Richlist

Depends on the details. Presumably you don't get to choose who lives in your property ? Bills ? Maintenance ? Repairs ? Insurance ? Termination ? Legal stuff ? Probably cash buyers only as mortgage lenders won't like the set up. It raises far to many questions to give an answer but.......if it seems to good to be true.......then it probably is !

I agree. Most landlords who don't use Lettings Agents & who are NOT very switched on to updates/ law changes are new to the business.......so yes, they are probably foolish. There seems a never ending stream of people who think letting property is easy, they think anyone can do it until it goes wrong. Who is to blame ? Well I guess to some extent, the media are. At least all those new landlords who find themselves in trouble are keeping others employed and the rest of us mildly amused.

Perhaps a Labour Gov' that brings CGT rates in line with income tax rates might finally kill off any residual interest ?

It all began in the late 1970's when they started selling council houses at a discount. Now many, many hundreds of thousands of council properties have been sold. They have not been replaced and therefore the only rental properties available in most areas of the country are provided by the PRS (private rental sector). The PRS has become so large & widespread that the Gov' are worried that housing policy itself will be influenced & controlled by private landlords. The only weapon the Gov' have to fight this threat is adverse legislation. As there are more PRS tenants than landlords the tenants represent a far more important group of voters to keep happy. Consequently it seems fairly obvious that they will continue to turn the screw that introduces more advantages for tenants. It will continue for as long as the Gov' perceive that it will win them votes.

Keep in mind this is just a plan of the main legislation that Labour intend to pass on this parliament. The devil will be in the details and will need to pass through the House of Lords....which will likely be the main hold up if it makes things to onerous for landlords. Id hate to think that after letting your property, the only way you can regain possession from tenants who have not broken any rules, is if you want to sell it !

The Kings Speech today included : * Plans to ban so called 'no fault evictions' i.e. Section 21. * Plans to ban a landlord from refusing tenants with pets but they will be allowed to insist on insurance to cover damage.

There are numerous large managing agents around who deal with hundreds of thousands of service charge accounts on many developments & estates across the country. I suspect many of these large companies are very well run. The larger ones will have been through this situation many times, they will know how best to delay /or put off enquiries and when necessary how to deal with the legal aspects and administration of dealing with leaseholders who want to check the accounts. Trying to bend the rules to your advantage isn't going to work.....you need to play the game as the law requires. It has to be expected that however efficient a managing agent is, there will always be at least one leaseholder amongst the many who thinks they are being overcharged for sub standard work. Only the leaseholder can determine if it's worth their time, effort and expense. I personally wouldn't even consider it unless there was a very large expense which I had a reasonable chance of overturning. If you decide to go ahead, do let us know how you get on.

Answers 1. Your Managing Agent is following the legal requirements, they are not required to send you receipts. They are making their facilities available to you. As for charging you for copies......that is reasonable. They are a business and printers, paper & facilities carry a cost which you need to pay for. 2. You can involve your own accountant(s) if you want to but the accounts would normally already have been audited and signed off by independent accountants before issuing them to the leaseholders. So, unless you find something naughty you may be wasting your money. Obviously I don't know the details of the expenditure you are questioning but it's worth mentioning that many leaseholders around the country are experiencing increased costs. Higher costs for labour and materials feeds through to rises in service charges. It's annoying but virtually inevitable. Good luck.

With regard to your last sentence.......The answer is it's taken Rachel Reeves 4 days to announce things will take longer cos the previous Gov' haven't left enough money.

It's taken 24 hours for me to recover enough from the election results to be able to post anything sensible! Ok, Labour won but it wasnt all good news for them. The awful Jonathan Ashworth lost his seat and neither Diane Abbott nor Anneliese Dodds are in the Cabinet. Now Labour have to deliver on all those promises and I can see it unravelling quite quickly. The normal measure is what they have done after the first 100 days. I can see numbers of boats arriving on the Kent coast increasing (best weather of the year July & August), I can't see them making any appreciable difference to NHS waiting times or significant improvements anywhere else cos there ain't any money left.

Spain ....where the sun always shines, the beaches are wonderfull, cost of living is 30% cheaper, there is no council tax, you can pick up a property for half the UK price, their football team looks better than ours and the bars are open until midnight. What's not to like ?

It looks like the world as we know it, is about to end. Life will of course continue but it'll be life, far, far different from what we know. Anyone who is able to abandon ship should go now before it's to late. It looks like as from Friday the inmates will be running the asylum. Landlords are likely to be selected for 'special' treatment. God help everyone ! I bet you if we revisit this place in 1 year from now it will be virtually unrecognisable. I'm off to Spain......I may decide never to return.

I voted over a week ago but they keep telling me that July 4th is polling day. No, it's not. July 4th is the last day you can vote. Unfortunately nearly all the parties seem totally unaware of postal voting........I'd estimate 50% of my street voted last week. Approx 58% of the population use postal voting. None of them managed to get a campaign brochure delivered in my street before the postal voting papers arrived. Consequently they have all forfeited the chance of persuading postal voters to vote for them. What a mess ! If they can't arrange to campaign properly how can they be trusted to run the Country ? I emailed some of the parties complaining about the way their campaigns have ignored postal voting and the only party to respond was the British Democrats.

Yes I think you're right. I was watching the 'Homes Under the Hammer' tv program a few days ago. A couple of guys bought a property quite close to where I live in Essex, which caught my attention. They had gone to the auction to buy something else but had got out bid so, they bid and won this other property without seeing it. It was a wreck, needed a lot of work and they paid over the top for it. They spent £30K+ refurbishing it to a good standard and expected to do well. It got valued and pretty much what they had spent. The reason ?.......they didn't know the area, didn't know what properties there sold for, had unrealistic expectations, hadn't done their homework etc......and that's the issue. Everywhere has good and not so good areas. As locals we all know where is good or not so good or to avoid where we live. But up North, with no knowledge of the areas I wouldn't feel comfortable buying anywhere.

In spite of all my critical comments over the past few years I have to say if the right property, in the right place, at the right price were to present itself I would most likely buy it. But I'm not expecting that to happen.