Posts with tag: tenants

Tenant Who Threatened to Kill Letting Agent Awaits Sentence

Published On: July 4, 2018 at 8:05 am

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Categories: Lettings News

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Though having an unpleasant relationship with your tenant is possible, it is important to ensure that a level of civility is maintained between both parties to avoid issues such as the following.

Kenneth Begg, aged 60 set fire to his rental property according to Paisley Sheriff Court. In addition to this, Begg then locked his property and ventured to Penny Lane Homes agent where, upon arriving, he threatened to kill all staff members.

The Court was informed that Begg had received a letter from Penny Lane Homes. The letter was said to have warned Begg about the complaints Penny Lane Homes had received from neighbours regarding his anti-social behaviour.

It was reported that when Begg had arrived at the agents, he requested to speak with Martin Johnstone, who, when he arrived at work, spoke with Begg about the letter he had received.

It was then that Begg announced: “That is the least of your worries – I have set the house on fire.

“I have nothing to lose. I will kill everyone in the office.”

Immediately after, Begg produced a knife and gestured it towards the direction of Mr. Johnstone, the Court reports.

Subsequent to this incident, a member of staff dialled the emergency services.

Begg has pleaded guilty to charges, including wilfully setting a fire in his property. Lastly, Begg admitted a charge of breach of the peace.

We care about the tenant and landlord/letting agent relationship and are constantly exercising our efforts to ensure that tenants, landlords and letting agents are aware of what they can do to achieve a positive relationship with one another.

Visit our associate company Just Landlords’ website to read their advice on how to maintain a positive relationship with your tenants.

Furthermore, if an issue should escalate and unfortunately become worse, you may have to begin the eviction process. Here is a guide on how to carry out this process correctly and appropriately on our website.

 

 

 

 

Second Steppers Relying on Bank of Mum and Dad

Published On: July 3, 2018 at 8:57 am

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Categories: Finance News

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Second time lucky? Apparently not.

 

It isn’t just first-time buyers who are faced with the struggle of moving up the property ladder. Second steppers are beginning to turn to the Bank of Mum and Dad for financial support, currently requiring on average, £25,000 to assist their second property investment.

According to Lloyds Bank, the number of second steppers who have to borrow from family and friends in order to progress in the property market has increased. This figure has risen from 27% in 2017 to 33% in the 2018 poll.

58% of second steppers expressed that making their next steps on the property ladder wouldn’t be plausibly without additional financial support.

Moreover, results from analysis revealed that 62% of second steppers would resort to remortgaging their property as a method of accumulating the extra cash, whilst 39% would use money from their savings accounts.

However, 22% would definitely require assistance from their parents and 13% would seek financial support from their grandparents. Alternatively, 6% would turn to friends for this support.

This is also adding an enormous amount of pressure on parents themselves, as they are forced to either raid their own savings or even downsize to a smaller property to release funds.

The sacrifices don’t stop there.

Second steppers are also making sacrifices. Almost three in ten agreed that they will have fewer children than originally planned due to the challenges they have experienced whilst attempting to climb the property ladder. More second steppers are delaying having children as a result of these circumstances.

Mortgage Products Director at Lloyds Bank claims: “Support from generous family and friends remains vital in helping second steppers in taking the next step on the property ladder, despite more second steppers now feeling optimistic about the housing market.

“We continue to see parents make big sacrifices as their children return for help with housing for a second time. However, to ease the burden on parents, we are seeing more second steppers plan ahead for their next big move by saving and paying more to their mortgage.”

Lifetime Tenants Could Spend £1m More on Housing than Homeowners

Published On: June 20, 2018 at 9:13 am

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Categories: Tenant News

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With so much rhetoric within the media and supporting studies suggesting that many young people today will become lifetime tenants, it’s no surprise that research is looking into how much owning a home compares with renting from a landlord.

The latest in these studies comes from new build property developer Strata, which found that lifetime tenants – those unfortunate youngsters who never manage to buy their own homes – could end up spending a whopping £1m more on housing over their lives than their homeowner counterparts.

The firm compared the average cost of owning a home in the UK to typical monthly rent payments over a 60-year period.

The research took a typical homeowner, who had rented from the age of 21 to 30 before purchasing a home, owning their property until the age of 81. It used the average first time buyer home value of £212,079, and assumed a 16% deposit and £4,800 in fees, including lender valuations, surveys, and mortgage and legal costs.

Estimating that the typical buyer would have rented for nine years before getting onto the property ladder themselves, at an average of £909 per month – adjusted for inflation over the period – Strata gave a total spend of £427,363 for the average homeowner over the period.

In contrast, lifetime tenants would spend the same £909 per month on average rents, which was again adjusted for inflation, to hit a huge total of £1,624,980 over 60 years.

This equates to a massive difference of £1,197,616, with lifetime tenants spending an average of 280% more than homebuyers.

Naturally, figures vary dramatically across the UK, with the typical difference reaching almost £2m in London. The North East had the smallest change, at £720,000.

Nevertheless, it appears from the data that Strata left out a significant chunk of homebuyers’ housing costs – monthly mortgage repayments. Therefore, while purchasing a property may be cheaper than renting is for lifetime tenants, the study fails to determine which option is most cost effective.

New Discoveries Reveal Benefits of Letting to Families

Published On: June 20, 2018 at 8:04 am

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Categories: Landlord News

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Rental demand shows slight decline in Q2

Letting to families has been proven to take up the least amount of property management time in comparison to alternative types of tenants.

Findings have surfaced from over 1,000 responses to the latest quarterly landlord research from the National Landlords Association (NLA), which asked them to consider how much time they spent on property management. This included dealings with tenant queries, property maintenance requests and general business administration.

From the findings, research has revealed that landlords who let properties to families and young couples spend, on average, eight hours on property management per week. Contrastingly, landlords who let their properties to migrant workers, recipients of benefits, or who have executive lets, can expect to spend up to 12 hours per week on property management.

In regards to regional landlords, in the North West of England, it is estimated that they spend ten hours on management a week. This is almost twice as much time per week, compared to landlords with properties in the South East, who spend just five and a half hours per week.

Additionally, finding have shown that landlords with mortgages spend, on average, three and a half extra hours per week on property management compared to those who do not have mortgages. Those landlords with energy efficient properties will be spending two hours less each week on property management.

Richard Lambert, CEO of the NLA, commented: “This data reinforces the fact that families make good, reliable, and long-term tenants, but some landlords can be put off by the perceived risk of more damage or wear and tear to the property or its contents.

“However, if you’re properly maintaining the property then tenants will be more likely to stay for longer anyway, particularly families who typically seek more stability. This is just one more argument for establishing a proper maintenance schedule in the first place.

“Landlords who rent to migrant workers or provide executive lets may find it takes up more management time because there’s a greater churn of tenants which means re-marketing the property, drawing up tenancy agreements, and conducting property viewings more regularly”.

The NLA also says that another big cause for concern is that those in receipt of benefits take up more management time for landlords. Mr Lambert continued: “The combination of welfare cuts and the introduction of Universal Credit make it difficult for some benefit recipients to keep up with rental payments and that often means taking more time for the landlord to manage. It’s frustrating for everyone because the issues can be outside the control of both tenants and landlords”.

Renters at Risk of Revenge Eviction Due to Council Inaction

Published On: June 19, 2018 at 8:52 am

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Categories: Law News

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Retaliatory or revenge eviction, refers to a landlord attempting to evict a tenant living in their property who has requested repairs or made complaints regarding the condition of their property. However, after 1st October 2015, a landlord is required to prove that the tenant is at fault prior to evicting them. For example, a tenant not paying their rent would be a valid reason to enforce eviction.

 

As revealed by Generation Rent analysis of Freedom of Information, only one in six private tenants is receiving council protection from revenge eviction.

Despite their obligation to protect tenants from eviction, only a select few councils are enforcing actions, compulsory to prevent evictions. In addition, only some are choosing to record cases where the tenant is at risk of facing eviction.

According to Section 21 of the Housing Act 1988, a landlord is permitted to claim back possession of their property, without providing a reason for this claim. Due to this, it is possible that a tenant could lose their home without being at fault. As a result of this rule, some landlords decide to abuse this power by evicting tenants who simply complain.

However, the Deregulation Act 2015 renders a Section 21 notice invalid for six months, providing that the council serves the landlord with a notice to make necessary improvements to the property in question. This action should be taken by the council if there is a discovery of a severe hazard in a private rented property. It is estimated that 17% of private rented properties have one of these hazards.

A lot of hazards can be missed, due to councils not monitoring each individual property that is complained about. From the 58,586 requests made to the council regarding complaints and inspections, only 39,148 inspections were carried out.

Extracted from analysis of data provided by Generation rent, Freedom of Information, of the 100 councils, only 72 recorded 12,962 “category 1” hazards in 2016-17. In only 18% of these cases, councils issued improvement notices. 28 of 100 councils who were contacted, failed to record the number of hazards discovered.

Despite their new responsibilities, councils took 23% less formal action in the first full year that the Deregulation Act was in force than the year before. The total of improvement notices was down from 2959 in 2015-16. Complaints about private landlords also fell in that period, but only by 6%.

most councils are failing to record their interactions with tenants who are facing a revenge eviction – only 4 of the 97 councils that responded on this question had logged the number of Section 21 eviction cases they dealt with in 2016-17:

• Bournemouth (2)
• Plymouth (18)
• Cheshire West & Chester (11)
• Wigan (0).

Eight councils managed to serve as many improvement notices as there were hazards, including, Barking and Dagenham, Barnsley, Bournemouth, Calderdale, Cambridge, Dudley, Merton and Tower Hamlets. This provides an indication that the tenants involved enjoyed protection from revenge eviction.
Dan Wilson Craw, Director of Generation Rent, commented:
“Right now, tenants only get security over their home when their landlord is breaking the law and their council takes sufficient action. This evidence shows that too much can go wrong in a council’s processes – from not responding to complaints to failing to issue formal notices – to reliably provide even this basic protection.
“Instead of this flaky, fiddly and temporary system of protection, tenants need a stronger fundamental right over their home. The government should restrict the ludicrous ability of landlords to evict tenants who have done nothing wrong by abolishing Section 21.”
Wera Hobhouse MP, Liberal Democrat Spokesperson for Communities and Local Government, said:
“No one should be forced to live in substandard conditions as a result of their landlord’s failure to resolve problems in the property, nor should they be afraid to report problems due to the fear of being evicted.
“If the government are serious about standing up for renters’ rights, they must provide overstretched councils with the resources required to hold rogue landlords to account.
“The national database of rogue landlords must be made publicly available, allowing tenants to make informed decisions and avoid revenge evictions.”

Are Rising Rents becoming too Disproportionate to Monthly Earnings?

Published On: June 8, 2018 at 8:18 am

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Categories: Tenant News

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HomeLet have released its most recent Rental Index and it is showing a slight increase in rental prices. Rents have increased by 2% in May, compared to the same month last year.

Looking at UK tenancies signed in May this year, the average rent agreed was £919 per calendar month, an increase on last month’s £918.

The increase is more so prominent when looking at year on year comparisons excluding London. The Average UK rental value in April was £763pcm, an increase of 1.3% on the same month last year.

Over the last year, rents in the UK have risen in 11 out of 12 regions included in HomeLet’s research. However, 5 of these regions saw a fall in rents from April 2018 to May 2018. These regions were Greater London, Scotland, the West Midlands, the East Midlands and the South West.

A new study by the General, Municipal and Boilermakers (GMB) Union has also looked at rent rises. It has revealed that the average of monthly rents have reached £1,500 in London. Meanwhile, the rest of the country has seen an 18.2% rise in average monthly rents between 2011 and 2017.

As you might expect, the GMB union have pointed out that the average rent rise in London is disproportionate to the rest of the country, showing an increase of 26%. The union has suggested that the real issue is that those struggling with such rent increases are suffering from employers failing to recognise these changes.

GMB London regional secretary Warren Kenny has said: “If employers don’t respond with higher pay they will face staff shortages as workers, especially younger people, are priced out of the housing market. It makes little sense for these workers to spend a full week at work only to pay most of their earnings in rents. There is no alternative to higher wages to pay these higher rents, plus a step change in building homes at reasonable rents.”

Such rent increases will be welcome news to landlords, especially since the recent turmoil with changes in tax relief, stamp duty and the Tenant Fees Ban.

If rents do continue to rise, it will be interesting to see if the average of monthly wages follows suit.