29th March 2019
From 1st April 2019, it has become mandatory that all property agents hold a registered membership with a certified money protection scheme. This is by way of insurance for landlords and tenants, to prevent rogue agents from keeping back money from deposits and rents if something goes wrong. Let’s look at what this means for landlords, and what you should be looking out for when you employ an agent to manage your properties.
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15th March 2019
Since April 2018, it has been possible to be banned from being a landlord. Not unlike facing a 12 month ban from driving if you break the law, as a landlord, you could now be stopped from letting out or managing properties for being found guilty of housing offences. It’s a pretty radical, although arguably necessary move, brought into play to crack down on rouge landlords and agents. So what does it mean, exactly, and how could it affect you?
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11th March 2019
2019 is proving to be an unpredictable market for properties in the UK. As with many other industries, people are hitting pause in anticipation of the outcome of the Brexit deal. Could this turn out to be a good thing for landlords?
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20th February 2017
It’s a common phrase you see rounding off nearly every rental listing - “No DSS”. DSS – being the now-defunct Department of Social Security – refers to LHA tenants, the catch-all term for low-income tenants who claim Local Housing Allowance (LHA), named after the now-defunct Department of Social Security.
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16th February 2017
The growth of the buy-to-let market isn’t slowing down, as the housing shortage in the UK continues. Because of this, you now see a lot of information out there to help landlords get the best rental yields for their properties, but interestingly there is less information on capital appreciation. More associated with buyers and vendors, capital appreciation is also a factor that landlords need to consider when they invest in property, now more than ever.
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14th February 2017
Being a good landlord means having to deal with problems as they arise, whether it’s appliances that have stopped working, issues with neighbours or the tricky situation of handling rent arrears. You may have vetted your tenants thoroughly and to the correct procedure, but it’s not always a guarantee that they’ll pay on time. Sometimes, a tenant will hit hard times – they may lose their job, go through a major life change, or simply have a tough month with expenses - and you need a strategy to deal with rent arrears when they happen.
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9th December 2016
Twenty one percent of privately-rented accommodation has been found to contain unsafe gas appliances, meaning that over 2.7 million tenants could be in danger. Landlords hold the legal responsibility to ensure that appliances are in safe working order.
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16th September 2016
With property prices ever increasing and successive governments taxing income from property more and more each year, landlords and property investors are often turning to houses of multiple occupation sometimes known as HMOs for higher rates of return. So why do HMO give landlords and property investors a higher rate of return? Well essentially this is down to the fact that HMO properties are rented out by the room rather than as a whole property.
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1st December 2015
Proposed changes for the housing sector through the Housing Bill 2015 The government is proposing quite a few changes to the housing sector at the moment and is currently in discussion with the industry as to how these will be implemented across the board which landlords may need to be aware of as it will affect both landlords and agents. The bill in fact covers many areas, not just the PRS (Private Rented Sector) but within this article I want to look at the items that directly affect us as residential property practitioners
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4th September 2015
In December 2014, the government launched a pilot scheme in the Midlands and Birmingham areas making landlords responsible to check that any tenants moving into a property or living in a property of theirs had a legal right to rent a property in the UK under Immigration Act 2014. In august 2015, an announcement was made that this scheme would be rolled out nationally and apply to every landlord in the country.
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