Summer Budget 2015 – Landlords Reactions

Reply to the comment left by "money manager" at "13/01/2016 - 17:02":

Did the agent say whether they were first time buyers?

I am ready to "complete" on a second home before 1st April 2016 thus I thought avoiding additional stamp duty.
I was informed last night by a landlord that he had attended a seminar and that not only do you need to complete by 1st April but the property needs to be on the land register with the new owners name by 4th April 2016.
My solicitor has not received any draft information regarding the new stamp duty which is still under consultation until February and there is no information online regarding any land registry requirement.
Has anyone else heard about this ?

Reply to the comment left by "money manager" at "13/01/2016 - 17:02":

Hi MM

You mention exchequer revenues.

Whether future ownership is held by overseas or UK, the undeniable fact is surely that LONGER term (indefinitely) income & capital tax revenues from the PRS (per unit of rental accommodation anyway) will significantly decline as a direct result of C24 as ownership shifts from 'private' to (lower rate or tax avoiding) 'corporate'?

In the grand scheme of things, C24 may actually be a relatively SHORT term tax grab.

I would really like to know who amongst all the LL hate brigade still genuinely buys the spin that GO and his institutional buddies / sponsors are genuinely doing this all for FTBs.

Maybe the SDLT increase (*IF* they drop the 15 properties nonsense and apply to all LLs) is 'slightly' logical however unfair it may appear. But the C24 attack which was spun using 'restricting wealthy LLs in favour of FTBs' rhetoric is still not remotely plausible.

How David Cameron plans to destroy social housing in 7 easy steps:

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/how-david-cameron-plans-destroy-7167743

Reply to the comment left by "david porter" at "13/01/2016 - 10:37":

One London property ....but not for let.

Reply to the comment left by "Darren Bell" at "11/01/2016 - 13:40":

Regarding this subject, I’d like to add a personal example.

I am a small-scale, individual landlord, who has just had a tenant depart in a way that breached the notice period on her tenancy agreement.

However, precisely because I am a small-scale, individual landlord, I was able to account for the following:

1) On Christmas Eve when personally dropping off chocolates and wine to the occupants of my properties, I was informed by another housemate that this lady had unexpectedly returned to Wales due to illness. At that point before Christmas we expected she’d recover and return to work here, but this turned out to be useful information later on.

2) The tenant concerned has been both a good and repeat customer of mine, and is likely to be again, so common-sense dictated cutting slack in this regard. She has always kept her living space clean, paid rent on time, and has never caused a problem.

3) From my own personal presence at the house and direct interactions with the tenants, I believe myself to have grasped that she’s a good, honest person, and so therefore that her sudden departure was made with good reason.

END RESULT: She’s had her full deposit back and is welcome at any property I may have available.

NOW I ASK YOU: Would a corporate entity approach this situation in the same way as myself? Were this a corporate structure, you can bet it’ll be relatively faceless, distant and devoid of personalised decision-making like this. On the basis of numerous letting agents, you can also be sure that the corporate service will be non-flexible, subject to extensive terms & conditions, and levy penalty charges in situations such as the above.

You can also bet that they’ll never turn up to a property within 10 minutes at night, to let-in a tenant whose locked himself out, or replace a lost key free of charge, and tell the tenant “no worries” because personal common sense dictates doing so when the incident is a one-off mistake and the individual concerned has otherwise been a great tenant!

A shift to this form of rental provision in place of our own is going to be rubbish for tenants! Even before these emerging oligopolies push up rents further due to diminished competition!

Also, it's precisely because of the rental sector that this lady is able to quickly assume bank call-centre work outside of Wales and relocate back to Wales quickly and easily in the event of an emergency.

Hi Gareth, I quite agree. Likewise on Christmas Eve at 18.30 I had a call from tenants that their boiler had broken down and they had no heating. They have a baby, I'm an all round nice guy and a professional landlord so within 1 hour I had dropped around some electrical heaters so they were warm and safe over Christmas. In fact it was one better than that I checked the boiler and it was actually just the pilot light that had gone out. I reset it on the second attempt. Job done. Happy tenant, happy landlord. Corporate landlord - press one for this, press two for that, press three to hear how busy we always are and then get cut off. How patronising, ignorant and arrogant the government are to think that being a limited company or a huge PLC will automatically bring better service to the average tenant. You have only got to look at tenant satisfaction surveys in the private sector compared to social housing to confirm that size isn't everything !.

Reply to the comment left by "Gareth Wilson" at "14/01/2016 - 07:59":

Great article in the Mirror illustrating how social housing is being threatened. Pity it hasn't also picked up the way in which Government seems intent on taxing out of existence many of the landlords who provide the only viable alternative to social housing for many people. Maybe it's asking too much to expect the Mirror to take up the cause of landlords but perhaps they could be persuaded to look at the impact that Clause 24 and SDLT will have on the interests of tenants.

Reply to the comment left by "Simon Griffith" at "14/01/2016 - 11:52":

Totally agree. I had similar problem Christmas Eve with a boiler going down and also an oven with a turkey for 10 inside decided to stop working. I sorted both with my hands on individual service standards. I dont have a 10 page document of small print that no one ever reads but just a genuine can do attitude when someone calls me up. It works well and pays massive dividends down the line in so many ways

I did handover 15 of mine once as a tester to a corporate agent. Lovely firm full of nice people but with expensive pot plants in the corner of their offices which I guess I pay for.. But that`s where they stayed, in their offices and tried to manage as much as they could at a distance.

Its a people business though and tenants will panic if their heating goes down so you need very good interpersonal skills. They need reassuring. You need good practical problem solving skills. You need to be an active listener.

But when i handed these 15 of mine over I had complaints coming to me about the agents attitude who were simply not listening and just robotically went through their pre scripted screen questions. I ended up counselling my tenants counselling upset staff at the agency and trying to manage two sets of people rather than one and I was the one who was foolishly paying for this `service` .

After a year we amicably parted company and i went back to self managing. It was the best move i made and now employ the services of my own property managers along with support workers and a maintenance team. All of them are self employed on a pay as you go basis. They work to my standards and are flexible. It works much better like that much, far cheaper and most importantly enables me to set the right tone for my business.
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http://i1.mirror.co.uk/incoming/article6992131.ece/ALTERNATES/s615b/Home_ownership_chart.jpg

From he Mirror article, link.

So of the 24m households,
1/3 are owned
1/3 are mortgaged
1/3 are rented

1/2 of the rented are PRS
1/2 are social

1/2 of the social are council (just over)
1/2 are other social housing

Approx figures from the 2011 Census.

I love the spelling of Englad, is that the influence of the Russian 'oligopolies' or is it oligarchs?