With his distinctive blonde hair, Boris Johnson, mayor of London, is instantly recognisable on the streets of the capital. Unfortunately for him, his flagship scheme, the London Rental Standard, has failed to grab public attention in quite the same way.
Landlords making extra money from taking in lodgers or renting out a spare room to tourists enjoyed a big boost in last week’s budget. The tax-free “Rent-A-Room” allowance was increased from £4,250 to £7,500 – the first increase since the allowance was introduced 18 years ago.
The Bank of England is worried about the high level of buy to let funding and it says that it may have to place restrictions on the availability of BTL mortgages. Appetite for Risk According to a report recently published by the bank, buy to let lending now accounts for 18% of new mortgage lending.
Blackpool was once a pretty seaside town where families from the industrial heartland of the northern England came to spend their annual two-week summer holiday. Today the hotels are past their best and you are more likely to see a hen party stumbling up the promenade than a well-dressed couple enjoying a weekend break.
Conservative MP, Dame Angela Watkinson, has introduced a Draft Local Government Finance (Tenure Information) Bill to make it much easier for authorities to identify rogue landlords who are operating under the radar of local authority control.
An industry report has revealed that the average short-hold tenancy is now 2.7 years, in contrast to the average of 2.5 years recorded last autumn. The figures published in the annual Rent Check Report were based on a survey of more than 2,000 landlords in the UK.
Following the successful prosecution of an HMO landlord, owners and managers of other illegal unlicensed HMOs in Barnet and Capita have been given until July 31 to come forward and apply for a licence without fear of prosecution by local enforcement service, Re.
Illegal sub-letting is an increasingly popular scam in the current private rental market. With demand so high in many areas, tenants don’t always carry out checks to ensure the landlord is actually who they claim to be.
Short term lets that allow visitors to ’live like locals’ is becoming increasingly popular in major tourist cities. But it isn’t all good news, especially for locals. Camden Council is claiming that short-term rental website, Airbnb, is driving up rental prices in the area, which is making it increasingly hard for locals to find suitable […]
The clock is ticking on landlords who have yet to protect deposits taken before April 6th 2007, so if you are one of these landlords, you need to act fast. Deposit Protection Schemes Following a change in law, deposits handed over to landlords before 6th April 2007 now have to be protected in one of […]
Research published by a major UK specialist lender – Kent Reliance – shows that the private rental sector (PRS) is growing at an astounding rate and is now bigger than ever before. In fact the growth is so great that the figures suggest there will be 5.5 million households in the rental sector by 2020. […]
According to the BBC, City Hall claims that the London Rental Standard scheme, which was set up last year, is not working. Only 14,350 landlords have signed up to the scheme, which is far less than the 100,000 landlords expected to join.
Landlord licenses are a contentious issue for many, but love them or loath them, licensing schemes remain a very popular way for Local Authorities to improve standards in the private rental sector. So which areas are currently affected?
Her Majesty the Queen made the first Conservative majority speech since 1996 yesterday and it included plenty of items that are relevant to landlords and the private rental sector.
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