Paragon returns to new lending
Visit the Guild of Residential Landlords buy-to-let page for independent financial advisor contact details The Paragon Group of Companies is delivering on its commitment to return to new lending and aims to re-establish its market leading position in the buy-to-let mortgage sector. New funding Paragon has arranged funding via a new warehouse debt facility and will resume buy-to-let lending with immediate effect. These will be the first new buy-to-let mortgages that Paragon has offered since February 2008 when it withdrew from the market due to...
read moreTenants Address for Service
The tenant is pursuing the landlord for 3 x deposit for a failure to protect the deposit within 14 days (the deposit has been protected though albeit late). The landlord is counter-claiming over £3,000 in rent arrears and defending the deposit claim. However, the tenant has provided a P.O. Box for his address. This of course would make it difficult to enforce any judgement if the landlord was successful. Is a former tenant allowed to proved a P.O. Box as an address for the purpose of sending documents in relation to court proceedings?
read moreFire Detectors and call points – How they work and location
Difference between Optical and Ionisation smoke alarms Ionisation Alarms where should they be used? Ionisation type sensors are particularly sensitive to the almost invisible smoke produced by fast flaming fires.This makes them more liable to false alarm due to cooking fumes if sited in a hallway close to a kitchen. Ionisation alarms are less vulnerable to false alarms caused by dense tobacco smoke,excessive dust and insect ingress. The BS 5839: Pt.6: 2004 Standard recommends that ionisation alarms should not be used in hallways and...
read moreThe Corresponding Date Rule
This rule has been well established since the 1800′s. The rule basically determines how long a calendar month is for the purpose of serving notices. The main question that can be asked is, if a 2 month notice is served on the last day of November (30th) to expire in January, should it expire on the last day of January or should it expire one day earlier on 30 January? There are also similar problems for when a notice is served or expires on the last day of February. The corresponding date rule was explained by the House of Lords in ......
read moreThe Dispute Service changes
This article is only relevant to you if you are a member of the tenancy deposit scheme operated by the Dispute Service Ltd. Essentially the changes to the scheme rules and tenancy requirements apply from 1 October 2010 when the threshold increases to £100,000 for when a tenancy is an assured shorthold tenancy. As has been previously discussed, any tenancies currently excluded from being an assured shorthold tenancy because their rent is in excess of £25k will become an AST on this date if the rent is below the new threshold. The changes...
read moreMaybe .. Just Maybe …
We’ve heard a little rumour concerning direct payment to landlords for tenants who are in receipt of local housing allowance. It must be said this is not confirmed and is perhaps not especially reliable (I can’t say where the rumour has come from, or I could but I’d have to …) Anyway, it has been suggested to us that the government are in the process of reversing the direct payment to landlords and allowing tenants to consent to payment being made direct. The change is expected “imminently”. The only thing...
read moreDeposit Protection after 1 October
The DCLG were insisting that all deposits required protecting within 14 days of 1 October 2010 for tenancies that convert to assured shorthold tenancies after the rent threshold increase. However it is being widely reported that they have revised their position after several commentators including this website said it wasn’t necessary. They now say: We do not consider that deposits taken before 1 October will need to be protected as these were not taken in connection with a shorthold tenancy and therefore do not meet the criteria...
read moreAST Threshold to Increase £100k
What’s changing? From 1st October 2010, the rent threshold for when a tenancy is an assured or assured shorthold will be increased from £25,000 to £100,000. The legislation making this change is here. From 1 December 2011, the same increase takes effect in Wales Retrospective? It was previously being reported that the change would be retrospective, however this is not the case but all tenancies that are not assured or assured shorthold on the 1st October will become so on that date onwards if the reason they were not assured...
read moreEnforcement Notices
What is an Enforcement Notice? An enforcement notice is issued by a local authority where a development requiring planning permission has taken place without planning permission forst being obtained. An enforcement notice could seek that the development be restored to it’s previous state for example. If I don’t have planning permission, what is the criteria for a local authority to serve an enforcement notice on me? An enforcement notice may be served if “… it is expedient to issue the notice, having regard to the...
read moreDo I need planning permission for my HMO?
This entry is part 3 of 7 in the series House in Multiple Occupation (HMO)From 1 October 2010, incorporating changes already made on 6 April 2010, planning rules are changed affecting HMOs. What is an HMO? A simple non legal definition is that a house (or flat) is an HMO if there are three or more unrelated occupiers. There is also another type of HMO under section 257 Housing Act 2004 which provides for certain converted blocks of flats to be an HMO. Related is specifically defined in the regulations but a quick summary is that they must be...
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