Two unauthorised outhouses have been demolished by Ealing Council after the landlord failed to comply with an enforcement notice. Demolition of the substandard residences at the back of 201 Scotts Road in Southall took place over the weekend of 26 September. Action was taken after the landlord, Mrs Nadeem, failed to comply with an enforcement notice that was served on her in the summer of 2014. The buildings were first… Continue Reading Beds in sheds demolished by Ealing council

Telegraph Money has developed a sophisticated buy-to-let tax calculator to help you assess the impact of new taxes on your property investments. Click here for calculator George Osborne unveiled a shock tax change in 2015 which will remove landlords’ ability to deduct the cost of their mortgage interest from their rental income when they calculate a profit on which to pay tax. In effect, the Chancellor wants to tax landlords… Continue Reading Buy-to-let calculator: how will new tax reduce your profit?

Law firm Ascent has launched a new service for landlords which is designed to speed up and increase the recovery of late and missing rent payments from tenants. The firm is offering a full range of debt collection services from contacting tenants and collecting late payments, to issuing court possession orders and enforcement. The launch coincides with the release of findings from a joint Ascent and Residential Landlords Association (RLA)… Continue Reading Worried about your tenant’s rent arrears ?

Transport for London is to release more than 300 acres of land to help create more than 10,000 new homes across London – with two thirds of it in Zones 1 and 2. TfL is one of the largest landowners in the capital with assets ranging from Zone 1 locations such as London Bridge and Oxford Circus to sites in Zone 6 areas, such as Northwood. In total, TfL owns… Continue Reading Transport for London may become major Build To Rent player in capital

Mortgage activity has picked up this year but the lack of homes for sale is likely to push up house prices, reports have suggested. The Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) predicts house prices will rise 5.6% this year, higher than its previous forecast of 4.7%. A lack of properties being put on the market was pushing up prices, it said. This comes despite a 14% rise in mortgage… Continue Reading Housing market: Lack of supply ‘pushing up prices’

Whether you are house-hunting or just daydreaming, try using this calculator to see where in the country you could afford to live – and would it be cheaper to rent or buy? Enter your requirements and how much you’d like to pay on rent or mortgage repayments each month to see places in your price range. The “Where can I afford to live?” calculator uses pricing and rental data for… Continue Reading Where can I afford to live?

First came the London Underground rent map. Now, with increasing numbers of people finding themselves unable to afford rent in the capital, we decided to look at how much it costs to rent and commute in from the surrounding counties. We’re making a few assumptions here to keep things consistent. We’ve searched for a self-contained studio or one-bed flat across the entire county less than a mile from a train station,… Continue Reading How Much Does It Cost To Rent Outside London?

A report today by new Policy Institute showed 27% of Londoners live in poverty — with low wages and high rents to blame. A key change in the past decade is the number of children living in the private rented sector who are in poverty. One of the report’s authors, Hannah Aldridge, explains why we should rethink what ‘generation rent’ really means. Generation rent has become one of those terms that… Continue Reading Why Generation Rent Is Worst For Children

The Bank of England is to be given powers to control buy-to-let mortgage lending. In what could be a highly significant move, Chancellor George Osborne said that he will extend the powers of the Bank and the Financial Policy Committee to the sector. It follows concerns that buy-to-let borrowers could be particularly exposed in any downturn in the market, and that this could rock the wider housing market and the… Continue Reading Bank of England to be given powers to curb buy-to-let lending

Under Right to Rent, landlords or their agents should check identity documents for all new tenants, and take copies. The documents include: a UK passport a European Economic Area passport or identity card a permanent residence card or travel document showing indefinite leave to remain a Home Office immigration status document a certificate of registration or naturalisation as a British citizen A full list of documents is available here Agents… Continue Reading Right to Rent: A simple guide to checks that must be made

About 80 per cent of tenants think that their landlords should pay for damage they have caused when their tenancy ends. That is the result of a survey this month of 500 tenants by the online letting agency PropertyLetByUs. The research also shows that the most common damage caused by tenants is stains to carpet from food, wine and paint (69 per cent), followed by pet damage to curtains and… Continue Reading Agency says four out of five tenants believe landlords should pay for damage

Local councils are being urged to drop landlord licensing schemes following the publication of new laws showing that they are not needed. Measures in the Government’s new Housing and Planning Bill, presented to the House of Commons on Tuesday, make clear that local authorities can use council tax registration forms to ask tenants for details of a properties’ tenure and its landlord to help root out criminal landlords. The RLA… Continue Reading RLA: Landlord licensing not needed

Desalination: making drinking water out of the sea. It’s for hot, dry places like Barcelona, Sydney and London. That’s right, London has a desalination plant. It is called the Thames Gateway Water Treatment Works and it opened for business in 2012. Sort of. The desalination plant in Beckton is only allowed to operate during drought. We haven’t had a drought since 2012, so the shiny new desalination plant has never… Continue Reading The Place That Will Save Us When There’s A Drought: London’s Desalination Plant

Artist Yanko Tihov has created this rather attractive map of London diversity made from passport covers. The art work shows the commonest three or four non-British nationalities in every London borough, as documented in the 2011 census. A PDF close-up with key to nationalities can be found here. A limited number of prints are available for purchase with the added feature that Yankho has hand painted each passport seal in 23-carat gold. Needless to… Continue Reading London Passport Map Shows City Diversity

George Osborne used his party conference speech in Manchester this week to reaffirm the Conservative policy toward housing. The Chancellor George Osborne during his speech to Conservative Party conference in Manchester described the Tories as “the builders” with a plan for a prosperous future for working people. The Chancellor announced plans to sweep away planning rules delaying house building on brownfield sites this autumn in a bid to boost the… Continue Reading Osborne vows to build more new homes

The government is ruling out any re-think on its proposals to reduce buy to let tax breaks from next year. The Financial Secretary to the Treasury, David Gauke, has written to the Residential Landlords’ Association to emphasise the determination of the government to plough ahead with the changes, first announced in July by Chancellor George Osborne. Gauke’s letter is uncompromising, saying the Osborne proposals are essential to establish “a fair… Continue Reading Government rules out any re-think on restricting buy to let tax breaks

The number of households renting from private landlords has more than doubled in the past thirty years. Some 22% of households now rent privately, according to a report from think tank ResPublica. In 1985 the figure was just 9%. Conversely, the number of households renting from public landlords has fallen dramatically during the same period. In 1985, 30% of households rented from public landlords, a figure which has since fallen… Continue Reading Number of households privately renting has doubled in 30 years

This short animation from the Mayor’s London Rental Standard includes tips for landlords on how to prevent condensation, damp and mould in your properties. This is just an overview – to find out more, sign up to the London Rental Standard at https://www.london.gov.uk/landlords See details of our Guaranteed Rent Scheme here