Dec
2
Changes are afoot to the tenancy deposit scheme here in the UK.
The main ‘tweak’ will be that landlords and agents will have up to 30 days to register a tenant’s deposit.
To read the full article click HERE
Aug
17
Don’t ever deal with DSS council tenants…ever…! The council housing officers in the homeless persons units up and down the country, but especially in London, are advising tenants to ignore Section 21 notices. They are also advising tenants to ignore Court Orders for Possession. They are saying that if the tenant leaves before they are physically evicted by a court bailiff, they are making themselves intentionally homeless and therefore are not eligible for council accommodation or emergency accommodation.
This is the stance being adopted by the London Borough of Tower Hamlets homeless persons unit. This is a total contradiction to what I was told by the housing manager, Noella Ling, of Tower Hamlets Housing. She told me at a recent Tower Hamlets Landlords Forum that they routinely ignored section 21 notices because of the perceived risk of collusion between the landlord and the tenant to obtain council accommodation. They don’t take into account any background or circumstances surrounding the section 21 notice being issued. Then the landlord is forced to prepare papers and files and apply to the court for a possession order. This costs £175. Once possession is ordered by the courts, the tenant then takes the order to the homeless persons unit and asks to be re-housed. The homeless persons unit officer (or housing options officer – in this case Andre Melvin) instructs the tenant to ignore the warrant for possession and refuses to re-house her (or the tenant refuses the council’s offer of accommodation because it’s not exactly what she wants!).
End result? I have to spend yet more money and waste more time arranging bailiffs to come and evict her so that she can take the letter of eviction to the homeless persons unit verifying she’s been evicted and the locks have been changed before the council will re-house her!
What a crazy situation and that is why I am advising all landlords in the private rental sector (PRS) to boycott council tenants and stop giving their properties to agents that promote “guaranteed rent schemes”, “leasing schemes” and other schemes that invariably involve council tenants and tenants on DSS.
In tough times there is a flight to quality. It happens in the financial industry, so why not in the residential property market?
Jul
5
They have raided residents’ bank accounts for rent, carried out FBI-style checks on their backgrounds and interrogated them in interviews. But now New York landlords are demanding even more.
Source: NY landlords demand dog DNA to discourage fouling
Jan
24
URGENT NOTICE to all Landlords
Filed Under UK Property Investment | 2 Comments
I received an email this morning which is so important I’ve just copied and pasted it in its entirety below.
I urge ALL landlords to read it and register with the LRS today!
====================================================
Good Morning,
It is not normal that I write to you this early in the week unless it is a rogue tenant alert but we have had researchers working over the weekend to collate data for the new ‘OurLoop’ site going live on 4 February 2011 www.ourloop.co.uk and feel that this qualifies as National Alert, we needed to inform you of some of our findings. There is almost an epidemic developing of tenants that are not only refusing to pay their rents but they are unable to do so as the recession and the Government cuts start to take shape. We have reported to our Members earlier in the year which was publicised by the BBC of our concerns of the migration of tenants and rent arrears due to the economy in the next year, this of course is now proving to be the case as a true prediction and therefore the next prediction has to be that due to shortages of funding because of the economic climate rents will not be met and Landlords will be either covering the deficit or start losing their properties. We ourselves as Landlords are experiencing rent defaults and the alerts which are coming in thick and fast showing massive defaults are also representing this.
LRS field research and analysis of the current climate is showing that Landlords need to act very fast both to get our own tenants registered and to encourage new members on board to register their tenants. To do this and with new members uploading tenants will give us all an opportunity to reference with previous Landlords who may have sufferered rent defaults, this in turn should slow down the forth coming epidemic effecting members of LRS sweeping across the UK this year. I am sure you are aware that our motto at LRS is “prevention is better than cure”, we therefore ask that you send this off to everybody you know – Local Authority accreditation schemes, Landlords, Letting Agents. Associations and anyone else that can help this cause – our strength is really going to be in numbers. Any tenant who is considering not paying his rent will be less likely to knock and run if they know that they will not be able to get another property if any future landlord is registered on LRS.
For News Articles titled ‘Rent Arrears for 2010 up £56 Million on 2009. Still rising inc 2011 click the button below:
Or Follow this URL: http://www.national.landlordreferencing.co.uk/contents/en-uk/otherurl.html?ourl=D31
More news will be going up throughout the week on this issue, so keep an eye on our news pages.
Please check out our NEW Facebook Page:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Landlord-Referencing-Services/179521938754867
Kindest Regards
Sarah Shakespeare
May
21
The tenant from hell: The woman wreaking a trail of havoc through south London’s rental properties
Filed Under UK Property Investment | Leave a Comment
The Daily Mail had a great article entitled “The tenant from hell: The woman wreaking a trail of havoc through south London’s rental properties” which ALL landlords MUST read (note the emphasis!).
If you or your letting agent are approached by a black lady calling herself Rose Chimuka - or perhaps Emily Mapera, Rose Maetune or Emma Magonna and posing as a middle-aged housewife with three children and married to a man with a respectable job then be advised…. steer well clear! She seems to be operating in South-East London.