struggling firms know that things are only likely to get worse over coming months. The Budget in October is an opportunity for the Chancellor to prove the Tories still care about cutting the cost of living for ordinary taxpayers.”

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – Landlords should be taxed more than home owners, voters tell poll | LandlordZONE.

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Rental demand in cities strengthens as workers return

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Research by Barrows and Forrester, has revealed that rental demand has continued to climb across the vast majority of major UK cities during Q3, as a slow but steady return to the workplace, amongst other things, spurs a greater demand for rental homes within major urban areas.

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One HMO tenant left after Section 21?

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I own a 6 bed HMO and wish to renovate it and rent out as a whole house. Having served a section 21 several months ago (via my solicitor and agent) all the tenants have now left, except one. The remaining is refusing to leave.

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NRLA launches national property licensing compliance checking service

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Landlords worried over local selective and HMO licensing compliance can now access a free service provided via the National Residential Landlords Association (NRLA) by digital platform Kamma.

Available to the NRLA’s 90,000 landlords as part of their membership, they will be able to access both live licensing updates via Kamma’s Licensing 365 service or via the trade body’s telephone advice line.

Until now, the Kamma service was available to letting agents only and other property market suppliers such as conveyancers, surveyors and lenders.

The service also enables landlords to significantly speed up the often time-consuming and arduous task of filling in a property licensing application form.

Headache

Property licensing is becoming an increasing headache for landlords within the UK’s urban areas as councils use selective and HMO licensing zones to enforce housing standards.

Kamma reckons the average fine for a landlord under these schemes is just shy of £4,000, although the rules vary and are applied haphazardly across the UK, although these can run into the tens, and occasionally hundreds of thousands of pounds.

“We know from experience that the complexity of local regulations can often be a barrier to compliance,” says Kamma CEO, Orla Shields (pictured).

“By partnering with the NRLA we’re able to provide immediate answers to member questions through the NRLA advice line and continuous monitoring of their properties through the Kamma Licensing 365 platform. “We know that a significant proportion of non-compliance is due to the difficulty of well-intentioned landlords not knowing what laws apply to their local area.”

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – NRLA launches national property licensing compliance checking service | LandlordZONE.

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Test case: Servicing a section 21 notice and prescribed information

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The Section 21 possession procedure (currently under threat of being removed) is a no fault eviction process where the landlord can serve notice on a tenant to regain possession once the initial minimum 6 months’ or contracted fixed term has ended.

A section 21 notice is for 2 months and will only be valid if the landlord or agent has met certain specific requirements, one of these being the service on the tenant of the correct prescribed information before or at the commencement of the tenancy.

Prescribed information required

In England, in addition to the deposit being protected in an approved scheme within 30 days of receipt, and the property being properly licenced for lettings, the landlord or agent must (1) provide prescribed information relating to the deposit, (2) provide an EPC, (3) provide gas and electrical safety certificates as appropriate, (4) provide the tenant with the current How to Rent guide

In addition the landlord must not be in breach of the Retaliatory Eviction regulations 2015 following a complaint about repairs, or the Tenant Fees regulations 2019 which prevent landlords from taking certain fees.

Meeting all of these requirements demands a good degree of due diligence on the part of the landlord or agent, but this is a crucial step in the letting process if a Section 21 notice is to result in a successful eviction.

The gas certificate controversy

There was some controversy some little while ago; a court found for a tenant when the landlord had failed to serve a gas safety certificate (GSC) before the tenancy commenced and ruled that the S21 notice was therefore defective.

Thankfully this anomaly – which would have resulted in thousands of landlords unable to use s21 – was cleared up by The Court of Appeal in Trecarrell House Ltd v Rouncefield [2020] when is was confirmed that a landlord failing to provide a tenant with a copy of a GSC before the start of a tenancy does not create an absolute bar on landlords subsequently relying upon the S.21 eviction procedure.

The default can be remedied by providing the certificate before serving a S.21 notice, providing the certificate was in force at the commencement of the tenancy. It also follows that failure to provide a copy of any further GSC relating to subsequent gas checks is not fatal providing they are given before a S.21 notice is served.

The test case

In the test case under consideration here in George Minister v Darran Hathaway and Susan Hathaway June 2021, the issue was whether a notice served by the landlord on the tenant under Section 21 of the Housing Act 1988 was invalid because no energy performance certificate (“EPC”) had been served prior to the service of the section 21 notice.

This tenancy had commenced in 2008, before EPCs for lettings came into force from 1 October 2015.

The question was whether service of an EPC was required at the relevant time under the 1988 Housing Act, the Deregulation Act 2015 (“the 2015 Act”) and the Assured Shorthold Tenancy Notices and Prescribed Requirements (England) Regulations 2015.

The judgement

District Judge K. Harper had held that service of an EPC was required and therefore the section 21 notice was invalid, whereas His Honour Judge Simpkiss on appeal held that service of an EPC was not required and therefore the section 21 notice was valid.

The tenant however was granted permission for a second appeal because the issue was deemed one which had divided judges and commentators alike.

This second appeal determined that a landlord of an assured shorthold tenancy (AST) commencing before 1 October 2015 could in fact enforce a Section 21 notice even though the tenant had not be served with an EPC before the S21 notice was served.

An important precedent

The case sets an important precedent – which applies only to England – for all prescribed information relating to Section 21 and AST tenancies which began before 1 October 2015.

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – Test case: Servicing a section 21 notice and prescribed information | LandlordZONE.

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Landlord couple fined £190,000 after evading HMO licensing at six properties

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A landlord couple who avoided licensing six of their 600 properties in East London have been fined almost £190,000.

Husband and wife Lahrie Mohamed and Shehara Lahrie, directors of at least 28 property companies, claimed they were renting the six HMOs to a single tenant, which was in fact their letting agent; one HMO in Eastfield Road (pictured), Walthamstow, was home to seven people under four tenancies, which they said was one household.

Last May, the pair lost two judicial reviews against Waltham Forest Council in a landmark ruling after first being summonsed to magistrates’ court in 2017. The council was represented legal firm Sharpe Pritchard.

Their legal challenges were dismissed and the court ruled that the council was not required to demonstrate that they were aware their properties were being used as unlicensed HMOs.

£1,000 fee

For a Leytonstone property, in Napier Road, they received more than £33,000 in rent a year without having to pay the £1,000 licence fee or management costs.

Mohamed Lahrie’s lawyer, Imran Khan QC, (pictured) said the properties were just 1% of their property portfolio and insisted the financial benefit of not declaring these six HMOs was “miniscule”.

He added: “Mr Mohamed arrived in this country with little money in his pocket and built up a portfolio over two or three decades, through hard work with his wife.

“That property portfolio has been engaged in providing safe and fit homes for many of the residents of Waltham Forest. Mr Mohamed, as a result of this case, has sold his portfolio of properties.”

Outside the court, Lahrie told the Local Democracy Reporting Service: “I have learned my lesson and I regret what I did.”

At the start of the hearing, letting agent Station Estates Limited was formally cleared of charges against it after the council offered no evidence. According to Companies House, the agency was declared bankrupt in May 2019.

Read more about HMO licensing fines.

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – Landlord couple fined £190,000 after evading HMO licensing at six properties | LandlordZONE.

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Lichfield Council need more private homes and offering Landlords up to 6 months rent in advance

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Lichfield District Council in Staffordshire are offering landlords up to six months rent in advance if they lease one or more homes to Spring housing association in a bid to help people who are sleeping rough or at risk of becoming homeless.

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