Another council has been given the go ahead to ban To Let boards in part of a city – with government backing. The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government has told Lincoln council that it can ban the display of boards on certain streets, predominantly those in strong student accommodation areas. The application for the ban came after the council considered the results of several consultations in what it…

A buy to let investor who let out a converted attic room despite it being the subject of a council prohibition order has received a hefty fine. Stevenage council made the prohibition order back in November 2014, banning the occupation of the attic room at a house in the town. The order was made due to the poor standard of works to convert the attic to habitable accommodation, which the…

New data, released by specialist online agency, yieldit, has been has crunching its numbers from the six months to 31st December 2018 and attempting to shed light on how long it takes to sell the average buy-to-let property. According to the report, the average buy-to-let property has a sale time of 38 days. The data, which analyses the time taken between a property being listed and an offer being accepted,…

The era of the ‘amateur’ landlord may be at an end according to accountants and business advisors French Duncan LLP. This year will see further erosion of the tax benefits of being a landlord and by 2020 there will be few financial incentives left for landlords. Many private landlords became because of circumstances i.e. they inherited property, or they were unable to sell their property and decided to rent it…

A new study suggests that rental properties now account for 40 per cent of the available housing stock. Looking at the final quarter of 2018 the consultancy TwentyCi says nearly 60 per cent of all London listings on portals and advertising platforms were for rental properties, compared with 40 per cent on average in all other major UK cities. Birmingham 40% rental and 60% sale; Sheffield 43% / 57%; Glasgow…

Rents have risen over the past year but at a very low level according to new property consultancy Apropos. Across Britain as a whole it reports that private rental prices paid by tenants rose by 1.0 per cent in the 12 months to the end of December. In England the increase was 1.1 per cent; in Wales 0.8 per cent; and in Scotland 0.9 per cent over the same period.…

The Tenants’ Fees Bill has now become law, receiving formal Royal Assent yesterday afternoon – and within minutes, the government issued a press release boasting about the measure. The statement confirms that tenancy deposits will be capped at five weeks’ rent, and that the new rules come into effect on June 1. The measure, says the government announcement, “puts an end to costly fees imposed by landlords or agents ……

A council accused of paying over £500,000 to a landlord it had already ruled as unfit to rent out property is now calling for government action. Labour-controlled Brent council in north London was in October the centre of an investigation by ITV News and The Guardian. In recent days The Guardian has returned to the topic and has named a landlord who failed Brent council’s ‘fit and proper person’ test…

A buy to let investor has lost possession of his flat after converting it into an Illegal House in Multiple Occupation and failing to pay significant council tax and service charges. John Abraka of Harold Hill in London converted a three-bedroom family flat that he had purchased under the Right To Buy scheme in Barking into an illegal HMO without obtaining the correct landlord license or planning permission from the…

The news this week that even individual private landlords must join a redress scheme is just the latest in an onslaught of laws and regulations aimed at tightening up the private rental sector. We all welcome better housing conditions and more responsible letting agents and landlords but is the balance now completely unfair? Are agents and property investors just the whipping boys for a government hell-bent on making it increasingly…

More than 50 councils will benefit from a £2.4m pot to crack down on rogue landlords, housing minister Heather Wheeler has announced. The government said it wanted the funding, initially announced in November 2018, to be spent on new ways of tackling rogue landlords and to improve the standard of privately rented housing across the country. Projects green-lighted included: the use of drones and thermal mapping in Walsall to identify homes…

The tenant fees ban is great news for tenants, but how will the costs of setting up a tenancy be covered? The Tenant Fee ban is great news for tenants. Housing Minister, Heather Wheeler MP, said that, “The new measures in our Tenant Fees Bill will save renters around £240 million a year by banning unfair letting fees and capping tenancy deposits.” That’s a considerable sum of money. The question…

Councils have been accused of routinely pursuing the most serious enforcement option open to them if they find a local licensing scheme has been breached by a landlord or property company. David Kirwan, managing partner at Kirwans law firm, says: “There are a number of ways in which councils can penalise landlords who fail – for whatever reason – to comply with the rules of selective licensing. These range from…

More than 50 councils across the country will share nearly £2.4m of extra government funding to crack down on rogue landlords. Among the councils to benefit from the funding are: Walsall – to improve cross-agency enforcement work, including the innovative use of drones and thermal mapping to identify problem properties; Lancaster – to create a training programme for existing enforcement staff across the Lancashire region; Greater London Authority and Greater…

New data, released by specialist online agency, yieldit, has been has crunching its numbers from the six months to 31st December 2018 and attempting to shed light on how long it takes to sell the average buy-to-let property. According to the report, the average buy-to-let property has a sale time of 38 days. The data, which analyses the time taken between a property being listed and an offer being accepted,…

The era of the ‘amateur’ landlord may be at an end according to accountants and business advisors French Duncan LLP. This year will see further erosion of the tax benefits of being a landlord and by 2020 there will be few financial incentives left for landlords. Many private landlords became because of circumstances i.e. they inherited property, or they were unable to sell their property and decided to rent it…

A report claims that England has just 825 homes for every 1,000 families as a result of two decades of house building failing to keep pace with population changes. The Resolution Foundation, a think tank, controversially uses ‘family’ as the demographic measure – other assessments of the housing stock use ‘household’, where the less shocking figure is produced of 1,045 homes for every 1,000 households. But based on its family…

The latest Landbay Rental Index has revealed that Landlords in the capital are potentially £1,806 worse off since the vote to leave the EU in June 2016. According to the report, using a conservative projection, rental growth in the capital is now 2.84% lower than expected back in June 2016, but this could be as high as 4.15. This higher estimate would leave the average landlord in London £1,806 short…

Reacting to recent reports that councils aren’t taking enough enforcement action against ‘rogue’ landlords, an announcement has been made about further funding. Councils will be able to bid for funding to step up enforcement action against irresponsible landlords who make tenants’ lives a misery and to develop and test innovative ways to clamp down on squalid accommodation. This is part of the government action to drive up standards in the…

Councils have been accused of routinely pursuing the most serious enforcement option open to them if they find a local licensing scheme has been breached by a landlord or property company. David Kirwan, managing partner at Kirwans law firm, says: “There are a number of ways in which councils can penalise landlords who fail – for whatever reason – to comply with the rules of selective licensing. These range from…