A landlord has been fined almost £500 after changing the locks on his rental property. Peter Lamont was prosecuted by Halton Council for unlawfully denying a tenant access to a rental property. The incident occurred in January and the landlord pleaded guilty to a charge under the Protection From Eviction Act 1977 at Warrington Magistrates’ Court. Lamont has been fined £440 and order to pay council court costs. “Landlords and… Continue Reading Landlord prosecuted after leaving tenant ‘homeless’

In less than two years from now, landlords could face fines of up to £150,000, if their rented property has an energy rating which falls below the required minimum standard. The Minimum Energy Efficiency Standards, or MEES regime, was set out by the government in March 2016 and seeks to improve the efficiency of both domestic and non-domestic buildings. The new regulations will be brought into effect from 1 April… Continue Reading Landlords warned they could face fines of £150k for poor EPC rating

For many of us, the idea of owning a house in London is an unlikely fantasy. If it’s never going to happen anyway, we might as well make our daydream all the more wishfully ambitious. How much would it cost to buy every last home in London? The question should be relatively straightforward to answer. All we need is the average cost per home, and the number of homes in… Continue Reading How Much Would It Cost To Buy Every House In London?

Government policy is making it harder than ever for benefits claimants and the homeless to rent homes, according to a new report. The Residential Landlords Association has been working with Sheffield Hallam University as part of an investigation into access to the private rental sector by the homeless and those on benefits. The RLA surveyed 949 landlords wwith the findings showing that despite a significant expansion of the private rental… Continue Reading Government ‘makes it hard for claimants and homeless to privately rent’

On May 12, the Immigration Bill became the Immigration Act 2016. This is intended to build on the Immigration Act 2014 increasing pressure on those unlawfully in the country. For the private rented sector it creates a series of criminal offences which sit on top of the already existing civil fines connected to failures to carry out Right to Rent checks. New powers to evict persons who do not have… Continue Reading Right to Rent won’t apply for….

If you want to rent a cheap room in London, you’re best off looking in Havering or Croydon according to new government statistics. The Valuation Office Agency (VOA) has compiled average rents for the year to March 2016, then broken it down by borough, type of property and also by affordability. The figures show rents on average, but also the median (right in the middle) and also the averages of… Continue Reading The Cheapest And Most Expensive Places To Rent In London: Mapped

Almost one-third of all housing benefits claimants live in the private rented sector and receive on average more benefit than those living in the social sector. The Department for Work and Pensions has published the latest statistics, showing that 1,492,861 housing benefits claimants are private tenants – representing 31.6% of all 4,731.241 claimants. There are 3,235,679 claimants in the social rented sector, representing 68.4% of the whole number. Of these,… Continue Reading Private Tenants, nearly one-third are on housing benefit now

The average price of a home in England will be more than £450,000 in 2030, new research mapping out what house prices could look like across the UK claims.But in London, however, and you could be looking at a cool £1million for the average property. The calculations for the map from estate agents eMoov are based on the 84 per cent increase in house prices during 2000 and 2015 and applied… Continue Reading How much will your property be worth in 2030?

Rents in the private rented sector will increase as a result of the planned introduction of energy efficiency targets, a leading trade body has claimed. The government has committed to improving the energy efficiency of cold and draughty homes in the private rented sector (PRS) with a view to enhancing the quality of living and cut the energy bills for the millions of people who rent their homes. With a… Continue Reading Energy efficiency targets will push rents higher, says RLA

Many part-time landlords across the UK are putting their tenants’ lives at risk and could face hefty fines for breaking basic gas safety legislation, according to fresh research. A new survey of 1,000 amateur landlords and 500 tenants of part-time landlords conducted by Atomik Research, on behalf of British Gas, has found that 20% of all amateur landlords fail to carry out compulsory annual gas safety checks, while more than a… Continue Reading Thousands of amateur landlords putting tenants’ lives at risk

With more people renting than in previous generations, buy-to-let can be extremely lucrative, but only if you avoid some major pitfalls. Your property is only making you money on rent if there are tenants living in it. Landlords still have to cover their mortgage regardless of whether they are receiving rental income, so aim to avoid void periods, which is the length of time between rental property tenancies, by ensuring… Continue Reading Guaranteed Rent – Removing the pressure of void periods

You may have heard of the seven-year itch, but when it comes to the rental market, renters can only commit for an average of 18 months before moving on. Research from Direct Line, looking at the length of time a tenant stays in a property before moving on, found Cardiff renters stayed for the shortest time at 11 months while Birmingham had the longest stays at two years and four… Continue Reading Guaranteed Rent is the solution to prevent void periods ?

Investors might be looking to increase their buy-to-let yields by searching for property outside London, but new research suggests the hunt should go well beyond British borders. An average income yield of 4.3pc in the UK is far lower than the 6pc or more available in the Netherlands, Belgium and Hungary, according to research from money transfer company WorldFirst. Buy-to-let investors in the UK are suffering under tax changes which include a 3pc stamp duty… Continue Reading Mapped: European countries with the best buy-to-let income

Tax increases for private landlords will drive some out of the sector, while others will pass the costs on to their tenants, stretching household budgets and putting home ownership further out of reach. The warning comes from a new report by the London School of Economics, Taking Stock. It analyses the private rental sector and its importance to the UK housing mix. Despite the Government’s clear championship of the institutional… Continue Reading Tax increases will drive much-needed landlords from sector, says LSE

When a higher rate of stamp duty was announced by the Chancellor last November, it was meant to cool the boom in buy-to-let. Under the new rules, applying from April 1 this year, anyone buying a property who already owned another property would pay the usual rate of stamp duty – plus a three percentage point surcharge. This means a buyer’s tax bill could increase by thousands of pounds. For example, on a property worth £300,000,… Continue Reading ‘Govt’s new Stamp Duty rules are now unfairly penalising ordinary owners’ !

Councils in London will need to fork out £49m a year on average to fund government’s planned extensions to the right to buy scheme, a report out today by Shelter has warned. Under the right to buy extension, local authorities will be forced to sell off a proportion of their vacant council house stock on the open market, which will then be used to fund discounts for Housing Association tenants wishing to… Continue Reading Extended right to buy scheme could cost London councils just shy of £50m each

Investing in buy-to-let property is on the verge of becoming unaffordable for middle-class savers as stricter lending rules mean they will soon need at least a 40pc deposit to qualify for a mortgage, Telegraph analysis reveals. New, tighter lending criteria set to be enforced as early as this autumn by the Bank of England will lock large groups of savers out Britain’s rental market, and limit it to an elite club… Continue Reading Middle-class ‘buy-to-let dream’ is over – as mortgage lenders to demand 40pc deposits

The Government’s new Universal Credit payments could have a disastrous impact on the private rented sector, with more and more landlords refusing to let to tenants on benefits. The warning comes from the Residential Landlords Association. It says landlords are frustrated with the new system, which sees benefits paid directly to claimants, who are then responsible for paying their own bills, including rent. The RLA says its members have criticised… Continue Reading Landlords prefer Guaranteed Rent vs Risky Universal Credit (UC) ?

London currently has the biggest population it’s ever had. In February 2015, we hit 8.6 million people. It’s thought we could reach 10 million people by 2030. So here at Londonist we thought we’d look at where this growth is coming from. London experiences a huge amount of population churn. Between 2001 and 2009, 3.8 million people arrived here while 3.4 million moved out. Here’s where they came from and… Continue Reading Where Has London’s Population Increase Come From?

Purbeck District Council in Dorset is reminding landlords and tenants of legislation affecting the private rented sector that recently came into force. The legislation includes the power to Councils to impose heavy fines for non-compliance – £2000 for a first offence, rising to £5000 if a landlord commits more than two offences. Since October 2015, all privately rented property must be fitted with smoke detectors on every storey and carbon dioxide… Continue Reading Councils ready to impose serious fines to non-compliant landlords – Smoke & Carbon Monoxide warning