Hunt’s Budget U-Turn Is Taxing for Landlords
Landlords running property businesses as limited companies are likely to become one of the casualties of political in-fighting in Westminster. Prime Minister Liz Truss had already announced the scrapping of her proposal to cancel the planned rise in corporation tax...
Landlord Pays £85,000 Rent for Student HMO Offence
Landlords should check the licensing status of the homes they rent out after one management company was slammed with an £85,000 bill to repay rent paid by tenants when the property was let without a licence. SC Olney Management, the owner and operator of Student...
Holiday Lettings Price Fans Out of Eurovision
Music fans hoping to visit Liverpool for the Eurovision Song Contest have had their room bookings cancelled - only for hotels and landlords to put them straight back on sale for hundreds of pounds more. Liverpool was named the host city for the glittering competition...
Occupation Contracts for Wales
We are pleased to announce that our occupation contracts, the new name given to tenancies for most domestic use cases in Wales, are almost ready to go live. In the first instance, we are asking for a few customers to test the system, download the contract and look...
Buy-to-Let Mortgage Deals Hit 14 Year High
Mortgage deals reached their highest interest rates in 14 years as the cost of borrowing reached more than six per cent in October 2022. Buy-to-let mortgage rates have soared since Chancellor Kwarsi Kwateng announced his Growth Statement last month. The two-year...
Wales Consults to Increase Notice on Converted Contracts
The Welsh Government is considering extending the no-reason notice period on existing assured shorthold tenancies that will convert to a periodic occupation contract under the Renting Homes Act. For new periodic standard contracts agreed on or after 1 December 2022,...
New Fire Safety Regulations from January 2023 (England)
The Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022 will come into force on 23 January 2023. The rules broadly cover high-rise buildings, some relating to those over 11 metres and some to those 18 metres or at least seven storeys with communal areas. However, regulations 9 and...
Labour Wants Yet Another Rent Reform Bill
Labour plans a massive reboot of the private rented sector if the party wins the 2024 General Election. Shadow housing minister Lisa Nandy wants to give private tenants more rights and safer homes with a Renters’ Charter that tips the balance in favour of tenants...
Mortgages in Limbo as Pound Plunges
Mortgages are drying up as lenders puzzle over how the pound dropping like a stone against the dollar will impact interest rates and house prices. The housing market is in limbo as buyers and sellers wait to see if property values will fall. Meanwhile, house price...
Buy to Let Safety Rules Changing 1 October 2022
Buy to let landlords must fit carbon monoxide alarms in rooms lived in by tenants with a fixed combustion appliance from October 1 2022. Fixed combustion appliances include gas heaters, boilers and wood-burning stoves. The Smoke and Carbon Monoxide Alarm (Amendment)...
Right to Rent Checks Update From 1 October 2022
During the coronavirus pandemic, right-to-rent identification checks could be carried out using a digital copy of the applicant’s acceptable documents. The person granting the occupation could then check the person's ID via live video call. From 01 October 2022, the...
Rents Rise at the Fastest Rate for 14 Years
According to the latest official data for July 2022, rents have been growing fastest for 14 years. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) says year-on-year rents in England increased by 3.4 per cent - a growth rate last seen in November 2008. Wales lags the English...
Kwarteng Cuts Tax but Could Do Better for Landlords
Chancellor KK has unveiled a raft of tax cuts aimed at helping families and businesses cope with the financial pain of rising energy costs and the cost of living crisis. Although some of the measures announced in Kwarsi Kwarteng’s mini-Budget mean landlords will pay...
New Websites Available for Testing
We are thrilled to announce our new website is available for testing today (22 September 2022). Because of the significant changes happening through the Renting Homes (Wales) Act 2016 in Wales, we have split the website into two websites - England and Wales. The Wales...
Samaritan Landlords Help Tenants With Cost of Living
According to new research, landlords are rallying around to do as much as they can to help tenants struggling with the cost of living crisis. Three out of four landlords have taken action to ease tenant finances, says a survey of 1,000 UK landlords by Shawcross Bank....
Cost of Living Crisis May Set Off Arrears Tsunami
Around 80 per cent of letting agents fear the cost of living crisis sparked by considerable rises in energy bills will significantly impact private lettings and could trigger a tsunami of arrears. More than one in three predict a rise in arrears as tenants struggle to...
68,000 Homes Risked Gas Alerts Last Year
Gas is a killer that property owners need to take seriously to save lives - with 68,000 private and rented homes involved in fires, explosions and gas poisonings in the past year (2021). Research by Gas Safe - the organisation responsible for regulating gas workers -...
Wales Meet Up – Prepare for Occupation Contracts
We are pleased to announce that we will hold a meet-up in Wales on 18 October 2022, primarily about preparing for conversion to the new occupation contracts. The event will be in-person - our first in Wales since the pandemic. There is no cost to attend, and it's open...
Have Your Say on Decent Homes Standards
Whoever sits in the housing hot seat for Prime Minister Liz Truss’ new government will bring the decent homes standard to bear on buy-to-let properties in England. Despite the Tory party’s election of a new leader, the wheels of government have ground on across the...
Simon Clarke To Take Housing Hot Seat?
Whitehall insiders are tipping MP Simon Clarke to take up the role of levelling up secretary when new prime minister Liz Truss names her first cabinet. Whoever Truss appoints to head the department of levelling up, and housing will become the sixth incumbent to step...
Coronavirus Guidance
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