LordOf TheManor

Of particular note:

If your ex-tenant is self-employed you have no chance at all of reclaiming anything!!... Read More

Quick question....

What events are you trying to insure?... Read More

Another capital gains question.....

A friend's accountant overpaid the CGT for an ex-pat whose house was sold last year. They used the wrong calculation which should have been the straight-line one. The over payment is £25k!

Accountants are no longer acting and have notified HMRC to this effect. I'm sure there's an HMRC form that can be used to correct the calculation....

I just can't find it! Can anyone help, please?

Thank you!... Read More

... Read More

Well said, Northern Landlord!!

Said Vulture Company tried hard to persuade me to part with my well-maintained and picture-perfect house with long life guarantees still in place for roof, damp course, kitchen++ for 30% less than market value - even with blue chip tenants in it!

Scare stories - huh? They weren't going to kid someone like me. I self-managed the house for 23 years and I wouldn't be lying to say the only void I ever had was during the full refurb in 2010.

I therefore politely asked the tenants to leave so that I could sell it unencumbered at a price that rewarded my investment and time spent with the property, albeit minus the huge CGT bill. The house, when vacant, flew off the estate agent's shelf in no time for 40% more than the Vulture Company's offering. Unless you're super desperate, the word is DON'T!

NB: In response to the stats provided by the OP: with 21% of landlords in the NW wanting to off-load their tenanted properties (via the easiest but most costly way) onto another landlord - why is this? What's the real story?... Read More

'We are also interested in hearing from landlords who may be victims of crime in the sense that their property may have been misused by tenants.'

A million thank yous, Dr L'Hoiry!!!... Read More

Could the OP go back to Ben Parker at Battersea and ask the 24% who clearly did encounter pet damage for a schedule of those damages, how much the repairs cost - and, in each case, who got landed with the bill?... Read More

Kevin

Thank you for your honesty & telling it as it is from the front line.

It must be very stressful for the civil servants in public facing roles to know that the situation created by 'our betters' won't help those sitting in front of them.

All the worse knowing that the situation cannot get any better. A quart never did fit into a pint mug, did it?... Read More

Is the tenant claiming or wanting to claim housing benefit?

If so, that could be the reason for the re-creation of the tenancy agreement. As the LHA rate has increased from April, the higher rent used on the replicated agreement could be a way of the tenant claiming more benefit soon.

Only guessing... because I can't think of any other reason for a tenant to issue themselves a fake agreement!... Read More

Quick question: Do you have a hard copy of the original document signed by all parties to the contract?... Read More

I totally disagree!
A CCJ is a CCJ & whatever it was given for is always relevant to a prospective landlord.
It means an instant failure of the tenant referencing process for starters! It's a tenant's responsibility to protect their credit history, no-one else's.
A CCJ will not just refuse the landlord the cover of an RGI policy, it will also invalidate all other aspects of landlord insurance. No dice - I wouldn't take the chance, not ever!

It's therefore not... Read More

Alex .....
Even though you're no longer running a letting agency, please don't lose sight of the business acumen that with that.
It seems the norm is that tenants no longer submit a signed truthful 'tenancy application form' to an agent prior to 'offering' on a proposed tenancy. What???
I find my own tenants via Open rent with pre-screening questions prior to viewings. Of the offers, all have to submit to me a completed NRLA tenancy application form. Based on the signed receipt of that, only then do I accept prospective tenants at their 'face value' & go on to agree to pay to reference them.
If tenants have signed NRLA form to say no CCJs but then are found to have them... that comes out in the wash when the NRLA references are paid for. Results in no tenancy & I keep the holding fee they paid.
NB: My last 2 tenant applicants have both said that when they were contacted direct from NRLA after my pre-approval process, the questions asked of them were considerably less than those on the form I had sent them.
NB: NRLA. Could you please comment on my most recent tenants' feedback?... Read More

Hmmm....
Alex, please establish what was known at the point of referencing. The advice of both Dylan Morris & Chris@PF is great advice so please follow!

If the CCJ was known at the time of the tenant being referenced, then the course of follow up with the responsibility chain falls under: Hale v Blue Sky Properties.... Read More

I'd say 6 years....

With the mess of the pandemic and the backlog that followed, a lot of time has stood still when claims would have gone nowhere in the system. Doing your own 'mopping up' now is the earliest sensible time.... Read More

Hi Helen

Well, in that case, his income wasn't affected at all! He would still have been in receipt of his student loan & any bursary (if applicable). None of that changed.

Students (unless they have permanent work alongside their studies & earn enough to support the rent) are not considered to have 'income'. Your claim therefore lies with his guarantors.

Write to them to formally call in the debt based on misrepresentation of facts by the student they sponsored. Politely remind them that they are responsible for the shortfall and they remain signed up to that effect. In your letter, assume that they will pay by saying you look forward to the receipt of £x in 7 days time.

If they don't respond, send a chaser later - saying you had hoped to hear from them by now. No response to that then needs a letter of your intent to pursue via the Courts - give them a final specific date. Say no further correspondence will be entered into beyond that.

Then make a Moneyclaim online and let the civil process take over. That drives the dates for responses from both parties so it's just following postal instructions from then on. It might not come to that... but if it does, post again!

Go for it, Helen.

Lord... Read More

Hi Helen
Just a few questions....

What was the nature of the employment of this tenant? Was his income likely to have been adversely affected during the pandemic? Was he furloughed?

Also, what were the reasons for taking guarantors for his tenancy?

Quite a few of my tenants who were furloughed actually saved quite a lot of money during the pandemic due to nil transport costs and nowhere to spend disposable income. Your tenant might have been in a similar situation - so don't naturally link the pandemic with financial loss.

All the best with the claim! That's what I would do, but on the claim form, I would refer to this as 'misrepresentation of facts for financial gain' rather than 'fraud'. Magistrates don't like that term in their courts so compile your evidence in support of your case calmly and professionally. Detail your loss as a result of the reduction which you offered in good faith at the time, believing the tenant..... Explain that you subsequently had reason to question the tenant's integrity (over the call outs, etc) and as a result you found the online evidence. You found yourself exploited and wish to be reclaim your losses.

Stay polite and calm, stick to non-accusatory language and rely on the facts to demonstrate your willingness to work with the tenant with the best of intentions at the time. That should be enough for justice to be restored - if the claim against the guarantors doesn't come to anything. Try that first though.

Lord... Read More

Hi Judith
I would definitely advise your tenants to contact the letting agents of the flat below - and keep a written record of the contacted person, and the agent's response. If the first contact to them is made by phone, follow up with an email saying 'Further to my call re .... I look forward to hearing from you as stated... (and refer to the date they said) or if no date given, make a note to follow up within a fixed time frame.

This would formalise the issue, creating a starting date of the first complaint. All communications need to be logged from there and followed up accordingly.

Whilst waiting for the agent's response, keep a log of all other disturbances from that flat.

Good luck. I hope this gets resolved quickly!... Read More

Hi LR

Thanks for that info. I'll put it in my mental 'toolbox' - so to speak. Just to be clear, my interest concerns legal immigrants - not the small boat personnel that dominate 60% of British politics.

I guess in reality the legal immigrant tenant gets 'stuck' where they are, i.e. in PRS property - because they don't have the credentials to move on unless it's to an unwary LL or cardboard city or they jack it all in to go back to whence they came.

Housing legal immigrants keen to get on in the UK who want to settle - albeit with limited right to remain - is fine if they can afford to legalise themselves to stay from the start - but landlords willing to house the others cannot possibly know their future capacity to complete the process. This includes the many who have already arrived as 'spouses or partners or children' of those holding the primary visa, i.e. the category being ruled out/denied visas by Gov.UK very soon.

While it's the aspiration of the legal immigrants to stay, it doesn't come free of 'grey hairs' for landlords, does it? The legal immigrants' price to stay is HUGE. Many are in the essential category: NHS technicians, catering managers +++. They're not the biggest earners and their partners are likely to hold no-contract dodgy McDonald jobs when they respond to adverts for accommodation.

Every time I advertise a property to let, same as many other landlords in popular cities, I am inundated with these type of enquiries - along with the norm of UK professionals needing to relocate for job prospects. We all know which of the two groups gets crowded out and why this is.

I fully understand the LEGAL immigrant newcomers' needs to live somewhere and the 'right to rent' market they represent. If I don't take them it is not because I am racist. It's because I am cautious knowing the enormous funds they require to achieve ILR status. It's a forthcoming financial burden on them that no-one, least of all a well-intending landlord, would have any knowledge of.

The full costs of UK ILR is not published anywhere nor is this knowledge readily available to landlords - or to anyone else who isn't an immigrant or immigrant helper accessing it. It's a completely blind subject.

The law referred to in the title of this thread seems to assume the immigrants to be the clandestine type having arrived on small boats. It's more than time to widen the brief to include the lot of legal immigrants.

It's not fair for GOV UK to fine upstanding PRS landlords for accommodating initial right to rent tenants whose circumstances may likely change during the life of their visa. (Same as anyone else).

Landlords have no idea or reference to what it costs to achieve UK ILR status nor can they pre-empt the tenants affordability to pay or complete the tests in the future. Most landlords wouldn't even know to feature that as a risk factor in offering a tenancy.

The blanket fining of landlords housing overstaying 'migrants' therefore needs much more context to be credible. Above all, to be fair to all well-intentioned PRS landlords, the true costs of a legal immigrant extending or achieving their UK residential status should be public knowledge. It isn't, to date.

Without that, landlords who take on tenants with initial legal migrant visa status get inadvertently hitched up to that tenant's future in the UK. It's great if it all goes to plan, eh? If doesn't ...... we know who loses out.... Read More

If you take a tenant who has the right to rent for a limited period, say up to 5 years with the correct visa in place, but someone who hasn't reached the time when they can apply for Indefinite Leave to Remain (ILR) - how are you supposed to remove them from your property if they remain your tenants yet can't achieve this status?

Getting ILR is neither cheap nor easy. English language proficiency test (at a fee) and British Citizenship Test (at a fee) have to be passed before ILR can be applied for. ILR costs are at least £3,500 per applicant and if the applicant can't manage a 48-page form and up to 10 items of supporting evidence, a government agency will assist for a fee of circa £5k per applicant - with no guarantee of success.

For a couple seeking ILR - having come to the UK legitimately - the cost is double because all the fees are per person. Any children born during the initial limited right to remain period (with no access to public funds) also need to have applications made for them.

It might be that these are the people/tenants that the government are making landlords responsible for..... if the government can't collect ILR fees from them, then their landlord (as low hanging fruit) is the next best bet to collect from. Nothing new there.

Eviction takes the same amount of time for whatever the cause of it. The landlord pays the ultimate price in costs and stress - and the previous legitimate tenants, when eventually evicted, go where?... Read More

These dimensions reduce most of the UK's 1930s semi detached houses into 2 bed properties. Granted that their greater appeal these days in the rental market is for home-workers needing a private home office but all the same, these houses were built as 3 bed family homes and I'm pretty sure that's mostly how our nation's home owners still use them.

I bought a traditional 3-bed semi in 2013. Like most of them all over the UK it's made up of 2 x double bedrooms & a box room (still perfectly suitable for a cot, one young child or even two sleeping on bunk beds). But according to whom?

I enlarged this box room by adding a full height & width 'wardrobe' above the stairwell. The floor space which doesn't need a wardrobe is 7.3ft x 6ft (43.8 square feet) but apparently this isn't a bedroom now, according to rented sleeping space requirements.

In the 'old days' a room was adjusted fit to housing benefit applicants' needs, no matter what the previous designation of that room was. It made bedrooms out of old Victorian dining rooms: the dining room could be classed as a bedroom as long as it had a window and a door that could close on a room which contained a single bed, wardrobe and chest of drawers.

The single room in the 3-bed semi I bought takes a full width (30inch) single bed (6.4' foot) in length. On the floor space there is a free-standing chest of drawers & a bedside cabinet. Clothes hanging + additional storage above & below is perfectly adequate for one person via the closet built above the stairwell. In addition, there is storage space beneath the bed.

The UK has 1930s houses nationwide, all over the map. There must be multiple thousands of rooms exactly like this (with or without the bulk head storage addition) used across the entirety of the UK in private homes. Babies, tots, first child, two children, teenagers happy to have their first non-shared room as well as weekday lodgers.

It's a private sleeping space if it's self contained, the door can be shut and there's a window for natural light. My tenant family use it that way and are more than happy!

So, with all the housing needs there are today, and applying the same logic in today's times..... If these box rooms AREN'T considered to be bedrooms by UK renting officialdom, what are the huge majority of the British home-owning families sleeping in these days???... Read More