Crooked Letting Agent Jailed for £302,000 Theft
Lettings manager Robert Parker is starting a 38-month jail sentence for stealing more than £300,000 cash spent on his addiction to gambling. Parker. 28, was fuelling his greedy habit paying online bookies up to £50,000 by syphoning money away from the letting agent...
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Buy to Let Standards Are Still Lacking
The latest official data paints a big picture of a rosy future for buy to let, but the small details are letting landlords down. Although buy to let now accounts for a fifth of all homes with landlords owning 4.9 million properties and earning an average £15,000 a...
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Buy to Let Property Businesses in Numbers
New official data profiles buy to let landlords, their property businesses and how they tick. Every two years, the government publishes the English Housing Survey, that offers landlords and other property professionals detailed information about the property market....
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London Mayor Calls for Rent Control
London Mayor Sadiq Khan is urging the government to introduce rent controls for the capital. Although he has no power to stop landlords setting rents how they wish, Khan says his campaign is part of his ‘ongoing work’ to help the city’s 2.4 million private tenants....
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Finding Good Tenants Is Problem for Landlords
Sourcing good tenants who look after their homes is the biggest challenge for buy to let landlords. Data from property portal Zoopla shows finding reliable tenants worried 56% of landlords - a shade ahead of the 55% who struggle to find tenants who care for their...
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Buy to Let Yields Plunge to 3-Year Low
Buy to let yields for property investors have slumped to a three-year low, according to new data from a leading lender. Yields were 5.6% down year-on-year during the last three months of 2018, says a report from BM Solutions. The lender claims professional landlords...
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Buy to Let Investors Chase Missing £68m Paid to Developer
Insolvency experts are warning buy to let landlords to be cautious about staking money against buyer funded developments after investors have lost millions of pounds in failed projects. Hundreds of investors have lost money in the schemes. In one of the latest to go...
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Landlords Switch on to New Electrical Safety Laws
Housing Minister Heather Wheeler is switching landlords in England to new electrical safety rules for buy to let and shared rented homes. She has promised to bring in the new measure as soon as parliamentary time allows. The updated regime will ensure landlords have...
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Councils Pay £22m to Rent Homes They Once Owned
London councils are spending millions to rent homes they once owned but sold at massive discounts through the right-to-buy scheme. New data shows that 42% of council houses and flats sold under right-to-buy are rented by private tenants - with some landlords owning...
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Auction Homes Go at Knock Down Prices
Fewer homes are going under the hammer at property auctions - but those that sell are at knock-down prices. The average price of a home going to auction last year was £152,559 compared to the Land Registry average property sale price of £230,630 in November. The...
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Buy to Let Ombudsman to Deal With Repair Complaints
The government has given the go-ahead to a complaints service for buy to let tenants. Communities secretary James Brokenshire has confirmed all private landlords in England will have to sign up for the scheme which will allow tenants to claim compensation if landlords...
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Extra Cash to Fund Fight Against Rogue Landlords
Housing minister Heather Wheeler has opened government purse strings to give 50 councils an extra £2.4 million to tackle rogue landlords. The money is earmarked to pay for extra staff to root out bad landlords and for developing digital tools to track them down. The...
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Landlord Tax Burden Could Weigh on Buy to Let Market
Private tenants are paying an average rent of £921 a month for their buy to let homes. The amount is up 1.5% on rents charged a year ago. Renters in London are paying much more, having seen a year-on-year increase of 4.7% to £1,596 a month, says market monitor and...
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Don’t Panic if You Haven’t Filed a Tax Return Yet
The tax man reckons around 5.5 million people have left filing their self-assessment returns to the last minute and are rushing to beat the deadline of midnight on January 31. In last year’s final fling to send in tax returns online, nearly 759,000 taxpayers still had...
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Date Set for Tenant Fee Ban to Start
Landlords and letting agents in England face a ban on charging private renters fees on setting up a tenancy from 1 June 2019. The date the Tenants Fees Bill comes into force was announced in the House of Lords by Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth. “We need to enable agents...
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Landlords See Buy to Let Rents Stagnate for Months
Rent rises have stood still for the past five months, according to the latest official data. Buy to let rents increased 0.9% in the year to the end of November - the same rate as every month since July 2017, says the Office for National Statistics (ONS). The rise...
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Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation) Act 2018
Introduction The Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation) Act 2018 received Royal Assent on 20 December 2018 and comes into force on 20 March 2019. The Act extends to England and Wales but its practical changes are only for England. Wales has had its own fitness...
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Buy to Let Rents Rise 1.5% in a Year
Private tenants were paying an average of 1.5% more in rent than a year ago, according to the latest data. The average UK rent is £918 a month, says buy to let tracker Homelet. But a more detailed breakdown shows rents fell year-by-year in the North East (-3.0%),...
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Letting Agent Banned After £34,000 Deposits Go Missing
Letting agent Kari Ridout has been banned from acting as a company director for failing to protect thousands of pounds of deposits taken from private renters as her business failed. Ridout collected £34,600 of deposits for 24 homes she was managing and spent the money...
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House Prices Down £10,000 and They Take 65 Days to Sell
House prices have fallen by almost £10,000 in the past months and homes are taking longer to sell. The asking price of an average £297,000 home has fallen by 3.2% in the past two months and is the biggest drop in price over two months in a row since 2012. Agreed sales...
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