Grampa

Your tenancy agreement should have a clause relating to vermin. Basically unless there is a fault with the building such as holes in brickwork or roofing where the vermin are getting in it is the tenants responsibility to resolve. The level of cleanliness varies greatly between tenants and as long as it (ie: oven) is left in the same condition as when they moved in when they vacate its not really a issue. However, if their action/lifestyle is detrimental to the property and causing damage that is something that needs addressing now. I have seen really dirty tenants leave properties sparkling clean because they get a cleaning company in just before they move out.

As long as its done like clockwork every year the tenants come to expect it even if if a small amount. You shouldn't have to justify yourself to your tenant but if you wanted to you could write something like: Dear XXX Unfortunately its that time of year of your annual rent review which has been calculated by using the rate of inflation and also local market rents for similar properties in the area. Therefore, your revised rent for 2023 from xx/xx/xx will be £xxxx pcm. Please see attached the required section 13 notice for your records and can you please amend your standing order payment. If you would like to discuss the above please contact me on xxxxxxxxxx

Maybe not the Airbnb type as I hear changes are afoot.

We have just been given a property to manage from a certain nation chain that you see advertised on the TV all the time. We are taking it over with a tenant in situ who has been there a number of years so when the deposit was transferred we were gob smacked to find the amount far exceeded the 5 week limit which was brought in with the Tenant Fee act 2019. Any amount over the 5 week amount should have been returned to the tenant a long ago. The landlord and this agent are now at risk of 5K fine and as there is also an additional issue with a prohibited payment also taken by this agency and not returned and any second offence will be a criminal offence. Upon conviction, the penalty is an unlimited fine and a banning order offence under the Housing and Planning Act 2016. Now do we tell the landlord of this cock-up by their previous Leating 😉 Agent and potential liability or keep quiet?

I disagree. If it was your own home yes, maybe but anything freestanding has a 50/50 chance of either getting packed when the tenant moves, getting damaged, the batteries removed or just lost. I always advise landlords to not provide remote heating controls for electric heaters or portable boiler thermostats that cam be moved from room to room. Its bad enough tracking down gas/electric top-up keys and instruction manuals as it is. Yes, these can all be charged for out of a deposit but I try to make my life easier. Back of the subject of fitting/installing smoke and CO alarms we have started using nano tape to fit which is a really strong double sided tape and doesn't damage the wall/ceiling, its a fantastic product. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Multi-Functional-Transparent-Reusable-Adhesive-Traceless/dp/B0B3XDLBYT/ref=sr_1_5?keywords=nano+tape&qid=1683475952&sr=8-5

Well managed to get half decent rate with NatWest on the top floor flat which I have recently refurbed and has a healthy EPC rating of C. However, they wouldn't touch the lower flat as it had a EPC of E and I cant get it higher without kicking out the tenant due to the works required so having to renew that one with Aldermore but luckily there is only a mortgage of 68k on it so plan to pay about 25% off before the new rate starts to help mitigate the high rate.

The way I would look at it is yes the agent has made a mistake and mistakes do happen sometimes with big and small businesses. You would have to have had one fitted anyway and the agent doing so was doing his duty in protecting your asset, your liability and complying with your legal obligations as a landlord. I would be more concerned if they didn't do it at all and it got forgotten about. So the question is are you out of pocket? If so that is what you need to take up with the agent. Remember a contractor will have a minimum charge to visit a property even if the job takes 10 mins and there are numerous different types of carbon monoxide alarms and prices. So if doing a comparison cost excise make sure it is like for like.

So many household electrical items have lithium batteries now so trying to ban tenants storing solely e-scooters and e-bikes and then enforcing it seems like a fools errand. We have been hearing for years about mobile phone batteries catching fire and havent banned them tenanted properties. I acknowledge the size of bike/scooter batteries are bigger but think about how many battery items are likely charged in a house. I guess a big part of the problem is cheap badly made replacement batteries from China. I bought a cheap replacement charger from china for my daughters old laptop which didnt work so used the trade-in scheme with currys to buy another laptop. Apparently it killed all the electrics in the whole store when they plugged it in. To name just a few battery items within a household. Mobile phones cordless phones DIY power tools Cordless garden tools Cordless vacuum cleaners laptops kids toys cctv cameras

I guess it depend what the cat 1 hazard is and does it effect your flat. If so you have a legal obligation to to provide certain things and conditions to your tenant. This question isnt quite as silly as it may seem on the face of it because the cat 1 hazard may have no connection to your part of the building. I have just received a first stage cat 2 hazard notification from the council for one of my flats which is rented out. There are 12 flat in the block, flat 1-3 (mine is flat 1) is completely separate from the other 9 other than a small raised walkway. The cat 2 hazard relate to a electrical box solely for F10 by f10 door and leaking guttering which solely relates to F4-F12. However, the council in their wisdom have sent the notice to all the leaseholders of all 12 of he flats because the freeholder in this case has no responsibility in maintaining the building and there is no group management of the building.

Many years a ago I knew a solicitor who dealt solely with insurance claims. She told me Sun Alliance (now RSA) were by far the worst company for trying to wriggle out of paying out on insurance claims.

The trouble with insurance you never know how good it is until you try to make a claim or if a tenant tries to make a claim against you. The one expirenace I had with rent guarentee insurance was mixed. Yes they paid up however to comply with the policy I had to inform the insurance every month within a tight timeframe of a coupleish days of when the rent was overdue, fill out a form and provide a rent schedule and details of any contact with the tenant. I got the impression failing to do this within the timeframe would be used as an excuse not to pay up. That is all well and good but we all know you can sometimes give a couple of days grace to pay the rent late when in comunication with a tenant.

I did read of an exemption if the cost was over an certain amount but cant remember what the figure was.

Depending what your current rating score is when you drill down how many points you need to reach C rating (69 points). You may find you can sneak a point here a couple of points there which could get you over the line. Below is my rough guide to sneaking a few points on some items. Energy saving light bulbs 1-2 radiator valves TRV 1-2 Duel Fuel Electric meters ? Draft Excluder (wooden front door) 1-2 Heater in communal hallway 1-2 Double Glazing 5-10 Loft Insulation (new) 7-13 Loft Insulation (top-up) 1-2 Heating Programer 1-2 Intelligent Thermostat 1-2 Room Thermostat 1-2 Condensing Boiler 5-20 Water tank Jacket 1-3 Cavity Wall Insulation 4-10

Tricky one. If you force your daughter out it may mean she will restrict future access to your grandchild. However, my thoughts are that if rent has never been paid there is no tenancy in place as no "consideration" (payment) https://uk.practicallaw.thomsonreuters.com/4-107-6271?transitionType=Default&contextData=(sc.Default)&firstPage=true#:~:text=A basic binding contract must,intent to create legal relations. So I guess techically you could just change the locks (maybe give one months notice to vacate in writing). However, that will likely encourage her to get the council to try to argue there is a tenancy in place. So to pre- argue the council or citizens advice view (who will argue there is a tenancy) maybe getting a letter from a solitor to your daughter explaining there is no tenancy in place due to housing law xyz and she needs to vacate by xx/xx/xx and for her to take the letter to the council so she can be re-housed or put in emergency accomadation. What ever you do dont take any rent payments as that will create a tenancy.

Thanks CoR thats a useful link my understanding always was if the arrangement fulfils the the criteria of a tenancy it is a tenancy and you cant call it something else. However, its only an issue if it causes a problem or if there is a dispute and if a solicitor gets its wrong that what his insurance is for. I don't dispute the info on shelters website but I could see a lot of self managing landlords interpreting that explanation in such a manner to avoid deposit protection and s21's etc and causing themselves a world of problems. I investigated it a long time ago trying to be clever to avoid the above and just went down a rabbit hole.

Landlord Liability insurance is always a must for me having coming across a couple of times tenants trying to make claim. One which was clearly fraud and the other an inflated money making excise (still on-going). The one that was fabricated was still paid out because it was cheaper than defending in court according to the insurance company. Tenants got about 10k+ I think. If there wasn't insurance in place I would have had to either make a commercial decision and pay out of my pocket or risk going to court and unlikely recovering any costs even if I won. Trouble is if you are a leaseholder the block insurance may have some liability cover but you will unlikely have any control over the level of cover or scope of cover as the freehold arranges.

If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck it is a duck. (Not a Licence but a AST) A person who has exclusive possession of residential premises for a definite period is a tenant if they share facilities with an occupying owner, they will only be a licensee. I am not a big fan of Shelter but they do have a good data base of housing law etc. https://england.shelter.org.uk/housing_advice/downloads_and_tools/tenancy_rights_checker Now if you do a licence when in fact if is actually a AST and you have not given all the relevant info and deposit protection stuff you dont need me to tell you the problems that could cause.

Its early days of the law at the moment and it needs a larger legal brain than mine to clarify the suggestion above. My current understanding is it needs to be given to the tenant and then every 12 months. We have added it to the AST so there is no argue about having received it. What the penalties are, and any potential implications on invalidating the serving of notices (s21 s8) i am unsure at the moment (if any). However, it wouldn't surprise me if it does become an requirement to prove you have given the document to be able to evict.

Regulations for England Where a dwelling is part of a building containing two or more dwellings and a communal hallway for escape from fire, its a legal requirement to provide fire escape and fire door instructions to tenants and must be done at the beginning of the tenancy and EVERY YEAR. This also includes if a landlord owns a converted a property into two or more separate dwellings and if the landlord self manages (without a block management agent) they would be legally be the reponsible person. The fire door instructions include the following: Keep fire doors shut Not to tamper with self-closing devices Report faults or damage to the landlord The escape from fire instructions include: Operate the nearest fire alarm point Call the fire brigade Leave the building Do not stop to collect belongings If the dwelling you are renting out is in a building with two or more dwellings and a shared communal area, this document is legally required to be given to all residents: At the time of granting a new tenancy (new tenancies) Within 12 months starting from 23 January 2023 (existing occupiers) After that, every 12 months https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2022/547/contents/made

Don't over complicate it. Your best bet to bring your rents up to current standards and justify it to the tenants is to find comparables on the property portals ie: Rightmove, Zoopla and On the Market. That is what tenants will be looking at. And moving forward make sure you do a rent increase every year even if its a small one. It will make life easier.

We have noticed more landlords selling up and penny pinching on repairs. I think there is still money to be made on BTL it just means buying at the right price and managing the tenancy in a manner to reduce void periods by being a good landlord. I have no idea how this compares to other landlords but my personal BTL have monthly overheads (mortgage, service charges, agents fees) in the region of 25-30% of the rental income. The couple of LTD BTL are a bit higher at 30-40%. I'm aware there are a lot of other considerations such as tax, void periods and maintenance. I have (fingers crossed) very little turnover of tenants. I put that down to keeping the rents a little under market rates, reasonably rent increases EVERY year, prompt maintenance and most importantly carefully choosing the right tenant. Not a 100% fool proof but it works for me.

There is little regulation in the letting industry for agents so it is important to grill any potential agent before instruction just as you would a tenant. If you don't nail down exactly what the costs are going to be, the added extras many agents try to charge, referencing process, the policy for instruction of contractors surely that is a fault of the landlord. Remember there are many good pro-active independent agents out there who will tailor a service to meet your needs. Finding them just takes a little effort and knowing what questions to ask before instruction and getting your requirements confirmed in writing. It surprises me how many landlords choose an agent on % fee alone without any further enquires. We get them all the time and I am gob smacked sometimes when I hear of the poor service they many have received from other agents. They will also be ahead of the game regarding the constant change in housing law and the documents that have to be served/provided to tenants. Which failure to do potentially incurs a financial penalty and/or the inability to serve notice on the tenant. I would suspect most self managing landlords are unaware of the numerous legal changes and obligations and then have to play catch up when problems arise which costs time and or money. Just re-serving a S21 because it was done incorrectly due to typo or a certain document not given previously is going to cost a minimum of 2 months time (likely longer) and possibly 2 months rent income. Compare that to fees charged you can do your own maths.

Professional legal advise needed for this.

A large increase to bring the property up to current rent levels will likely: 1. Cause bad feeling from the tenant and jeopardise good tenant/landlord relations 2. Likely produce a large list of maintenance and upgrade requests from the tenant 3. Potentially increases the risk of the tenant giving notice therefore incurring void period and works required before reletting. Trying to save a few pennys paying agent fees by self managing as the agent would have increased the rent yearly may end up costing you more. I always increase the rent every year even if its just £10 pcm. The tenants come to expect it and the rent doesn't fall behind greatly. Remember a tenant will never thank you for not increasing the rent and will conveniently forget that fact when you give a large increase 5 years later..

1.Did you inform the agent at the outset you needed to be informed if the property was empty for longer than xx days and is there a written record of this instruction??. 2.How soon was the agent informed the tenant was is hospital?? 3. Did the tenant continue to pay the rent on time while in hospital?? 4. Have you suffered a loss due to the property being empty??