First Banning Order Goes to ‘Unfit’ HMO Landlord
A banning order has been imposed against a landlord for running an unlicensed shared house and misleading tenants over their rights. The order is believed to be the first granted in England. The ignominious honour goes to house in multiple occupation landlord David...
Rogue Letting Agents Fined £1.2m in Capital Crackdown
Hundreds of rogue letting agents have coughed up £1.2 million in fines after a crackdown by trading standards officers. The agents were punished for failing to display fees and or not belonging to a redress scheme. Between March 2018 and June 2019, trading standards...
Buy To Let Rents Hit All-Time High
Buy to let rents have hit a record high - averaging £970 a month and up 2.4% on a year ago. Rents are even higher in London, where tenants are paying £1,689 a month, which is 3.5% more than 12 months ago. Tenants in the north-east pay the cheapest monthly rent of...
City’s Landlord Licensing Raises £8M in a Year
The biggest landlord licensing scheme outside London has taken stock after the first year of operation. The Nottingham City Council selective licensing project covers more than 32,000 buy to lets and shared houses in the city. In a recent state of the scheme update,...
Reforming ‘Unfair’ CGT Could Raise £145 Billion
Wealthy property investors benefit from an ‘unfair and outdated’ tax system, says a left wing think tank. The Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) is calling for tax reforms that will align capital gains tax rates with income tax. The think tank argues...
Tenant Fee Ban Saddles Landlord With Repair Bills
Landlords should not charge tenants a handling fee for arranging repairs - even if the tenant has caused the damage to a rental home. The new tenant fees ban that came into force in England on June 1 and in Wales on 1 September fails to specify how landlords should...
Binding Decision on Direct Payment 8 Weeks Arrears
Although housing benefit is being phased out and being replaced with Universal Credit, this case is still useful and if nothing else, interesting. With great thanks to Sue who is one of our subscribers for sending the decision over. Background Under regulation 95...
Landlord Campaigners to Join Forces
Buy to let’s longest running landlord rivalry is coming to an end with the merger of two property campaigning groups. The National Landlords Association (NLA) and Residential Landlords Association (RLA) want members to vote to join forces to form the new National...
Accused Landlords Need Legal Advice, Claims Lawyer
Not enough landlords are taking lawyers to council interviews where they are accused of criminal housing offences, claims a property solicitor. Landlords are attending these interviews that can end with them facing fixed penalty fines of thousands of pounds or...
New Wizards Published Which Include Tenant Fees Ban
A quick note to confirm our tweet over the weekend that our wizards have all been updated with a new system and they appear to be working successfully (so far). The possession notice wizard has had the biggest change and it now includes the tenant fees ban for both...
Auction Homes a Third Cheaper Than the Average Property
Homes under the hammer are selling for around a third less than the price of an average property in the UK. Even though the number of auctions hit rock bottom in July and money collected from sales fell 6%, the average property sold at auction was priced at an average...
Buy to Let Confidence Falls to a New Low
Landlord confidence in renting out property as a business has plunged to a new low. The market has taken a buffeting from tax and law changes that are impacting the bottom line for landlords. Rental profits are falling as tax changes take a bite, while the tenant fee...
Chance for Landlords to Have a Say About Tax
Landlords with gripes about the way tax changes are implicating their letting businesses can vent their fury on the government through an official survey. The Office of Tax Simplification has put a call to residential landlords who file annual self-assessment returns....
Static Buy to Let Rents Are Stuck in a Rut
Buy to let rents are stuck in a rut as the latest official figures show little or no movement for the past six months. Rents across the UK have stood still at a 1.3% year-on-year increase since May and the latest data until the end of July echoes the theme. In...
Timing Can Make All the Difference in Saving Tax
Timing can make a big financial difference with tax hacks - and one in five landlords could find this out the hard way. New data shows around 19% of landlords are seeking to remortgage existing buy to let homes through a limited company. The aim is to cut mortgage...
New Forms Added for Holding Deposits in Wales
We have today added some new forms and templates in relation to the handling of "holding deposits" in Wales under the new Renting Homes (Fees etc.) (Wales) Act 2019 which commences from 1 September 2019. Important: the Fees Act allows the Welsh Government to require...
How Fraudsters Build a Fake ID to Fool Landlords
Fraudulent applications from renters wanting to let a private home have doubled this year, according to the latest data from a tenant referencing firm. LetRef warns landlords and letting agents that they detect an average 13 bogus applications each month - almost one...
Watch Out for Sneaky Rent Guide Updates, Warns Lawyer
Landlords could be stopped from going ahead with a no reason eviction because the government is failing to tell them when a statutory guide they must give to tenants is updated. Housing law demands that landlords supply the latest copy of the How To Rent guide at the...
Webinars Announced for the Tenant Fees Ban in Wales
Two brand new webinars have been announced by Training for Professionals which relate to the upcoming tenant fees ban in Wales. The first, titled “What does the legislation say?” is to be held on 16 August 2019 at 11am. The webinar “… will highlight the legislation...
No Guidance Yet on Tenant Fee Ban for Wales
Landlords are warned to be ready for the tenant fee ban which starts in Wales from September 1. With the deadline approaching, the Welsh Government has yet to publish detailed guidance for property professionals about how the ban will work, so landlords and tenants...
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