From last week, benefits will be capped at £20k a year. An estimated 100,000 households will be affected by a cut in their housing benefits, the majority of them in London. Experts fear that many tenants living in the private sector could face losing their homes because they can’t afford the rent.
Londoners are still struggling to get on the property ladder. New research from a crowdfunding platform claims it will take, on average, 121 years for someone earning around £34k a year to be able to save up enough deposit to buy an average flat in the capital.
HMRC figures reveal that 25% of all properties bought this summer were buy to let investments or second homes. This indicates that government tax changes, which were designed to curb the buy to let market, haven’t worked as well as the government had hoped they might.
Research carried out by the Association of Letting Agents (ARLA) shows that increasing numbers of landlords are abandoning rent increases. The proportion of landlords hiking rents on their properties fell to 24% last month, which was the lowest level this year.
Airbnb is a popular way for homeowners and landlords to let out properties on a short-term let basis. For the most part, the site is very good at matching properties with prospective tenants, but sometimes it can and does go wrong.
In a bid to cut the number of rogue landlords operating in the UK, the government has proposed a mandatory standard of 6.52 square meters for a bedroom in a shared house. The room size would apply to any bedroom, irrespective of whether a couple or an individual was living there, so bunk beds are […]
There are just weeks to go before the Rent Smart scheme in Wales comes into effect, yet only 25% of Welsh landlords have registered. The Residential Landlords Association fears that the low take-up of the registration means many landlords are put off by the hassle of registration and have therefore decided to get out of […]
A property management company in Manchester has been fined a whopping £100k for breaking HMO management regulations and putting its tenants at risk. Numerous Problems Council housing inspectors found a host of problems when they went to inspect the properties on Clarendon Road in the city.
Landlords will shortly be hit by newly restrictive lending criteria when they apply for a buy to let mortgage. Flourishing Buy to Let Sector Could Cause a Crash The Bank of England, concerned that the booming rental sector is affecting the country’s financial stability, has once again tightened its stranglehold on eligibility criteria for buy […]
The National Landlords Association is warning that Coventry landlords will have no choice but to raise rents in the city if the council goes ahead with its plans to introduce a landlord licensing scheme.
According to the Daily Telegraph, fake landlords are raking in around £775 million a year from would-be tenants. Police have also reported a rise in the number of scams reported to them, although experts suspect these cases are only the tip of the iceberg, as many victims are too embarrassed to report it when they […]
Pressure group, Dlighted, is bemoaning the amount of ‘useless’ money tied up in tenancy deposit schemes in London. Research has revealed that there is almost £2bn held in bank accounts on behalf of tenants and landlords, 97% of which will be returned at the end of a tenancy agreement.
Landlords who provide accommodation for students are exempt from paying council tax and their properties are exempt from business rates. However, if plans proposed by two Liverpool councillors go ahead, this could soon change.
Increasing numbers of landlords are setting up limited companies in a bid to avoid paying more tax. In effect, landlords are selling properties to themselves, even though there are some hefty up-front fees to set up a limited company. Buy to let landlords have had a tough time of late.
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