Scottish Association of Landlords

Scottish landlords take tax case to The Treasury

Scottish landlords will today meet with senior UK Government officials in London to urge them to rethink planned tax changes for private landlords or risk threatening investment in the Private Rented Sector (PRS) at a time when Scotland is facing a long-term housing crisis.

Representatives from the Scottish Association of Landlords (SAL) will meet with senior Treasury officials in London to point out the consequences of the changes announced in the Budget in July.

In his Budget Statement, the Chancellor has proposed reducing tax relief on buy-to-let mortgages and replacing the current “wear and tear” depreciation allowance for items such as furniture. These changes will significantly increase costs and result in reduced investment and upgrading of properties, or some landlords exiting the market altogether.

In his Budget Statement, the Chancellor has proposed reducing tax relief on buy-to-let mortgages and replacing the current “wear and tear” depreciation allowance for items such as furniture. These changes will significantly increase costs and result in reduced investment and upgrading of properties, or some landlords exiting the market altogether.

“Even the numbers put forward by The Treasury, which claim only 1 in 5 landlords will be affected by the tax changes, represents a huge swathe of the sector. We believe, when taking the changes to ‘wear and tear’ in to account, the actual number will be a lot higher.”

“We have heard just last week in the press from a landlord in Edinburgh about how these tax changes will make it harder for families on benefits to find accommodation in the private sector, increasing demand on council housing which is already over-subscribed across Scotland.”

“Both SAL and our members are in favour of ensuring the highest possible standards in the sector and are working with the Scottish Government to achieve that but these measures could see landlords forced to pass at least some of the burden on to tenants in the shape of increased rent which they don’t want to do.”... Read More

Shared with all SAL members just now via our enewsletter. Thank you Mark... Read More

Hi Vicky

We have an advice team who can help you today - we can't post specific advice here as we would need to ask a few questions about the paperwork in place to be sure of the tenancy details.

We can also advise you on a method to get the HB payment directly from the Council, without any action by the tenant, depending on the circumstances.

Our advice helpline is open 9-5, or we can call out of hours by appointment. You you can join and access advice at the same time - please see http://www.property118.com/scottish-association-of-landlords-membership/

We would be pleased to help you. Our landlord membership fee is tax deductible against your rental income and covers unlimited access to helpline, free training all across Scotland, magazine, Scottish document downloads, enews updates and much more.

Look forward to hearing from you and helping you to get this situation resolved.

With regards from all at the Scottish Association of Landlords... Read More

Hi there Mark and Andrew

Late to the fray today - we have two big conferences coming up (agents next week, landlords on 4 November) so it's all hands on deck this week.

Looks like you're all clear now, but feel free to contact us if we can be of help Andrew with any property you're seriously considering.

We can advise you on the old style tenancies if you need it but we'd certainly concur on the caveat emptor

Best wishes from all at SAL... Read More

Hi there

See above. Please don't shoot the messenger. :-). We agree with you.

Here at SAL we believe that the standards should be the same across all tenures -see our earlier post. We are lobbying for that.

Best from all at SAL.... Read More

It's a legal requirement.

The PRHP is the body which decides if the Repairing Standard has or has not been breached in cases brought to them. The onus is on the tenant to report the landlord to the PRHP if they believe their rental accommodation does not meet the Repairing Standard.

Like many of these rules, there will not be any "letting police" checking for enforcement. That's frustrating for many that nobody will be checking and that the good landlords as usual comply, at a high prices too. This work is approx £300-400 for a 2 bed flat.

However, not many sensible landlords would be looking to find ways to avoid meeting fire safety regulations,

In any case battery powered detectors in a property in 2007 when the Repairing Standard came in and which met the Standard then are in most cases coming to end of life now or past that. Mains wired would be required anyway when replacing those.

SAL believe that this should now be made a requirement for all tenures, as why should tenants in all other tenures, not have the same protection? If its required for the PRS, the same standards should apply to local authority/social landlords.

Also we have had an amendment added to the recent Housing Bill which, to cut a long story short, would require any future changes to the Repairing Standard to be consulted upon. This was not.

Are you in Scotland? please join SAL and help us lobby? There is lots more in the pipeline here in Scotland. It's expensive and time consuming work so please add your voice.

Best wishes from all at SAL.... Read More

Hi there

This is correct. You can see the new guidance from the Private Rented Housing Panel at http://www.prhpscotland.gov.uk/prhp/136.26.32.html.

Our helpline can give individualised assistance if required too for members.

Hope that helps

best wishes... Read More

Hi Scott

We have compulsory landlord registration here in Scotland and as the OPs say most of the laws around letting are different to those south of the Border.

Joining the Association gives you access to Scots law helpline, all the documents for letting, free training via our sister organisation Landlord Accreditation Scotland and access to our branch network and events - great for contacts. We also publish Landlord Focus magazine and regular enewsletters plus much much more.

Landlord membership is £90 per year and the full amount is allowable on your tax return as a professional subscription. ... Read More

Firstly yes most of the laws around letting are already different to those in England/Wales as Scots law applies here. Additionally housing is a devolved matter so policy has diverged more since the Scottish Parliament was established. Consumer law and financial law plus welfare benefits ((DWP) are the main areas where Westminster rules still apply.

The future? Can SAL get a crystal ball out and use it any better than any other commentators? No probably we can't.

We held a debate on the independence issue and how it might impact on the Scottish PRS at our National Landlord Day conference at the end of 2013. There was a lot of very interesting discussion as you would expect and of course some polarised viewpoints were expressed from the politicians on the stage.

Here at SAL we have always been and will remain politically neutral - we work with all political parties on a policy by policy basis. Thus we do not have and will not take a position on the independence debate.

We invite experts to contribute articles such as the OP mentions being published in our Landlord Focus mag and in our member enews etc. We hope these are of interest to members and readers and spark debate.

Concrete answers to the questions posed on mortgages, the currency etc as specifically related to the PRS in Scotland post September 2014 have not really been given in any forum we're aware of, although the two sides are happy to provide their opinions.

You can read what the SNP have published in their "white paper" on independence here - http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2013/11/9348/0

The opposition case can be seen here - http://bettertogether.net/pages/the-ve-case

Whatever the outcome, we're confident that the PRS in Scotland will still be here and whatever the political future there will always be new challenges ahead.

SAL will continue to work for our landlord and letting agent members representing their interests with our policymakers. Wherever in Scotland you let property we are here to help you. Please join us and get involved or join us and let us assist you with your lettings.

Mark has a form on this website that you can use to enquire with us.... Read More

... Read More

Hi Andrew

Please do join SAL, get involved - come to our meetings (all our new dates for 2014 will be announced in January) and events and I'm sure you'll meet like minded people.

We would be happy to help, and we have a member enews which is well used for the type of request you have made above.

See all the info on our website www.scottishlandlords.com or email or phone us and we can send you full membership information.

Best wishes from all at SAL... Read More

The Scottish Association of Landlords has emailed the call to action to our members today. We have asked members affected to contact us directly too.... Read More

The Scottish Association of Landlords has emailed the call to action to our members today. We have also asked those members affected to also contact us directly with their concerns.... Read More

... Read More

Hi Roxanne

Many thanks for your email. Without seeing the documents and the details in them, also without knowing if it is an “assured” or “short assured” tenancy and knowing if the AT5 document was also correctly served etc, it’s not possible to give you advice on this.

Your best option will be Shelter Scotland who do have housing advisers who could look at it and advise you as a tenant what to do. They have a free number too for this: 0808 800 4444

Have you spoken to the landlord to see if he would simply allow you to move sooner, in the circumstances?

I’m sorry not to be more directly helpful and wish you good luck with your situation.

With best wishes

Judith Dunn... Read More

Well done Property118 for making sure readers are thinking about this - the experience in Scotland is that Landlord Registration has not cleared the bad landlords from the sector as was promised. The enforcement is patchy and the reports of poor practice continue. Very few prosecutions are brought about and local authorities say they can't afford to enforce.

We support the provision of information and training plus accreditation (voluntary) and continue to call for proper enforcement.

England needs to consider how the enforcement will be resourced before thinking licensing will solve all the ills of the bad minority operating in the PRS.... Read More

Hi there

We've been lobbying the City of Edinburgh Council on behalf of members for well over a year on this matter ever since the "Proactive Impact Noise Standard" was brought in.

We pushed for this to be reconsidered. The result so far (exemption conditions), is a welcome move in the right direction and the Council has to be commended for listening). Unfortunately, the conditions are still viewed as unworkable in practice, for a variety of reasons. (see below)

Our position is that if there have not been any noise complaints recorded, it is reasonable to assume that there is not a noise issue for the neighbours. After all, the Council record neighbour complaints anyway for HMOs, so they have the data for the minority where noise problems exist. We do support noise reduction measures in properties where significant noise problems have been recorded. Some members have reported their tenants have had noise issues from above which do require action to be take, as they would in any other tenure.

We will continue to lobby and have requested meetings with the relevant elected councillors and council officials. We do ask the OP to consider joining the Scottish Association of Landlords as together we have a bigger voice and can work together towards curbing legislative excesses such as these. There's a news item on our website which covers this and if the OP gets in touch and joins SAL, we can update him on the work we're doing on this matter.

We're currently gathering data on this from members, many of which have already complied - ie "done the right thing" and carpeted, only to know find out they could have gained exemption and that's another issue too.

Likely problems with exemption conditions:

What about those whose neighbours change frequently? or are short term holiday lets? Unable or unwilling to write a letter for no reason related to noise? Have residents about to move out or move in and with no reason to help the landlord above. There are lots of questions around this and it's the job of SAL on behalf of members to take the views of our members to the Council on this matter.... Read More

The UK/England would do well to look North of the border before spending public money on this and before forcing landlords and agents to spend time and money complying with initiatives that do not deliver benefits for tenants anyway.

Earlier this year the Scottish Association of Landlords published information branding Landlord Registration in Scotland (universal and mandatory here) a costly farce.

The Landlord Registration scheme had from 2006 to January 2013 cost landlords and the taxpayer nearly £18 million.

This multi-million pound scheme was introduced to "crack down on rogue landlords" but has resulted in only 11 people being reported to the procurator fiscal (responsible for prosecution of crime in Scotland) in the last two years.

The breakdown revealed responsible landlords have paid £11.2 million in fees, while the start-up Scottish Government grant for the scheme was £5.2 million. Annual running fees for the website since 2006 are estimated to be just under £300,000.

Despite that cost, only a handful of cases have made it as far as the Crown Office, and only 40 landlords have been refused registration, compared with 200,000 successful applicants.

SAL calls for enforcement of all laws around letting, before any more legislation is set out.

Scottish landlords please join SAL to add your voice to our campaigns.

More information on the Landlord Registration story can be found on our website, news section.... Read More

That's a very useful summary, great to see well informed SAL members like John contributing.

Calls to the SAL member helpline during May and the start of June were, as we expected, made in high numbers from those asking for more information and assistance with using the new Tenant Information Pack (TIP) in various tenant scenarios. We're always delighted to help.

We also ran a series of seminars round the country going over the TIP in detail, attended by over 350 landlords and agents. The topic is now covered by our sister organisation Landlord Accreditation Scotland training courses which SAL members can attend free of charge as a member benefit.

It is straightforward enough but there's a sheet of guidance in our member resource area of the website. We also offer a MS word version for members - handy if you use letting software which doesn't accept PDFs.

Join SAL and let us keep you up to date with everything happening in Scottish letting.... Read More