March 11, 2009
Cannabis-to-Let
Story link: Cannabis-to-Let
It’s increasingly common that people growing cannabis are using rental properties as a portal for their storage. Using fake details could erase the link them selves leaving the issue with other tenants and the landlord if the police were ever to find out
With cases of residential cannabis farming continuing to rise, Norwich Union is warning landlords to be extra vigilant when vetting tenants and inspecting their properties.
During 2006/07, there were 5,497 seizures of cannabis plants by police, an increase of 34 percent since 2005
Landlord fined £5,000
Story link: Landlord fined £5,000
Personally I feel that the fines are fairly lenient considering that this is peoples homes that are being left to a state of disrepair, even though the tenants are most likely to be paying huge amounts of rent
A Landlord who failed to keep her property up to a safe standard was ordered to pay more than £5,000 in fines and costs at Preston magistrates’ court recently.
Elizabeth Jones of the Boulevard, Preston was ordered to pay a £1,500 fine together with costs of £3,500 and £15 victim’s surcharge.
Situations don’t sort themselves
Story link: Situations don’t sort themselves
Landlord Assist have assisted hundreds landlords in a range of situations and the introduction of this website is only likely to help things go further.
The more organizations similar to Landlord Assist, the better!
Situations don’t sort themselves
Landlord Assist, the dedicated service run by property law experts to secure property and arrears of rent for landlords of residential property, has launched a new company blog.
The blog, which can be viewed at www.landlordassist.blogspot.com, provides news updates on current events, plus practical advice and tips for landlords with rented properties.
View now rather than later
Story link: View now rather than later
While many press releases state that the buy-to-let market is on the brink of collapse, many articles such as the one below, suggest the opposite.
According to many reports, there has been a huge increase in property being rented out as people chose to rent their property rather than sell up and lose on the capital, this threatens to devalue the current market.
Would-be tenants searching for their ideal home on the internet have a one in three chance of being disappointed because the property they would like to rent has already been let.
This is the key finding of research carried out by online property rental specialist upad.co.uk who claim that letting agents are uploading their entire stock to portals, which results in tenants having a bad experience.
February 17, 2009
Bargain Hunters
Story link: Bargain Hunters
The amount of Bargain Hunters in the Buy to let investment industry is likely to increase over the next few months, as the lower interest rates allow more potential investors into the market.
Sales expectations over the next month or two are looking to top sales figures over the last 3 months, and could be the start of a positive turn around in the property market.
As both house prices and interest rates fall, Residential Landlords with finance are still looking for bargain opportunities says the recently published RICS’ UK housing market survey.
Expectations that sales will increase have turned positive once again with 10 percent more Chartered Surveyors expecting sales to pick up in the coming months. Optimism is most visible in London and across the South of England with the balance of surveyors expecting sales to increase in London rising from 18 percent to 38 percent. In contrast Chartered Surveyors expect house prices to continue to decline in the near term.
Buy to let investment loans
Story link: Buy to let investment loans
The Empty Homes Action Plan will help many residential landlords, with the aim of renovating empty or out of use homes, ready for rental in the future, which of course would be an asset to any landlords portfolio.
The project will be looking to target all the 2,000 homes that they have identified.
Residential Landlords in a Lancashire district may be offered loans as part of a new Empty Homes Action Plan to renovate problem sites. It is one of the options being considered by Pendle Borough Council to overcome the problem of an estimated 2,000 empty homes in its area.
The empty properties are considered a ‘wasted asset’ and the council has warned that it could begin legal proceedings to take over rundown locations to prevent the long-term decline of neighbourhoods.
Flood risk increases
Story link: Flood risk increases
Thanks to the recent whether, flood warnings have been given throughout the UK throughout the past few weeks, with some areas being completely devastated by the scale of the bad whether.
As of now around 100,000 homes have a huge risk of potentially being damaged by floods, according to Landmark Information Group.
With the current weather producing 94 flood warnings across the country, properties belonging to residential landlords will be among the one in four homes in England and Wales are at potential risk from flooding according the Landmark Information Group.
Plus in Scotland, the Government says there are approximately 100,000 homes at risk from flooding, however Landmark Information Group predicts this figure to be much higher.
Norwich helps landlords
Story link: Norwich helps landlords
Councils are giving landlords more help now than they ever have before hand, which is of course excellent, especially if you are a new landlord and are unsure about certain rules.
Landlords in the greater Norwich area are being offered a helping hand through a variety of soon to be launched initiatives.
The Norwich landlord forum hosted by Norwich City Council, in association with the greater Norwich housing partnership (GNHP), made up of Norwich City Council, Broadland District Council, South Norfolk Council and Eastern Landlords Association – will be held on Wednesday 18 February from 5-8pm at the Council Chambers at County Hall.
Online for landlords
Story link: Online for landlords
The evolution of the internet has enabled jobs such as our shopping to take place both quicker and cheaper than ever.
Now a new initiative, set up by Charnwood Borough Council, hopes to turn things around for those with empty homes. The Council has set up a specialist website which aims to give hope to empty homes.
Residential landlords are being given an extra incentive to sign up to Charnwood Borough Council’s specialist website that aims to give a fresh start to empty homes.
The Authority’s Strategic Housing and Health Directorate has negotiated a number of discounts for property owners who register for the online Tenant Finder, Fresh Start and Landlord’s eForum.
Sale and rent back companies should be crippled
Story link: Sale and rent back companies should be crippled
Finally a Government consultation document will highlight the fine details regarding the rules and regulations and the impact they can have on unregulated sale and rent back sector, with the possibility of the Financial Services Authority getting involved as well.
Sale and rent back companies have been taking advantage of people in a disadvantage for to long and putting them in stalemate as regards to sale and rent back deals on their property, not any more!
Sale and rent back companies should be crippled
A Government consultation document setting out the details of the proposed legislation over the unregulated sale and rent back sector will close on 1 May 2009.
The consultation will decide if companies offering sale and rent back agreements, which may target homeowners facing repossession, should be brought within the scope of Financial Services Authority (FSA) regulation.