Richlist

I find it hard to believe that any landlord who has 1 small rental property has total expenses less than £1000 a year. Even without a mortgage.....what about....agent fees, insurances, repairs & maintenance, ground rent, service charges, annual gas cert, electrical checks, accountant, postage, telephone, car mileage or capital expenses etc,etc. No landlord I have ever known has total monthly expenses of less than £83 pcm. Am I missing something here ? In fact, anyone with expenses that total less than £1000 per year probably isn't claiming all of the allowances they are entitled to claim !

Sounds like he may still be poorly following the heat exhaustion.....and may be back in hospital. That might explain him not contacting you and you being unable to contact him. That would be the first thing I would check with the local hospital.

Come next October when the increases in energy costs kick in with another rise of 65% to £3240pa for an average user.........that's when we'll see inflation in excess of 10%. That together with large rises in food & mortgage payments might mean serious civil unrest. How many landlords are likely to find their rent payments will suddenly stop. I think it's time to take action , batten down the hatches, prepare for the worst, it's going to be a very rough ride.....more so for landlords. Worrying to much about remortgaging at the moment seems a bit like reorganizing the deckchairs on the Titanic. Edit.......and after this lot has happened we get a GE and a Labour Gov'. Oh dear!!!!!!

Inflation figure reported this morning = 9.4%

I'm no expert but I would say CoR is about right. Look at all the bad news at the moment......Ukraine, cost of living, energy bills, inflation, strikes/wage claims etc. There is a GE in 2 years......whoever wins the leadership contest ain't gonna get all that fixed by then. Some of those issues are linked & they are still going to be with us in 5+ years. I think interest rates are on a slow steady upward spiral. Great news if you have savings, not so great if you have loans to pay......so ...... 1. I wouldn't be looking to put money into any fixed interest savings account. 2. If I was taking out a loan/ remortgage and could get a good fixed rate, I'd choose that over a variable. Note of caution......the Bank of England meet every month to decide on interest rates....next meeting is on August 5th. With inflation currently at 9% and rising and the Gov' determined to get inflation under control, word on the street is that base rates could rise by 0.5% or more. If I were looking to remortgage I might be inclined to do it NOW rather than delay.

I'm not quite as cynical as you, I will give Lord Frost the benefit of the doubt. Suppose, just suppose, what he has described of his experience of Penny Mordaunt is true. Would you not want him to share that information ? Voters are free to accept or reject it. It's a 3 horse race wether the other 2 step aside or not. I know Penny has a lovely smile and Liz knows a thing or two about cheese but my wife recons that Dishi Rishi is so good looking he will be the new PM........and she is always right. Remember you heard it here first !

Were down to the last 5 now. I'd never heard of 3 of them until a few days ago ! I suspect the general public are not far behind me. Do the Conservatives really think that electing a Prime Minister that the majority of the country have never heard of is the right way to go ? This must be one of Boris's plans.......ie make it look like we have a process & that we know what we are doing when in reality ......we haven't got clue.

It's heart breaking really.......so, the final 6 candidates.......are we really saying that these people are the best that the Conservative party can put forward ? If they are the best that they can find I don't hold out any hope for the future. I might as well spend the next couple of years preparing for a Labour win !!!! On a personal note, I was kinda hoping that Sajid Javid might win......why ?......because I have a letter signed by him and I was thinking if he got to be PM it's value might rise sharply. Always the entreprenuer.

She's an obvious choice......her initials are PM & she is standing for the job of PM. I don't know what other attributes she brings, I've never heard of her before a couple of days ago. What concerns me is that they will vote for someone, a lightweight, who is gonna loose the election to Labour in 2 years time.

I suspect the current political turmoil that the Tory party find themselves in will mean a freeze on any proposed changes to housing legislation for the forseeable. The old PM will struggle to get anything done, the new PM won't be announced until September. Then there will be a slow easing into the job with lots of other priorities......the war in Ukraine, cost of living crisis, jobs, NHS, education etc to be dealt with. By the time the new PM has his/her feet under the table we'll all have our central heating switched on and be paying £3500 a year for energy.......so that might be focusing political minds rather than housing legislation. The election is 2 years away so the focus will be on changes to provide a win.......and there really are so many other problems to be sorted. Edit......none of this applies to Wales who continue to press the self destruct button.

Well I think you have already answered your own question yourself by quoting the 2016 legal case. You asked for advice, just to be clear, mine is:- 1. You should be more proactive when looking for suitable accomodation. If you had been you might not have found yourself in your current predicament. Relying on others to flag up issues is not always reliable. 2. We all make mistakes. I find that instead of getting annoyed it's far better to change the approach and put the effort into ensuring its never going to happen again.

I'm sorry I just don't agree with your analysis. To balance the argument there are also a lot of unscrupulous, penny pinching, rip off tenants around whose main aim in life is to find somewhere to live without paying......landlords need to be on top of their game. Renting property from a tenants point of view should require an applicant to go through similar questions and queries that a buyer might follow. How difficult is it to ask about those aspects that are of particular interest........what's the parking like, how are the neighbours, is it a private estate, is it quiet, are there any building works planned et c etc. When I look at property, I ask all of those and more. If there is an agent involved I'll take 10 minutes asking for details before I agree to even view a property. Your failure to make appropriate enquiries is your fault. Yes, one would expect roof repairs to have been mentioned but YOU carry equal blame for your failure to enquire.

In answer to your Q2: There is nothing to stop you asking for a rent reduction. Given the situation, it's entirely understandable that you are unhappy but I don't see how a rent reduction will make things better for you. In your situation i'd probably already have done the same But, building work will continue, noise, disruption etc will continue unchanged. You may get, say, a 10% reduction.......but you will still need to suffer for a few more weeks. When I let property I'm always amazed at how few questions are ever asked by potential tenants. They seem to expect the onus to be on the landlord to tell them of every detail that's in the pipeline. Now, if you were buying a property, the onus would be on you, the buyer, to ask questions to determine if the property was suitable for you. The buyer wouldn't be complaining that the seller didn't tell them the roof was needing repair. I'd suggest you look at your approach to renting and ask yourself....'should I make more effort when looking to rent a property?'

Wrong......you don't need to do any of that. What you need is rent guarantee insurance and they will do it for you !

They do operate this system in Spain.....you pay a deposit of a few thousand Euro for it to be taken off the market to show you're a serious buyer. If you dont buy you loose the deposit if the seller doesn't sell he pays the buyer the deposit X2.

I'm glad it all went well for you BUT......I'd certainly not have paid the £2K. I'd have argued my position on the following points: 1. I'm paying £5K more than the previous buyer. 2. I'm not in a chain. 3. I have a mortgage offer in principle. 4. I can complete in a month, subject to contract & assuming the property is freehold and not leasehold. If the seller still insisted then my agreement would only have been if the seller provided all the documents usually provided in an auction sale......e.g contract, searches, survey and all other legal documents to support the transaction before the clock starts.

I would imagine by now he will have completed or bought something else......the thread is dated 2019 !!!

My understanding is that company profits are subject to corporation tax. Dividends are paid from company profits after corporation tax has been paid. The dividends are free from personal income tax up to £2K pa. If you are each taking £2K pa out of profit there isn't going to be much left in the Ltd company to worry about.

When I was in my twenties, married with 2 kids and 1 income.....mortgage interest was 8-11% . We worked hard, went without holidays and any luxeries, paid the mortgage and inflation did the rest. Buying property, making 300% profit and buying bigger and better got me to where I am today. The old saying.....no pain no gain....is so true. I have friends who took your approach and are poor, struggling & still renting. It's your choice.

There is talk in today's newspapers of corporation tax being reduced to 12.5% next year to help the economy, stimulate growth, help the jobs market etc. On your example this would increase savings from £1260pa.....to £1650pa. Looks even more attractive now.

So let's get into a bit more detail..... Note: I have no knowledge of how company lets work. Mr & Mrs G do a company let to Ltd Co. They would need to check mortgage & insurance conditions allow ......a) company let & b) below market rate. If ok, are all allowable expenses (mortgage, insurance, ground rent, service charge, maintenance etc) paid by Mr & Mrs G ? Presumably they would set the rent below the rate at which tax became due resulting in no tax liability ? But, the Ltd Co would have little or no allowances to offset against income.....perhaps some letting fees & utilities during voids so would pay corporation tax at the current rate of 19%........which Is due to rise to 25% next year. Is that how you see it ?

I've given this some thought and can't see a problem but, I'm no expert either. It's the sort of query that would be raised on another forum.....it may already have been raised there but I can't be bothered to search. Try looking here : property118.com

This thread is a year old but........... Some local councils (mine included) now collect fridges, freezers and any other large domestic appliances. If they don't work they arrange disposal, if they do work they get them checked and recycled to people who need them.

If you move to Spain & become a resident there are some advantages over non residency. Income tax is 19% for residents & 24% for non residents. So what you are considering is the alternative World of becoming a resident which carries a whole lot of benefits compared to me.....and some of those benefits relate to rental property. Do not assume what I have posted above would apply to you as a resident. I often frequent a website/forum that provides useful information & discussion for Spain. Here is the link, you might find it interesting.... https://www.talkquesada.com

I heard of a potential business opportunity yesterday for those brave enough to get in early. Apparently there is likely to be a strong market for flying relocated immigrants from Rwanda back to France in the near future. Anyone fancy sharing the cost of a good second hand Boeing767 to get the party started ?