Fire Risk assessments should be performed forensically

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This is just one of many examples of the risks if a Fire Risk Assessment is not performed forensically. Many landlords consider themselves competent to do their own Fire Risk Assessments. 99% of landlords are not competent because they do not have the in-depth knowledge nor experience of what is an extremely complex subject.

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LATEST: Covid shielding landlord facing £26,000 rent repayment order

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A rogue landlord who tried to use Covid as an excuse for not licensing his HMO has been ordered to pay back £26,000 via a rent repayment order.

David Ahearne, 78, was slapped with a rent repayment order by the First Tier Property Tribunal despite explaining that he had intended to apply to licence the five-bedroom house in Downhills Park Road, Wood Green, but was unable to due to the pandemic and had been told to shield; a cancer diagnosis had preoccupied him to such an extent that he was unable to concentrate on the business.

He added that Haringey Council had also failed to prompt him.

Ahearne was the freehold owner of the HMO from the mid 1990s until it was sold to Knockboy Investments Ltd in December 2020, the directors of which are family members including himself.

He employed management agent HAM Estates to introduce tenants to the property, manage the deposits and to carry out maintenance – of which he is a director.

Financial statement

Ahearne argued that he was not able to repay the entire sum as his financial circumstances had been severely affected by the pandemic and produced a bank statement indicating his balance was £6,108.

However, the tribunal heard that he started his property portfolio in 1975 and owned this property without a mortgage until he sold it for £450,000 in December 2020. He owns about a dozen properties under his own name, most outright, and more through HAM Estates.

It ruled that forgetfulness nor being too distracted to licence a property constituted a reasonable defence – particularly as he was a professional landlord who could have delegated the responsibility.

Tenants Micheil Page, Nathalie Botcherby, Rut Einarsdotttr, Hannah Dalby and Zelda McCormic were awarded a total of £26,207 for the period from September 2019 to September 2020, along with £300 fees.

Read more about large RROs

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Misled about floor area and now can’t sell?

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My daughter is trying to sell her flat which she bought 3 years ago. The new agents have informed her that the floor area is 27sq m, and that it will not be possible for her to proceed to sell to another mortgage holder if it is below the threshold of 30 sq m

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Tenant only missed one month but needs Section 21?

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A tenant who can’t pay her rent was going to leave (possibly to live with family) but the Local Authority is asking her to get a Section 21 from me. This means starting the eviction process. She says she can’t get UC or any help from the Job Centre until she gets this.

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Mandatory redress scheme membership for landlords WILL happen, says Minister

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The government’s housing minister in the Lords has warned private landlords that mandatory membership of a redress scheme is around the corner.

In a reply to question to Baroness Ritchie about the government’s ongoing eviction mediation pilot, which he says is still being assessed, Lord Greenhalgh said the government remains strongly committed to bringing in redress for landlords.

Letting agents are already required to be a member of a redress scheme which, for a fee, mediates between tenants and agents over disputes. These issues often include poor service, rent not being passed on and shoddy maintenance work.

But landlords are not included in the Letting Agency Work and Property Management Work (Approval and Designation of Schemes) (England) Order 2013 which brought in mandatory membership in 2014 for lettings agents.

This will be a thorny issue for the government to untangle – for example, will a landlord have to join a scheme even if their property is managed by an agent, and which redress scheme would a tenant take a complaint to if both agent and landlords are members of different schemes?

“These issues need to be thought through and resolved before the legislation is prepared,” says Sean Hooker, who heads up the Property Redress Scheme. It is one of the two government-approved bodies, along with The Property Ombudsman.

“Nevertheless, all landlords registering with a redress scheme would mean that the whole private rental sector would be accountable to a complaint process.”

DIY operators

Approximately half of all landlords use a letting agent and that means over a million landlords are DIY operators and would be covered by new redress legislation.

“This will ensure that all tenants have access to redress where they have a legitimate complaint about their home, and will also make it easier for private landlords to understand their obligations,” said Greenhalgh.

The issues remains high on the political agenda – in April an ITV investigation in to ‘mouldy homes’ in the UK called for a better system to handle maintenance and repairs complaints between landlords and tenants.

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – Mandatory redress scheme membership for landlords WILL happen, says Minister | LandlordZONE.

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EXODUS: Leading North London landlord family with 17 properties quits the sector

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A landlord family has sold its large portfolio in north London to a property group after renting its 17 homes out for 30 years.

The portfolio — which sold for an undisclosed sum — is made up of 10 houses and seven flats in St Albans, Fleetville, Harpenden and London Colney and was bought by Clarence Property Group (CPG) after being in the same family for two generations.

Originally owned by a landlord couple, the investment passed to their three children who opted to sell it as one portfolio. 

CPG owner Chris Johnson (pictured) made the purchase after contacting the family through Daniels Estate Agents, which had managed the portfolio for 30 years. 

“They were looking to wind down,” Johnson told The Herts Advertiser. “We approached them back in February, which coincided with them deciding to sell.”

Three of the houses are occupied by sitting tenants, while the rest are let on assured shorthold tenancies. The flats are in an unbroken block in Grosvenor Road, St Albans, with a large garden which CPG is considering for further development.

The flats are all let on ASTs, apart from one occupied by a sitting tenant. Johnson added: “The sitting tenants and all the flats will all be retained for long-term investment, while some of the houses may be sold in the short to medium term, as and when they become vacant.”

This is the St Albans-based firm’s second portfolio acquisition of the year, after it bought five freehold buildings in West Norwood.

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – EXODUS: Leading North London landlord family with 17 properties quits the sector | LandlordZONE.

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New Lords Committee launches inquiry on UK housing needs

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A newly created House of Lords Built Environment Committee has launched its first inquiry on the demand for new housing in the UK and how barriers to meeting this demand can be overcome.

The focus of the inquiry will be on the key factors shaping the type

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A step towards a fully digital planning system

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MHCLG has launched two new web apps to will help owners improve and extend their properties and are a step towards a fully digital planning system and will save time and money for developers, architects and homeowners by speeding up and simplifying the application process.

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DEADLINE: From tomorrow ALL new tenants must be checked for immigration status

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Right to Rent changes come in tomorrow (1^st July) when landlords will need to start checking the immigration status of all adults before they let a property, regardless of their nationality.

EEA citizens and their family members now need immigration status in the UK, in the same way as other foreign nationals, and can’t rely on an EEA passport or national ID card to prove their right to rent. 

Most will have applied to the EU Settlement Scheme and already have digital evidence of their UK immigration status.

The government has reassured landlords they won’t need to evict a tenant who doesn’t have settled status unless issued with a ‘Notice of letting to a disqualified person’ by the Home Office.

 It has also confirmed that retrospective checks on existing EU, EEA or Swiss tenants won’t be required.

Discriminatory

But landlords will be held to be discriminatory if they only check people who they think are not UK citizens – all tenants must be checked regardless of their status.

Tenants with settled status can evidence their right to rent by sharing their immigration status digitally using the online Right to Rent service on GOV.UK which includes their photograph and personal details. Landlords can also make hard copy checks using a newly updated property documents list.

During Covid, landlords have not had to physically inspect Right to Rent documentation or conduct checks face-to-face.

Full document checks had been due to return on 21^st June but, following the government’s decision to delay the full suspension of Covid restrictions in England, this has now been extended until the end of August meaning that scanned or videoed documents are still acceptable.

Read more about right to rent.

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TV show to feature landlord’s battle to get back property back from rogue tenant

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The next episode of the new and sixth series of Nightmare Tenants Slum Landlords is due to air on Thursday evening (1st July 2021) at 10pm on Channel 5 featuring evictions experts Paul Shamplina.

He will be seen helping landlord Sam Mubarak who bought a house for his mum but, when she became ill and moved back in with him, he then converted into an HMO.

A year-and-a-half ago, one of the tenants stopped paying rent and refused to move out, leaving Sam nearly £11,000 out of pocket and desperate to get his property back.

Vandalism

Other cases featured in the programme include letting agents Karen O’Connor and Gemma Painter who investigate claims of vandalism and anti-social behaviour at a property they manage in Wigan. 

When they discover the tenant is no longer living there, they track her down and discover she’s abandoned the property and has tried to move in somewhere else via a fake reference.  

Also, lawyer Chris Sharpe is called in to evict squatters who have taken over a commercial warehouse in Hackney, London and in Darwen, Lancashire letting agent Paul Ainsworth-Lord issues eviction proceedings on a tenant with over £3,000 in arrears. 

But his attempts at evicting him are delayed when the tenant refuses to leave unless Ainsworth-Lord gives him a good reference. 

The lawyer knows there’s only one way to sort out the problem – going straight to the tenant’s guarantor. But will she play ball with him or make the whole situation worse?

Watch the previous episode of the series aired on 24th June 2021.

Find out more about evictions. Read more stories about HMOs.

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