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Em

Em Morley

Landlord Handed £1,600 Bill for Not Making Improvements

Published On: May 8, 2015 at 9:46 am

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A landlord has been issued a £1,600 bill for ignoring an improvement notice over the course of four years on his buy-to-let property in Market Deeping.

South Kesteven District Council (SKDC) prosecuted Michael Lovett for not making the required improvements to the interior and exterior of his rental property, located on High Street. He then re-let the home to tenants.

Landlord Handed £1,600 Bill for Not Making Improvements

Landlord Handed £1,600 Bill for Not Making Improvements

In September 2010, Environmental Health inspectors uncovered several problems with the property, including: excess cold; faulty kitchen units; defective gas central heating system; electrical hazards; and an untidy garden.

Successive tenants complained to SKDC of leaks from the roof, damp, mould in the property, faulty central heating and hot water gas boiler, and fire safety defects.

Despite Lovett receiving an improvement notice, he did not conduct the work and stated that this was down to tenants refusing him access to the property in 2011.

Although the Council encouraged Lovett to make the improvements during a void period, he did not complete the work and a new tenant moved into the property in April 2014 when the jobs were still incomplete.

He admitted an offence under section 30 of the Housing Act 2004 when interviewed, and later pleaded guilty at a hearing at Grantham Magistrates’ Court on 23rd April where he was ordered to pay a £1,000 fine.

Lovett was also given a £100 surcharge and had £500 to pay in costs.

Mrs J Foster, presiding magistrate, said: “We are going to impose a fine. This was a serious matter where people occupied and lived in the property. This was over a lengthy period of time when matters could have been addressed.”1 

Anne-Marie Coulthard, SKDC’s Business Manager for Environmental Health, commented: “We know the vast majority of landlords provide a great service for their tenants in South Kesteven.

“However, this fine shows that landlords cannot simply ignore problems and orders such as improvement notices, so they leave properties in a safe and habitable condition.

“Our officers will always persist in ensuring housing law is strictly adhered to in rented properties to protect tenants in the district.”1

1 http://www.southkesteven.gov.uk/index.aspx?articleid=8631

Cheapest Place to Rent in London Revealed

Published On: May 7, 2015 at 4:19 pm

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Plumstead in South East London has been named the most affordable place to rent in the capital, found property portal Rightmove.

Rightmove researched the average asking rents of two-bedroom properties in London and discovered that Plumstead is the cheapest, at £1,143 per month. This is a huge seven times cheaper than the most expensive in Mayfair. 

Cheapest Place to Rent in London Revealed

Cheapest Place to Rent in London Revealed

Demand for rental accommodation in the capital has reached record highs in the last year, with a 69% rise in email enquiries from home-hunters to letting agents.

The South East and East London feature strongly in the top 20 cheapest areas, with Middle Park the second most affordable at £1,192 a month and Eltham the third at £1,195.

In Greater London, the average asking rent for a two-bed is £2,216 per month, an increase of over 6% in the last 12 months from £2,086. This also rose faster than the previous annual growth of 3.7%.

It is believed that the Outer London market is fuelling these increases, as the average rent here has risen by 8.4% in the past year to £1,493, compared with the smaller growth of 2.3% the year before.

Head of Lettings at Rightmove, Sam Mitchell says: “Rental asking prices have been steadily increasing in the past few years, following a short lull post-Olympics.

“Those struggling to find a place they can afford could consider these more affordable areas, and visit them to see if they would suit their lifestyle. Factors like being close to a tube station or a good school will always come at a premium, but it will help if you’re looking in an area with a below average London rental price to begin with.”1

Lettings Manager at Robinson Jackson, Alexa Joyeux adds: “We started noticing an increased demand for Plumstead among tenants when the DLR opened in nearby Woolwich in 2009. As soon as work started on the Crossrail station, enquiries stepped up another gear.

“In fact, in the last 18 months, we have seen rental values rise in the region of 20% as tenants position themselves in Plumstead ahead of Crossrail’s opening.

“We’ve also noticed a change in the type of tenant applying for properties; they’re coming from further afield and many of those have been priced out of areas like Bow in East London and South West London boroughs.

“Plumstead, for the time being, retains a level of affordability mixed with a good housing stock – lots of pretty Victorian terraces – wide open spaces that include Plumstead Common, Winn’s Common and Oxleas Woods, plus a very short journey to the revived and regenerated Woolwich town centre.”1

1 http://www.landlordtoday.co.uk/breaking-news/2015/5/plumstead-named-most-affordable-rental-spot-and-in-london

Estate Agent bemoans restrictive lending

Published On: May 7, 2015 at 3:01 pm

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A leading estate agency has been extremely vocal on what they feel has caused home loans to drop in the first three months of 2015.

Figures from the Council of Mortgage Lenders show that it has been a slow start to the year, with total mortgage lending down by 12% on the final quarter of 2014. Aston Mead believes that unnecessary restrictions included in some mortgage criteria is to blame for the fall.

Ludicrous

The National Association of Estate Agents (NAEA) has indicated that it is now taking an average of 50 days before an offer of a mortgage is made. This statistic was met with anger by Aston Mead’s managing director Charles Hesse, who said that it was, ‘simply ludicrous’ that buyers were having to wait seven weeks for a mortgage offer.

Hesse continued by saying, ‘ the current system is so draconian that it’s preventing some perfectly eligible people from getting a mortgage at all. It’s not as if the market was flooded with repossessed properties-even at the height of the recession.’[1]

Estate Agent bemoans restrictive lending

Estate Agent bemoans restrictive lending

Turning his attention to older buyers, Hesse said that for them, ‘not to be able to include assets and savings in their assessment-other than any rental income-is patently absurd.’ Unless changes are implemented, Hesse believes that the, ‘next generation is going to be saddled with this problem too.’[2]

[1-2] http://www.estateagenttoday.co.uk/breaking-news/2015/5/agent-blasts-%22unnecessarily-restrictive-lending%22

 

 

Estate Agent Jailed for Stealing £67k from Tenants

Published On: May 7, 2015 at 2:58 pm

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An estate agent has been jailed for failing to repay £67,000 that she stole from tenants, giving £45,000 to her partner.

Helen Gregory, 55, from Chesterfield in Derbyshire had previously promised a judge that she would give the money back, which had been deposit funds.

Gregory was paid £45,000 by another business, but transferred the money to her partner instead of returning it to her victims. Her partner then bought a £25,000 Jaguar car.

In August 2014, Gregory admitted three charges of engaging in unfair commercial practices, however a judge delayed her sentencing as she assured the court she would raise the money to repay the victims by selling a property.

This sale fell through and Gregory has now been jailed for ten months.

Derby Crown Court heard that Gregory was paid the £45,000 between December 2014 and January 2015.

Judge John Burgess said: “There are victims who are quite understandably furious. Not just that they lost their money, but the case has been strung out for two years or more. It sticks in the throat that someone could buy themselves out of a custodial sentence.

“It would have been more impressive if the £45,000 you received had not been paid to your partner, and then funds from that process gone to a payment of an expensive motor car. This money should have been paid back to creditors.”

In 2011, Trading Standards investigated Gregory after tenants complained that they did not get their deposits back. Gregory was using the funds to try to avoid her businesses closing due to the recession. She owns agencies in the Peaks, Dales and Chesterfield.

Prosecutor Christopher Lowe told the court that inquiries found a total of 1,126 deposits that Gregory received in the five years she offended.

Mr. Lowe said: “Of which, some 796 had not been paid into the Deposit Protection Scheme. These deposits total some £548,747.”1

Further studies revealed that £67,000 was owed to victims.

Defending Gregory, Robert Sandford said that the rest of the money had been given back to tenants, although it was not paid into the scheme. All deposits should placed in a deposit protection scheme, however, Gregory had not handed them over.

Gregory registered the deposits with the scheme, but these were cancelled when the service did not receive the money.

Gregory was subsequently arrested in December 2012 on suspicion of fraud by abusing her position as director of the agencies.

Mr. Sandford said Gregory had an “unblemished character” before the charges were made. He said that as her businesses started to fail, she began “robbing Peter to pay Paul.”

After she pleaded guilty in August 2014, Gregory said she was close to selling a property in Matlock, which would give her enough money to pay back her victims. The judge accepted this offer, and postponed sentencing.

But the court was told last week that this sale fell through and no other offers had been made.

Mr. Sandford revealed that Gregory’s partner had exchanged contracts on a property he owns in Bakewell and would pay her debts with the profits. Mr. Sandford said there was a “real prospect”1 that victims could be repaid in full by June.

However, Judge Burgess did not accept this offer. He said: “This is a case of promises, promises, promises being made and not kept. I’m not prepared to accept another promise and have to look at the damage that has been done.

“The harm can be seen in the anger expressed by the people who have lost money because of you. This is far too serious for anything other than a custodial sentence.”1

Gregory was additionally banned from being a company director for six years. A proceeds of crime hearing has been planned for 10th September.

1 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3071916/Estate-agent-did-not-repay-67-000-swindled-tenants-jailed-gave-45-000-partner-splashed-Jaguar-instead.html

 

Political Parties’ Housing Promises

Published On: May 7, 2015 at 12:59 pm

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As Britain’s take to the polls in the closest election in decades, a number of people may still be undecided where to put their ‘X.’

With that in mind, here are the main parties’ housing policies, which may just sway some voters:

Conservatives

  • Extend the Right to Buy scheme to 1.3 million Housing Association properties within England
  • Launch a Help to Buy ISA to support first-time buyers to get onto the property ladder
  • Build 200,000 homes for first-time buyers under 40, with 20% discount
  • Create a £1bn brownfield regeneration fund to create sites for an additional 400,00 homes

Labour

  • Build 200,000 new homes per year each year by 2020
  • Bring in minimum term three-year tenancy agreements in the private sector
  • Impose a ‘mansion tax’ on all properties valued at over £2m to fund additional housing
  • Prioritise local first-time buyers in new housing areas

Liberal Democrats

  • Up housebuilding to 300,000 homes per year
  • Prevent landlords from renting out insufficiently insulated homes
  • Implement Rent to Own scheme, with 30,000 homes promised by 2020

UKIP

  • Build one million homes on previously developed land by the year 2025
  • Remove stamp duty on first £250,000 of new properties on this land
  • Preserve the Greenbelt
Political Parties' Housing Promises

Political Parties’ Housing Promises

SNP

  • Complete abolition of the bedroom tax
  • Support Help to Buy and other shared equity regimes
  • Back investment of 100,000 affordable homes in the UK
  • Prevent restriction of housing benefit for 18-21 year olds

Green Party

  • Build 500,000 social rental properties by the year 2020
  • Restore 350,000 unoccupied properties back into full use
  • Introduce five-year tenancies with rent caps
  • Prevent right to buy council homes

Plaid Cymru

  • Provide rent controls to assist tenants
  • Support further implementation of energy efficiency measures

Property and how best to solve the housing crisis has been at the forefront of the election campaign. While the outcome of the vote remains in the balance, it is a certainty that whoever takes residence in Number 10 will be judged over their housing strategy during their term in office.

Property Crowdfunding Could Save Buy-to-Let Investors

Published On: May 7, 2015 at 12:33 pm

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Every political party seems to have it in for buy-to-let landlords, and investors are already suffering from expensive new regulations and tougher taxes brought in by the coalition Government.

Labour has proposed three-year tenancies and rent controls, and the Liberal Democrats are planning to crackdown on landlords with low energy-efficiency properties.

Britain’s landlords are concerned over any new measures when the result of the general election is announced.

Property Crowdfunding Could Save Buy-to-Let Investors

Property Crowdfunding Could Save Buy-to-Let Investors

But what changes have investors already been hit with?

To begin with is the corporate enveloped dwellings tax. If an investor’s portfolio is held through a company and has any property worth £1m or more – the threshold will halve next year – they will be charged an additional £7,000 in annual tax, unless qualifying for an exemption.

If the Conservatives stay in power, the right to rent checks included in the Immigration Act 2014 will roll out nationally and require landlords to check the immigration status of their tenants, or face a £3,000 fine. The scheme is already in place in some parts of the Midlands.

And the law could get tougher regarding problem tenants. It is hoped that there will be a clampdown on revenge evictions – when tenants are asked to leave for requesting improvements on the property.

It is important that tenants’ rights are considered, however, it is feared that some will take advantage of this measure.

Furthermore, there are more local authorities requiring landlords to licence their rental properties. This can cost from £500 to £1,000 for Houses in Multiple Occupation (HMOs).

Not only are landlords dealing with the usual concerns of being a buy-to-let investor: void periods, trouble tenants, and unexpected bills, but new regulations could hit even harder.

James Robinson, of Property Crowd, says: “However, there is another way for investors to get involved in property investment and existing buy-to-let landlords to expand their portfolio without increasing the hassle factor.

“The residential buy-to-let market is booming, and property crowdfunding offers a way in without the need to obtain mortgages, find suitable tenants for the properties, and all of the other usual headaches of being a landlord.”

Property Crowd’s latest project is a £1m offer on luxury new-build flats from a leading residential developer, St James, for a minimum investment of £5,000.

Robinson explains: “Property Crowd investors will receive 100% of the net rental income and will also benefit from 75% of the capital appreciation upon sale, expected to be in five to six years time.”1

1 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sponsored/finance/property-crowdfunding/11583050/avoid-new-buy-to-let-headaches-property-crowdfunding.html?WT.mc_id=tmgspk_td_605878_11583050&utm_source=tmgspk&utm_medium=td&utm_content=605878&utm_campaign=tmgspk_td_605878_11583