Legal protection insurance

You wouldn't consider buying car insurance without legal protection insurance but why do many landlords take out landlord insurance without legal protection insurance?

I recently came across this discussion thread on the Landlordzone forum.

I'm a client of Jeffrey Shaw and respect his opinion which is excellent but like all good lawyers ain't cheap!

I know that my current landlord insurance provider Alan Boswell does provide additional legal protection which starts at £40. It's something that I will definitely look into when I renew.

My one concern is when receiving legal advice is that there is a lot of very average lawyers out there that often hinder rather than help a landlord and with an insurance policy who you get can be a matter of pot luck!

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TDS & letting agents

Landlords who take a deposit should now by now that they are required to lodge the deposit with one of the government's approved scheme under the Tenancy Deposit Scheme within 14 days of taking the deposit from the tenant.

However, what happens if the landlord is letting using a letting agent and the letting agent fails to lodge or cover the tenancy deposit?

This recent case law provides some clarifications for landlords caught in this situation.

It appears clear that the Courts are less than keen on taking action and fining landlords for an administrative slip up then the legislators would like. To read a review of the full case have a look at this article in Property Week.

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Private rented sector growth

The private rented sector is expected to continue to grow and is predicted to become larger than the social housing sector by 2013 according to a report from the Building and Social Housing Foundation.

Households in the private rented sector increased by one million in just four years between 2005 and 2009 thanks to BTL property investors.

Read full article in the Guardian

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Renting HMO to mormons

A Scottish landlord made his tenants pretend to be mormons to try to take advantage of a bizarre exemption clause on HMO properties inhabited by certain religious groups.

The landlord David Thomson got his tenants of an Aberdeen flat to sign the tenancy agreement stating they were members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

He also placed mormon literature at the rental flat just in case any council officials popped around to check on the religious credentials of the tenants.

The landlord has seen his application for an HMO licence turned down by his council after they described him as not a "fit and proper person when you were prepared for people to sign a lease that was deceitful."

I'd love to know more on this HMO clause. It also begs the question, why?

Is it that some religious groups are renowned for their particularly safe living habits, do they not smoke, do the follow stricter risk assessment procedures in a domestic setting?

Please enlighten me on this HMO rule for some and not for others situation.

Read more on this in the Telegraph

Free tenancy agreements

Transactions down supply up

The housing market in England and Wales stalled in May, according to Acadametrics.

Acadametric figures showed that house transactions in England and Wales fell to around 43,250, the lowest level of properties sold in May over the last 15 years.

May's figures were only 46% of the long term average of 93,860 properties sold in May (1995 - 2009).

Supply at highest level since Jan 2008

At the same time the number of properties for sale in the UK has reached the highest level since January 2008.

Stock increased 9% after the election between May and June, and is now 35% higher than in January. It is the fifth month in a row that the number of properties for sale has risen.

The low level of transactions combined with a rapidly increasing supply adds to the theory that the housing market could be due for a double dip where prices drift downward for a period despite their recent strong recovery.

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HMO planning idiocy! LATEST

Landlords that are letting to 3 or more tenants will as the legislation stands be caught by the last governments parting shot in landlord legislation.

The legislation which we examined back in February became law in April. A friend of mine has already been caught by it. He and his partner are converting a semi-detached property for use by 3 post graduate sharers in Sheffield & he was required to submit an application for change of use to Sheffield City Council costing him an additional £335 in planning application fees.

My advice to him was to keep stumm and not to apply for planning permission unless the council and planners insisted. As a former town planner I know that these rules; like all badly thought through laws are unenforceable.

Law abiding landlords will be penalised by forking out for an application. Those landlords taking a more maverick approach will undoubtedly get away with it claiming that the property was already an HMO. The current HMO planning legislation is not retrospective.

Changes are only a matter of time

The fact is that it can only be a matter of time before the new Housing Minister Grant Shapps applies his Ministerial red pen to strike out yet another pointless and useless piece of anti landlord legislation.

I look forward to reporting on the demise of yet another piece of pointless legislation shortly.

Just as we proudly announced the death of the landlord licence!

HMO LATEST

It has just been announced on the Communities and Local Government website that Grant Shapps has proposed changes to the HMO planning rules. In effect local councils will be able to decide through the planning system and subject to local consultation the areas that will be effected by this legislation. This will bring to an end the blanket requirement of all landlords who seek to convert a property to let to 3 or more non related shares to first obtain planning permission.

Thank goodness for that. Another out break of common sense from Government! What ever next? Scrapping MPs expenses and making them live on a salary like everybody else?

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