Carryon Regardless

Ah well, my experience is that the courts are socialist in result. Consider, I / we claim from the underdog /s (reasons irrelevant to Court), there is no real social advantage to awarding reasonable, if any, effective penalties against the T or G;tor. Although if the G'tor has a more healthy economic situation maybe, but try to demonstrate that w/o looking like an unreasonable type of claimant. We are considered to be enjoying easy extra monies from property, and must accept risk as apart of the business we are in. Our need is less. Penalise the T and he sees less reason to try for a future. We have gone so far w/o the funds and can even afford to find more to make claim. We have managed to reach that point so we should find it easier than the T to manage a future w/o the claimed monies. Clearly, even before Covid, there was a state direction to defer and even prevent repossessions. Such only gives greater problems for the state, repossession isn't an attractive result. LL's are blamed for the house prices escalating out of reach of the poor 1st time buyers. Causing the BTL market to be less attractive can be an advantage there. As a general the houses are still there, no matter how someone will live in them. If that isn't providing our greedy profits who will care? The comment on the long term outcome is relevant and clearly, imho, the retard, short sighted Welsh Assembly are going to cause their lower class areas to sink to lower levels. As they remove our incentive to invest they also remove those responsible for attempting to create and maintain attractive properties for the lesser able to live in, and I experience a good few of them. The English gave them a lot of castles, I don't recall they ever paid us for them. The tourist revenues should be claimed from the chippy sods.

Just yesterday, yes yesterday, I went on the offensive against those that are enjoying the release from rent payment responsibility. I have now upset a few T's and G'tors and confirmed for them that I am nowt but a scabby money grabber. If the Gov't says I'm wrong then I must be. I reasoned that the Courts are sitting from the 23rd Aug, and repossessions can take place from end of Sept, so now was the time to take pro active action with the restoration of my ability to threaten their peaceful low expense existence. Wrong again. What a dumb dipsh*t I am, apparently. Serves me right for calling the Welsh Assembly a retarded bunch of wuck fits I guess. Thanks for the heads up btw, at least the pubs are open again, but not in Wales yet.

If and when the HB become aware that any HB claim is incorrect they will likely stop payments, that is now your loss. HB can also be recovered from you should HB believe they have over paid in the past. You would be caused to repay this if you received it. Good luck with attempting to claim from another solicitor, this might be more good money after bad as your new solicitor doesn't do this for nowt. He may just be enjoying the additional business from you. It sounds like the defendants solicitor is out of funds to defend. But this is sticky stuff. There is no need for a solicitor to act during a surrender, or the dealing of a deed of surrender, I've done these myself to persuade an abuser to naff off. For you though being sure there is no future claim of illegal eviction is of great importance. Will you ever get your lost rents back? Will you ever get your ever growing legal expenses back? Will you ever be compensated for any damage to the property? In short it may be beneficial to forget your losses and reduce any future losses by drawing a line under this very sorry episode. For that thought the tenant / family need somewhere else to go to, or any offer of financial write off of debt is likely pointless. Put yourself in his shoes and consider what is required to make this work for him, then see if that's possible for you. You looking for justice, it just 'aint designed like that.

The usual worry of over taxation is if investment money will flow out to other more attractive (taxwise) countries. That only helps those with investments here if the UK wishes to remain somewhat competitive. What is less easy to learn of is how much financial assistance is being given by other countries during Covid by comparison to us. That is how much will they have to claw back by increased taxation? The forecast of the future 'wherever' is going to be about more than the obvious tax hikes, everything is going to be costing more as the cost of living rises. The indirect taxation is going to empty our pockets more in my view. If only I had become a hairdresser in Greece. I would be retired on a full pension by now. and wouldn't have paid tax in the first place. There's some good sailing there too, but the skiing's cr*p.

It won't be difficult to reject benefit applicants on some other reasoning. Where you we might fall foul of discrimination, any discrimination, is if we have a significant portfolio and are unable to demonstrate that we do or have let to a specific minority group that the vulture (Shelter included) are making the claim on. I guess that could include the minority group of remain voters (te he). 1st though there needs to be a statute penalty range for us to consider. Clearly as well as self promotion Shelter would be aiming for comp' but my scant read didn't see what. My point is that if the penalty is slight it could be better to chance it, but avoid the massive penalty of legal costs. BTW hinted at but long term sick and retired housing benefit claimants can be a reasonable choice. The intentionally unemployed are likely problems ahead.

Mel I haven't read the minute detail, and tbh probably won't spend my time doing so. But 'registered', with the Warm..... is what I would expect. I had a call 2 days ago from Warm Wales, a charity apparently, how nice. They wish to survey the replacement of electric heaters in one of my 5 flats because they are faulty. How surprising that that verbal T didn't let me know. I'm expecting the registered body will be the overseer of works, farming those works out to fly by nights. So far I understand we will pay 1/3 of any install, of whatever. Since the price may well be doubled by the monopoly body adding for their admin and inspection, time will tell if this is going to be a pee take of the naive, and the tax payer. But you know I am historically just plain cynical. I saw the news item last night discussing the disadvantaged 1st time buyers competing with investors (us) due to the stamp duty holiday. Somehow we have more fire power to buy and will squeeze out the 1st timers, and the 1st timers are the life blood that generate the property ladder scenario. Totally missed by the interviewees was that we will still be paying the 3% above the 1st timers. Not mentioned was that our mortgage rates are generally higher also. Now, will mortgages be available in the numbers to rescue the property value downturn anyway? Will employment be at a level that demand will be significant? I see Sunak is attempting to head that off, so possibly, just possibly.

Anything he, or the Gov't do is a gamble. Where this Covid takes us to is as yet unknown. Early morning not sleeping time I watched a Lords 'debate type transmission'. This was one of those split screen types and would zoom in to experts and Lords as they took centre stage. The experts of various settings were reporting their findings and understanding to the Lords, so that the Lords can exercise their new expertise for our benefit I guess. I watch daily briefing now very occasionally. As it became clear that we are being more manipulated than educated. Watching the behaviour at mass gatherings I can understand why. Anyway the experts were keen to share their knowledge without trying to twist it for a mass audience. After some time one thing was very clear, the experts don't bl**dy know. In truth I am surprised that by now there isn't more definitive knowledge from experience gained around the world and from lab test and experiments to attempt better understanding of this thing, but I didn't witness that. So in the early days the masses were thrown lots of loafs to pacify them / us (well actually not LL's but hey ho). But this thing looks increasingly like a long haul so when will our Chancellor consider that he gave away too much too soon. The loafs can't be thrown to the Plebs indefinitely. His level of financial support/s is unsustainable, in the real world that I try to understand at least. We are now anaesthetised to the gifts of the occasional £Billion. Support for the furloughed, for the self employed (or self unemployed possibly) all seems reasonable, and I could see the strategy. But he is looking for ways to reduce that bill and pass it to others, in recognition that it isn't sustainable. Where I seriously question the new strategies is gifts to a company to hire out electric scooters, to be paid for by 30.3 million taxpayers but used by a few. But the £2B is only £66 to each tax payer, on top of the debt of £1,821Billion prior to Covid and that already equates to over £60,000 per tax payer. On our behalf the Theatres can have a mere £1.74B. Now the Universities want their gift. Then the £2B for improving home insulation, are there many houses left that still need this after previous similar / same initiatives? Investing in the infrastructure to generate jobs and improve lives generally has obvious payback. Too much of what is happening now though reeks of corruption and feeding the already well heeled that have the advantage of being able to bend the ear of those empowered to gift our money. Time'll tell but I think Sunak might be fuelling discontent and increasing the possibility of civil disorder, as the money runs out that is.

I would look to create evidence of occupancy so that council tax doesn't revert to you as owners as and when the council are led to believe they have left. A willingness by neighbours to make statements to that effect might be useful. Confirm with the utilities that their name is still associated to the property, and check again as time passes. Complaints by neighbours to the police and council environmental health, with you having record of these, might well help in court come a hearing to hoof 'em. I'm led to believe that courts are in furlough, some if not all. Interesting might be your location and what progress you make with getting court action. With that in mind it would be interesting to know what advice toward repossession you might get from environmental health regarding their removal for the benefit of the neighbours and resolution of any nuisance activities. Are the neighbours losing sleep at all? Is there any threatening behaviour? Is there evidence that rubbish could be a health risk, be cautious though as this becomes commercial waste with an expense to you for removal ( that should be documented by the certified company). Btw, feel free to carry out your own research and ignore my input. I'm sure the path to becoming a seasoned landlord can be a rewarding one, but my experience is that it's a feasibly dangerous and expensive learning curve. Good luck, we all need it.

I would suggest that the if sparky is looking for extra business and details failures because... request the specific regulation that he is failing for, that can be checked. A bit like going to Kwik Fit and they saying your brakes pads are worn, ask what friction depth remains. To my mind if a sparky can't detail the reg' he hasn't completed the required inspection and shouldn't be paid. If properties are supposedly unfit due to not being 18th Edition compliant than most of us should move out until rewired. I can understand a sparky refusing to add circuits to an aged, over used consumer unit. But that's different.

Try Prestayn, that's nearly 3 of 'em. The great pro to benefit T's is that you can get most of the rent paid by the state. As long as the T ticks the appropriate box, Or as long as the T is eight weeks in arrear, but they can defend your demonstration of this. As long as they are entitled to the benefit continually, or it is taken / claimed back. Paid only for the period of occupancy, so forget notice periods. The one or two small downsides are that any guarantor is less likely to be wealthy and wise. Such T's are usually with ongoing issues, of many kinds. They occupy for most of the 24 hours and wear out the property more. If / when they abscond they are less able to remove their belongings. These are now classified as commercial waste requiring a registered contractor to remove and provide paperwork, certainly for Wales. Has England done this to us yet? Oh, and we are more likely to be considered greedy for taking the rent that is paid for them. I most certainly am not suggesting that they all smell, bless 'em.

I suppose I could offer my T's use of my holiday home, but that's when they've found their own campsite and they would have to put it up themselves (I don't mean that in a painful way).

I have never heard of what you ask for. Usually a letter informing them that you no longer require their services is what would be needed. First read their terms and conditions carefully. Is there a notice period? Are you liable for any charges relating to existing tenancies?

As if Rent Smart aren't enough for Welsh LL's to deal with. Any LL who steps out of line has a barrage of T protections coming his way these days, more so in Wales. Since students are generally socialist until they get a well paying job I guess their criticising of the capitalist LL is just a fact of life for us. We aren't allowed to victimise T's with such things as honest reviews, the media would enjoy themselves too much with such a thing.

As Grampa, when rents are 8 weeks in arrear you are entitled to receive the Housing Benefit direct to you. From the point you make HB aware they will at least freeze payments till they decide on the correct outcome of their investigation. Very recently I rang to inform, they then requested my claim for the HB by email. All HB payments not yet paid to the tenant are now mine. This was actually 3 weeks of HB prior to my phone call. First call them, and with a little more leisure you can create you proof to head off the tenant defending. My proof is a rental statement alongside a comprehensive letter.

I am unable to offer you advice that will be of comfort. As Grampa, you need good help here. I have a friend that was involved with M/cr council and their team to improve the housing standards. He was a manager. They take no prisoners. The tenant has cited a vulnerable occupant, this would cause the council to take a keen interest. I'm surprised they haven't been threatening you with notices to carry out repairs. Tbh, I don't see how you get the tenant out during this crisis, unless it is voluntary. and then where are they likely to find as an alternative home? Your expenses must be staggering by now, and your losses wow. The stress must be affecting your health. Each time you return to a solicitor both will be increased. Have you attempted to calculate the future 'likely' losses / expenses? You might come out better by offering a cash settlement, but in exchange for a surrender notice from the tenant 'once he and family are out'. Considering your story and the support for the tenant I would be careful that this has no legal come back.

Yes I can see the online claim may well produce a result. It is dependant on the defendant being, perhaps, naive. I have enjoyed that advantage in the past and it is well worth consideration, thanks. An issue is that invariably in Prestatyn is that Shelter is prominent and convenient. Where they are aware that actual court action is unlikely the resulting advice becomes obvious. I could do with researching their availability locally (Rhyl) during this crisis. I would imagine that if I were to start a MCOL, and it is then defended, that come the time when courts are sitting again I would be somewhere in the queue for a hearing. Hopefully in their increased backlog and confusion the case wouldn't go astray, not unheard of in usual times. I've had a court experience (Rhyl) claiming from a G'tor in the past. Although defended the G'tor didn't offer anything of substance at the hearing, the judge effectively defended for him. I claiming over £1,600 was challenged with "why don't we call this £750?" "Why don't we call this £1,6--, that's the debt." Result the judge awarded £750, for no relative reason that I could discern. Payments at £20pm starting some 2 months ahead. I requested if the court would manage the receipt of payments, but this service that once was, was no more. But the claim had been delivered on, it was up to me to chase each payment. Guess how much I got.

You will remember the guarantor option has always been my preference. Insurance has been suspect for a long time, and with the present crisis we read here that it is now w/o value. You can't carry out threats to g'tors if the courts are furloughed though. By the time this finds it's new normal, that is it settles at what ever level we find ourselves at the debts run up by T's will often be beyond their ability to recover from. The threat to g'tors will be something the courts will do all to avoid being a practised outcome. I am expecting T debts to be largely written off. Debts that existed prior to the crisis will be dissolved into the whole. The longer this goes on the more likely that will be the result. For a long time there has been a resistance to repossessions by LL's, this avoids social disruption and that must be an ever increasing priority during this crisis and for a period after. My issue in my particular example is that there isn't the common protection for those that submit a self assessment. True the Gov't can't get it right all the time but this is a glaring disparity. It will result in an increase in those taking the law into their own hands as the increased realisation is that there is no state policy for the many that feel they are being abused can fall back on. Just a little more that will be a reminder of the up yours to us LL's is that we will be paying toward the cost of the repayments in future, and I for one will be thinking it is a further example of the one way street I / we are travelling.

Our T's are told that they can take a rent payment holiday of 3 months, the message was a little ambiguous but that is what those that prefer to see it as will read it as. So far I have the HB T's that are making it a battle for me to achieve the top up element of rent. One would be keeping the whole rent but at least I managed to get his HB redirected to me. Another who has suffered a 10% wage decrease has dropped his rent to me by 25.5%, regardless of any response I have made to that. The County Courts are furloughed, well I've not been unable to find specific info on specific courts so must assume that any I would hope to use for any hoped recovery of debt is unavailable for that purpose. Although historically I have learned that money spent on the County Court is wasted money. The Gov't announce that the self employed will get a grant of up to £7,500 initially and this may be extended. Those in receipt may still work and even take up new work. Very generous thinks me, and clearly this is to encourage, ambiguously, the principle of 'stay at home'. So it crossed my mind that my self assessment is completed not as self employed, but as revenues from Land and Property, hmmm, am I eligible? Well today I go online and it requests my specific id's and no I'm not. I am now expected to just sit and watch my revenues diminish and still pay out for all responsibilities. Stuff 'em, I'm returning to my usual business activities. I was happy to pay local tradesmen where needed, and avoid the travel of self with need for materials and refuelling. I could have even accepted the scabby git T's stealing my money where I might have been compensated as other traders seem to be. I can't carry out hands on activities from home, so I'm entitled. There may be some opportunity afforded me to remind these thieving little wuck fits that I want my money. At least the roads should be fairly quiet and the travelling more pleasant.

Ta Mel, as expected.

The beach is a bit far for cabling to, I suppose I could put some pretty panels on the roof, or a turbine in the front parking area. Imagine the claims that the washing keeps going missing from my tenants though. "I thought it was a rotary drier". Just possibly our Gov't's will be a bit pre occupied for a while using our new taxes to pay the debt we are presently accruing though, and historically Wales uses the renewable 2nd homes of the English for their heating.

I am charged between £45 and £80 for the annual gas cert. The number of appliances can make a difference, but in the lesser affluent areas the charge is usually less. To clarify, any and all works on gas are prohibited, even by the DIY'er in his own home? My view is that storage heating is naff. There is next to no control and the heat has often escaped by late afternoon on the colder days when the heating is wanted. The additional cost of a gas inspection would be more than paid for by the additional rent these properties can achieve. The dreaded flats have them, but still it's good enough for the majority that live there.

A discussion on another, car, forum. My strong belief is that any interference affecting gas integrity w/o Gas Safe certification runs the risk of prosecution. Another believes it's ok if it's 'only' DIY.

For the genuinely furloughed, 80% salary will mean a small saving in tax, for many that will mean no commute expenses, some will have bought season tickets so less of a saving, for all there is no booze, entertainment expenses, and clothing purchases will be near nowt. For a great many this will mean they have a greater untouched (disposable but on what I can't imagine during the crisis) income. It may be reasonable to sympathise with those on the front line, and their increased risk. What surprised me though is that the deaths of those, while being too many, are relatively low to what I would have expected. I wouldn't suggest for a moment that sympathy would be misplaced but why does he consider he is due such? The trouble there of course it's a delicate egg shell situation for a scabby landlord to venture into. I also have a tenant that advises me to take a mortgage holiday. My finances aren't his concern and he can keep his bloody nose out of 'em. But it's a fum duck that thinks that's the only expense we have in life and we should reorganise to give them an easy time.

It's complicated nowadys, will diesels be priced off the road? My 2006 Vito is good for what I do, historically I tend to use my vehicles well, but self maintain them well. I would like a Viano for the longer journeys, but the more reliable 646 engine finished in 2010 and that attracts tax at £555. The Vito costs £140 tax p.a. and is a treat by comparison. The new 447 (post 2015) V Class is lovely, but I have trouble justifying that for my usage, and even saving at £200 tax (v's the post 2010 Viano at £325) would take some time to recoup. And then finding a Viano with honest mileage is very difficult, most are ex taxis with corrupted odometer. Mrs Me drives a Gr Cherokee, 14 miles a day. It's time to change that, and maybe a petrol Accord so as to avoid ULEZ if / when we take it to London (visiting the daughter in law +++). But we want toys and they are more plentiful in the diesel.

I'm looking at replacing our motors, but think unless cheap it's better to wait.