Helping Landlords Sell despite evictions ban extended to 31st May

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It was an evictions ban that was due to end on the 31st March, but the government has announced an extension to the ban on evicting tenants. A survey conducted by This Is Money showed that 70% of landlords have been contacted by tenants worried about paying rent.

Tenants that can’t pay rent, and Landlords that can’t evict them. That coupled with house prices predicted to fall following the end of the stamp duty holiday in June, and it’s clear that now is the perfect window to release the cash in your portfolios and sell up. Experts and Landlords alike are agreeing, there has never been a better time to sell your property portfolios than right now.

During Covid we’ve decided to go all-out to help landlords who are hit by section 24 taxes, by the pandemic, and by the recent evictions ban.

“We have seen an increase of landlords at Landlord Action desperate to gain possession from tenants failing to pay the rent, so they can sell their properties. With possession times taking the best part of a year including new notice period times, I envisage a lot more landlords will be selling their properties with tenants in situ.” – Paul Shamplina

National Residential, a trusted company who are known for their “any problem we can fix” formula are taking the lead when it comes to selling portfolios fast and for the highest price. Founded by industry expert, David Coughlin, in 2006, National Residential have been able to provide the best solution for Landlords. Whether it’s selling part of your portfolio to release cash to pay the upcoming tax bills, or selling your full portfolio now before house prices fall, National Residential are doing it, and they’re even doing it with tenants still in the properties, overcoming the eviction bans in a way that no other company is doing.

Helping Landlords Sell

Being a private landlord myself, I first-hand understand the issues and challenges facing landlords right now. Now is the perfect time to sell, so it’s about overcoming problems fast, but also in a way that means both the landlord and the tenant are happy. At National Residential we know how to solve every barrier that landlords come up against, even for example when they can’t gain access to their own properties.

How we sell Landlord properties

Like many landlords at the moment, you may be considering selling either all or some of your buy-to-lets. Now is the right time, and we’re the team to do it. No matter what the obstacle, my experience, combined with my team’s expert knowledge, has allowed us to find that sweet spot.

Earlier in the month a landlord approached us with a portfolio of 5 tenanted properties that spanned from Staffordshire all the way up to Newcastle Upon Tyne. He’d read about us here and wanted to see if we really could deliver what we say. Like many landlords who’ve been approaching us recently, he wanted to sell up his portfolio fast, but get a great price.

We promised him exactly that. The highest price for his buy-to-lets, no matter what challenges needed to be overcome. With a mixture of clever marketing to both investors and first-time buyers to drive up the prices, and Covid-friendly video tours, we went all out to keep that promise.

The first property sold in 2 days. 10 days after that 2 more sold.

By day 24 the fourth property had sold in Durham, and by day 26 the last and final small property was sold in Lancashire. The fifth property was sold to a buyer who was so happy with the photos and the video tour we’d got from the tenant, he made an offer without even viewing the property.

The only task the landlord had done throughout the sale was make the decision to contact us to sell. We handled everything else.

It really was that simple. £500,000 made in 26 days with zero hassle, worry or stress. The landlord was able to sit back and enjoy just over 3 weeks of relaxation knowing he had the best team in the UK solving every single challenge for him.

No matter what issues arise, we really do overcome every single obstacle to get your properties sold for the best prices. On top of this, as with every case, all our buyers are chain free and pay 1% (min £2500) deposits, ensuring that buyers, regardless of whether they’re first time buyers or investors, are financially committed to the sale from the start and are able to complete quickly.

There’s no better time to consider selling your property portfolios than right now, and you only have to read our reviews on Google and Trustpilot to see that we’re a company who absolutely delivers what we say every single time.

So if you’re a Landlord who is considering selling your property portfolio, get in touch today and see for yourself what we can do for you.

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©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – Helping Landlords Sell despite evictions ban extended to 31st May | LandlordZONE.

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Home building figures pick up

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The number of homes being built since the lifting of the first period of national coronavirus restrictions continues to rise, latest housebuilding figures published show.

New data shows new housing starts were estimated to be 42,110 in the latest quarter (October – December 2020)

The post Home building figures pick up appeared first on Property118.

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LATEST: ‘Students will soon tire of remote learning and return to their accommodation’

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The Unite Group is Britain’s biggest student landlord with student accommodation in 22 towns and cities across the country, 170 student properties and around 74,000 beds. It has seen its occupancy rates drop to 65% during the pandemic.

But the company’s chief executive, Richard Smith, says he is optimistic that demand will return and his occupancy rates will return to between 95% and 98% in the 2021-2022 academic year, that’s the period from September 2021 onwards.

Mr Smith (pictured) does not see the trend to more remote learning – a necessary method of internet-based learning used by most universities and many schools during the pandemic – affecting demand long term; indeed he sees the demand for student accommodation in his properties returning as strong as ever.

Student life is about more that learning, says Mr Smith as he sees university education as also being about a “life experience”, though he acknowledges that remote learning may have a place post-pandemic. But this has a place in freeing up lecturers’ time from large impersonal lectures, allowing them the time to conduct more small tutorials, Mr Smith thinks.

Study areas

In line with this thinking, Mr Smith said that his company has been responding to student demand for more space for study over recent years by adapting its accommodation to provide more study areas.

The Unite company, which was started in Bristol in 1991, and is now a FTSE 250 listed company with a market capitalisation of around £4 billion, reported a pre-tax loss of £120.1 million for the year ending December 2020.

This follows a reported loss of £101.2 million loss for 2019, though this was largely as a result of Unite’s purchase of Liberty Living, one of its biggest UK rivals from the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board.

The company currently has between 1,500 and 2,000 new beds in its development pipeline, investing up to £200 million on new opportunities mainly in London. Smith sees his purpose-built student accommodation as being more affordable for students than university or private landlord provided accommodation.

Weekly rents charged by Unite range from, on average, £137 and £205 in London. This cost includes all utilities, WIFI and contents insurance. The company is budgeting for rental growth of 2% to3% over the coming academic year.

Read more about student renting.

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – LATEST: ‘Students will soon tire of remote learning and return to their accommodation’ | LandlordZONE.

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UC office assisting housing cost fraud?

admin    Uncategorized     agents

Dear members, On 16.03.21 I have emailed the following letter to, scotland.complaintsresolutionteam1 @dwp.gov.uk, for a new formal complaint to them regarding the UC housing cost of one of my tenant which is a situation I face regularly with tenants on UC during an end of the tenancy.

The post UC office assisting housing cost fraud? appeared first on Property118.

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Treat 300,000 Hong Kong arrivals with care when checking Right to Rent, Minister warns landlords

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The government appears to have admitted it has concerns about landlords discriminating against the potential influx of Hong Kong residents.

Home Office Minister Baroness Williams of Trafford advised landlords to be careful when doing Right to Rent checks on inbound Hong Kong residents, in response to a written question from Labour peer Lord Heath.

He asked what discussions the government had been having with landlord representatives to make sure they could access housing and wouldn’t face discrimination under the Right to Rent scheme by having to prove their immigration status.

“We are clear landlords must take extra care to ensure no-one is discriminated against when carrying out right to rent checks. Successful applicants for the BN(O) route will receive either a biometric residence permit or digital status, which will enable them to evidence their right to rent a property in the UK,” said Williams.

The government launched the new Hong Kong British National route in January to help local authorities and other services prepare for an estimated 300,000 who have been predicted to take up the offer of becoming a UK citizen over the next five years.

Right to Rent

Like any non-British would-be tenant, landlords will be responsible for checking their immigration status; any landlord found to have rented to someone who doesn’t have the required immigration status faces a fine of up to £3,000 or a criminal sentence.

The Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants believes the Right to Rent scheme should be immediately scrapped.

Legal policy director Chai Patel tells LandlordZONE: “Both the High Court and the Court of Appeal have found that it causes racial discrimination in the housing market and that the government issuing guidance doesn’t stop it. It’s totally unacceptable that Priti Patel supports a government scheme that encourages more racism, when she should be doing everything she can to stamp it out.”

Read more about recent changes to Right to Rent checks.

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – Treat 300,000 Hong Kong arrivals with care when checking Right to Rent, Minister warns landlords | LandlordZONE.

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EXCLUSIVE: Up to 750,000 landlords are caught up in cladding scandal, new data shows

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Up to 750,000 landlords could be affected by the cladding scandal, a much larger figure than previously claimed, according to new research.

About 1.5 million flats are thought to have flammable building cladding or other fire safety-related issues and face huge repair bills or difficulties moving their mortgage to a different lender.

Credit ratings firm DBRS Morningstar’s study of 64 UK mortgage portfolios found that of 670,000 mortgages, 106,000 loans were on flats, with 49,000 of these on BTL properties.

Extrapolating these figures points to half of the cladding affected flats being owned by landlords.

DBRS found that due to the reduced resale value or the increased burden of funding fire safety repairs, borrowers potentially face higher monthly mortgage payments when re-mortgaging.

£140 a month

The increase in most cases ranges from £15 to £140 per month but could be much higher, for example if owners have to pay the lender’s standard variable rate.

However, it says fire safety repair bills are unlikely to vary as much as property values.

It reckons borrowers in North England with lower value properties could face large bills relative to their property’s value; a £35,000 repair bill works out to about 36% of the average property value for a flat in Newcastle but would be only 7% of the average West London apartment value.

If property values were reduced by £35,000 due to fire safety defects, only 0.3% of West London flat mortgages would be in negative equity compared with 56% of flat mortgages in Newcastle.

Last month, leaseholders in buildings under 18 metres were told they would have to stump up the full remediation cost to fix the cladding crisis. Government grants only cover buildings over 18 metres – a move the Leasehold Knowledge Partnership has labelled shameful.

Read more about fire safety changes.

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – EXCLUSIVE: Up to 750,000 landlords are caught up in cladding scandal, new data shows | LandlordZONE.

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SHOCK REPORT: Eviction ban’s 21,000 ‘in-limbo’ Section 21 notice landlords

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Ministry of Justice data shows that there are approximately 21,000 landlords who have permission from the courts to evict tenants after serving Section 21 ‘no fault’ notices, but who are now stuck in limbo due to Covid.

These landlords, who have been ‘forgotten’ during the multiple extensions to the eviction ban over the past year since the pandemic started, are unable to sell properties, move back onto them or evict extreme rental arrears tenants until bailiff evictions are given the green light again.

The earliest that is likely to happen will the 31st May when the current ban ends, meaning many landlords will have been waiting 14 months or more since serving Section 21 notices either before the first evictions ban in March last year.

But while attention has been focussed on rent arrears and the financial problems it is causing for both tenants and their landlords, these 20,000 or so landlords are stuck.

Tim Frome of Landlord Action estimates that 25% of his firm’s current claims were initiated through Section 21 notices.

The problem with the government’s evictions ban is that it ‘blanket’ ban on all Section 21 evictions, even when a landlord may have a pressing financial need to repossess a property, and the tenant is not in financial distress.

30-month wait

We talked to one landlord, who wishes to remain anonymous after threats from the tenant involved, who served a Section 21 notice after he stopped paying rent in October 2018 and is still waiting for him to leave nearly 30 months later.

After it became clear that the tenant was intent on using every legal trick in the book to evade paying rent including refusing property inspections or maintenance requests, she issued a Section 21 ‘no fault’ notice and was granted a possession order in November 2019, with a bailiff date set for mid-April 2020.

Just before that date the government introduced its evictions ban, which has been in place ever since and is now set to finish at the end of May. This leaves the landlord’s case in limbo and the tenancy £30,000 in rent arrears plus costs and counting.

“The irony is that he’s not even living there and is illegally sub-letting the property so it’s not like we’re making him homeless,” she says.

“We’re not greedy landlords – we’re reasonable about tenants who are in financial distress and who we are happy to help out, but at the moment the law protects tenants intent on ripping us off too as well as the vulnerable.”

Read more about Section 21 notice evictions.

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – SHOCK REPORT: Eviction ban’s 21,000 ‘in-limbo’ Section 21 notice landlords | LandlordZONE.

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MINISTER: Landlords can reject pets if ‘demonstrably poorly behaved’

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The government has hardened its position on the hurdles that tenants will have to clear before a landlord needs to allow pets into their property.

Answering a written question from MP Rachael Maskell (pictured) about what constitutes a good reason for landlords to decline a pet ownership request from a tenant, Housing Minister Christopher Pincher (pictured training a police dog, main pic) provided a more detailed explanation using the revised Model Tenancy Agreement, that should give landlords a little more leeway.

He replied: “A good reason for a landlord to decline a pet ownership request would be where a pet is demonstrably poorly behaved or unsuited for the premises in question, for example, a large dog in a small flat, or where other tenants have allergies to animals.”

The minister has gone further than the agreement, which instead notes that, ‘The landlord should accept such a request where they are satisfied the tenant is a responsible pet owner and the pet is of a kind that is suitable in relation to the nature of the premises at which it will be kept.’

Revised agreement

Pincher added: “The revised agreement provides that a private landlord who chooses to use the agreement should accept a request from a tenant to keep pets where they are satisfied the tenant is a responsible pet owner and the pet is of a kind that is suitable in relation to the nature of the premises at which it will be kept.

“It aims to remove restrictions on responsible tenants with pets, encouraging landlords who use the agreement to offer greater flexibility in their approach to pet ownership.”

Many landlords are concerned that the new guidelines force them to accept pets, however, the new terms and conditions are voluntary.

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – MINISTER: Landlords can reject pets if ‘demonstrably poorly behaved’ | LandlordZONE.

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LATEST: Speculation rises over how taxing CGT changes will be for landlords next week

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Speculation is rife that the Chancellor is set to announce a long-term tax-raising plan that would include a Capital Gains Tax (CGT) rise next year.

Rishi Sunak didn’t change the rates in his recent budget as many had feared – instead he promised to maintain the current level until April 2026; 18% for basic rate taxpayers and 28% for those in the higher rate threshold, with tax exempt on the initial £12,300.

But before the budget, Sunak’s office released a statement explaining how more details of a planned tax regime would follow on 23^rd March.

Although it promised the announcement wouldn’t affect government finances this year, it leaves the door open to tax rises in 2022.

The Office of Tax Simplification has previously called for CGT to increase in line with income tax rates of 20% at the basic rate and 40% at the higher rate, while also lowering the initial amount exempt to just £2,000.

If these changes are adopted by the government, research by lettings and estate agent, Benham and Reeves based on the average capital gain of a buy-to-let investment of £82,798, shows how it would hit landlords hard.

Higher CGT?

Selling in the current market would see a lower rate taxpayer pay £12,690 in CGT, while a higher rate taxpayer would pay £19,739.

But if these changes take effect, the tax owed would climb to £14,100 for a basic tax rate payer, while those in the higher threshold would see it increase to £28,199, a jump of £8,460.

Beham and Reeves director Marc von Grundherr (pictured) believes the proposed changes would be another nail in the coffin of the buy-to-let sector.

He says: “A further increase in capital gains rates is nothing more than a blatant attack on landlords. The government seems intent on targeting landlords and second homeowners as the cause of the current housing crisis. The reality is, their failure to build enough homes is the driving cause.”

Read more about the proposed CGT ‘tax raid’.

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – LATEST: Speculation rises over how taxing CGT changes will be for landlords next week | LandlordZONE.

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BREAKING: Home Office to bring in unlimited fines for landlords who break fire safety rules

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HMO landlords and their managing agents could face unlimited fines following new measures revealed by the Home Office today.

It says, once legislation is in place, the unlimited fines will be handed out to building owners who are caught obstructing or impersonating a fire inspector as well as to those who breach fire safety regulations under the soon-to-be upgraded Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 legislation.

This excludes domestic properties but includes HMOs and some other multi-tenancy residential properties.

The announcement follows a consultation that began in July last year prompted by the Grenfell Tower tragedy, the results of which will be incorporated into the Building Safety Bill.

As well as unlimited fines, these measures will include mandatory fire risk assessments to be recorded for each building and improvements to how fire safety information is communicated to regulatory authorities throughout the lifetime of a building.

HMO landlords and agents will have to up their game; the new measures include improving the quality of fire risk assessments and competence of those who complete them.

Read more about the existing Fire Safety Order regulations.

Also, the government is to strengthen the guidance issued under the Fire Safety Order so that failure to follow it may be considered in court proceedings as evidence of a breach or of compliance. 

“Everyone should be safe in the buildings where they live, stay or work,” says Fire Minister Lord Greenhalgh (pictured).

“Our new measures will improve fire safety and help save lives, but will also take firm action against those who fail in their duty to keep people safe.”

Read the government’s consultation response.

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – BREAKING: Home Office to bring in unlimited fines for landlords who break fire safety rules | LandlordZONE.

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