x
By using this website, you agree to our use of cookies to enhance your experience.

TODAY'S OTHER NEWS

Have your say on plans to introduce licensing schemes

Landlords are being encouraged to give their views on plans to introduce licensing schemes in a number of regions across the country. 

There are a number of local authorities currently consulting on licensing plans, and the National Residential Landlords Association (NRLA) wants landlords to respond to all local authority licensing consultations that affect them.

Existing local authority licensing consultations

Advertisement

Charnwood (consultation closes 23rd October)

An additional licensing consultation is also still ongoing in Charnwood. The council is planning on introducing a borough wide licensing scheme for all Houses of Multiple Occupation. 

Liverpool (Consultation closes 26th October)

Liverpool City Council is currently running a 12 week consultation inviting views on plans to introduce the scheme next summer, covering sixteen out of thirty wards in the city. That's around 80% of privately rented properties in Liverpool. The designated areas include: Central, Riverside, Greenbank, Kensington, Picton, Tuebrook & Stoneycroft, County, Anfield, St Michael’s, Princes Park, Kirkdale, Old Swan, Warbreck, Wavertree, Fazakerley and Everton.The proposed fee ranges from £300 to £570 per property, depending on the type of licence applied for.

As some NRLA members will be aware, this is the second time the council has consulted on licensing plans in as many years.

Last year, Liverpool City Council consulted on plans to renew a city wide selective licensing scheme for another five years, after it expired in March 2020. While the council's cabinet approved the plans,  the proposals were blocked by the Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick in January. According to the council this was because of a lack of evidence included in the proposals to show low housing demand across the city. Have your say on the plans here. 

Tower Hamlets (consultation closes 20th November)

The council is consulting on plans to "renew, alter or end" a selective licensing scheme that is currently operational in three areas of the London borough. The scheme is due to come to an end in October 2021.

Want to comment on this story? If so...if any post is considered to victimise, harass, degrade or intimidate an individual or group of individuals on any basis, then the post may be deleted and the individual immediately banned from posting in future.

  • George Dawes

    Another way for the incompetent public sector to milk businesses , no doubt the license will incrase every year above inflation

  • icon

    Legalised theft, Plain and simple. Local authorities have more than enough power to attack Landlords.
    I think in other country`s its called a protection racket.

  • icon
    • 24 September 2020 08:57 AM

    LL are a very useful resource to milk for as much as Councils want.
    They could make a licence £5000 per property and there would be no outcry in Society.
    Think about this it is only £2.75 per day over 5 years to ensure LL are complying with all regulations.
    An easy sell for Councils to their electorate they are pandering to.

    LL must expect to be further milked with no reasonable expectation that anyone with any clout will come to their defence.

    LL must expect to be further drained of their resources.

    If they don't like this then they will have to stop being LL.

  • icon

    🤔Don’t All extortionist councils charge landlords under the existing HMO licensing schemes??
    Why another licensing?
    Councils don’t support the ‘licensed’ LL’s to immediately evict an unscrupulous tenant. So what’s the benefit of licensing for LL’s-it’s just another dictatorship tactic by Councils to enforce LL’s to keep funding rogue tenants.
    #SayNotoPrivateLandlordLicensing.

  • icon

    People seem to be reacting to these proposals by using phrases like 'dictatorship councils', 'extortionist councils', 'milked', legalised theft', 'incompetent public sector', etc - and that's from just four people (above). But rather than react in these terms, could the same people come up with positive suggestions for how tenanted flats can be checked for health and safety hazards by independent inspectors - so that time can be called on uncaring landlords? (Many tenants would not want to complain about such hazards for fear of being given notice to quit.) We all know that unfortunately such flats do exist - and probably in far greater numbers than many of us LLs would like to think.

    icon

    Sounds like a sensible suggestion to me.

    Come on lads get your thinking caps on, that is provided you can remember where you left it.

     
    icon
    • 24 September 2020 11:45 AM

    I think you'll find nobody objects in principle to licencing.
    Good LL have nothing to fear.
    Indeed I would like to see EVERY rental property licenced.
    The issue is the COST.
    A licence should be no more than £100 for 5 years.
    I would also like to see EVERY LL being registered.
    No letting without a property and LL licence no.

    Few LL would object to that.
    Enforcement of duff flats as you suggest should come from Council funds just like enforcement of other things.

    LL should not be expected to cough up vast sums to pay for work that Councils should already be doing.
    It is just tough if Councils are having budgetry issues.

    That is nothing to so with the LL

    I would not object to being charged £100 per property for a 5 year property licence and LL licence for 5 year terms.
    It makes far more sense for ALL property to be licensed cheaply and LL as well.

    But Councils are more concerned at milking LL.

     
    Andrew Murray

    I think licensing is good, but as stated it should be £100 per year maximum . The problem with councils is they then go for the easy target, usually a landlord who is fairly new and trying to work with the council. Bath council tried this with me a few years ago until I got a solicitor involved. They were trying to give me a criminal conviction for a minor infringement when there were hundreds of other properties not even licensed.

     
    icon

    Paul, please do not presume to speak for anyone else. I for one would object to council licensing. Councils already have extensive powers to inspect property and would offer nothing to landlords (or tenants) for the 'service' charged for. Licensing would be used as nothing more than a cash cow and worse; it would require having to actuallly deal with the morons and pen pushers at the council.

    My property is full managed already. The agent checks yearly that all required inspections and permits are valid and sends me a property condition report. Why should I then have to sign up for a 'service' which would try to replicate (only some of) these actions, but do it badly? The agents provide a year-round full service (for a nice fee!) that benefits both the LL and tenant. The council license would be a one-time box checking exercise (yearly at best) which will add no value for good LLs and their tenants... and the bad LLs will just carry on as normal.

     
    icon

    Laura B, if your only purpose for being here is to give the other commentators a hard time, and tell us all how wonderful you are ?.. then you're in the right place !

     
    icon

    Seb

    Who' getting personal now? You were complaining about personal attacks only yesterday and now you're indulging in them.

     
    icon

    To David Wirth. Simple. Report it to your local environmental health officer or housing department. As I said Authority has enough power. All it takes is if your unhappy about something is for you to do something about it. Its not hard. Oh and as for serving notice we all know how that works nobody goes there unless its a last resort.

     
  • icon

    Just in the process of licensing one of eight properties in Nottingham at £670 each....no option but to register and pay the fee or face "legal" action. I wonder how many other landlords will take licensing seriously? I can see the positives when letting and maybe justify a premium on rent as a compliant
    landlord offering good and safe tenancies.
    By the way £670 is discounted as we are DASH registered.

  • Keith  Johnson

    This will do one of two things rents will go up causing them to be unaffordable and will ultimately lead to evictions or landlords will sell their properties creating a shortage and this will ultimately push rents up......either way this scheme will not help tenants??, I believe in the free market if a tenant feels they are not getting good value then they should report the landlord or find a better property.....most of the tenants that are trapped in substandard properties are the bad ones....

    icon

    That how I see it. If you in a bad property save time blaming the LL move to another property. Same as you wouldnt book into a crummy hotel out of choice & if you did you leave and find a better one

     
    icon

    I suspect most of those tenants that are trapped in poor quality properties are the kind of tenants that landlords with good properties wouldn't want at any money, hence why they are trapped.

     
  • icon

    its just a revenue raising scam--and it will get worse as our hopeless chancellor and brain-dead pm have bankrupted uk--another scam--look up davos wef

  • icon
    • 24 September 2020 12:54 PM

    @andrewmurray

    No £100 for a 5 year LL and property licence

    NOT an annual licence fee!

  • icon

    So we learn something new about LLs - tell me now, why do they get such a bad rap ?

    1) They hate their income going down (tenants not paying)
    2) They hate their expenses going up (costs of licensing)

    Most businesses are forced to move with the times, or go bust - why should LLs be any different ?

    icon
    • 24 September 2020 13:41 PM

    Err!

    All other businesses are allowed to trade and withdraw services if not paid.
    LL are forced to provide services for free and wait a very long time before they can recover their property assets to let out again.

    So completely different from EVERY other business.

     
    icon

    Paul, the issue today is cash flow... do you have enough coming in to fund the provided service that only results in the below mentioned increase in debts. Not everyone is as lucky as Amazon and Netflix - if you don't pay, your subscription expires. Even Sky are now providing free access to one of their channels.

    It may surprise you to know that the majority of businesses are continuing to trade (and hoping that debts will be recovered sometime in the future), along with the risks of ever increasing numbers of indebted customers... the alternative is to stop trading, go bust and virtually guarantee that debts will never be repaid.

    As for commercial rents in the City, only 15% have been paid since the start of lockdown.

     
    icon

    Sebastian you are deliberately comparing apples with oranges. International media behemoths are entirely different to the rest of the business world and have built up significant 'war chests'. Their business model is to charge regular small amounts to millions of subscribers simultaneously. They can afford to be generous at this time. For LL it isn't cash flow, they are prevented from actually trading whilst incurring additional cost because they are denied access to their assets by government edict. LL have to charge relatively large amounts to a handful of clients for discrete assets. If they lose a tenant it has a higher proportionate effect on their income and as Paul said, if they can't get the asset back they are prevented from generating income from it with an alternative client.

    The current system means that some LL will have had to house someone for over a year at their own cost. They may even have to pay the council tax and for repairs to the property while the thief still lives inside for free. How is that a reasonable expectation of a business? Weatherspoons aren’t expected to feed the nation without charging for the food.

    ...and what of 'accidental' LL that only have one property. They aren’t running a business and may expect to go for 3 months without income but 12+ months with additional expenses, on top of the mortgage??

     
    icon

    Laura B, just to make sure I understand you correctly...

    Are you an apple or an orange ?

     
    icon

    @ Laura B, I agree, but a word of advice on here, just ignore Seb, trust me he isn't worth the effort.

     
    icon

    Seb

    Your comments are getting even more crass - but then you have been practising pretty hard recently to reach your current level!

     
  • icon

    It is a complete scam & we all know this. I belong to a couple of these rackets & it has made not one iota of difference to the tenant or me in terms of value add benefits. The effect is it made the rents go up!
    Now we essentially are a business. It has to be that way if it wasnt it would be a charity & we would be able to gain charitable status - we dont qualify (yet).
    The council have you over a barrel. If you dont register they will hit you with five figure fines that increase. Their aim is to bleed the equity out of your property - no less. I recommend to register immediately before being notified.
    In one of my areas the scheme is £825 for 5 years. So what you do is divide this figure by 60 however you MUST add on your time and any expense to be compliant to licencing. My business time is high so I issued an immediate S13 rent increase to all properties affected. I spoke to every tenant & explained the reason for the increase. I will let them come to the conclusion if its value for money
    Im seriously thinking of issuing rent statements detailing these additional costs on top of the rent ie Gas Safe, EICR, Insurances, Selective Licence, Sect 24 Taxes so they can see where their hard earned rent money goes

    icon

    Seb

    This was meant to be a response to. Seb's post of 14.45 today but seems to have ended up in the wrong place ( a bit like some of our anti-landlord posters!).

    It's totally justified to complain about unfairness, even if it doesn't affect one personally. The pressure on the small % of landlords who are suffering from the government-sponsored rent dodgers (egged on by Shelter etc.) must be intolerable. Had I been 29 years later in starting to build my portfolio I would be worried sick. I've worked long and hard to be "successful" and planned carefully but I do admit to having benefitted hugely from the rise in property prices over the last 40 odd years since I first became a home owner and from the SNP sponsored increases in rents over the last few years. That doesn't disqualify me from campaigning against iniquities when I see them.

    Incidentally I am amused by the outcries from those initially forced not to work after 23 March about potentially being forced to live on Universal Credit - which led to the over generous furlough scheme ( although full time landlords were and still are excluded). I do hope one consequence of this pandemic is an overhaul of the benefits system so that those who deserve and need help get enough of it, but those who don't deserve it or fraudulently spend benefits meant for rent get their comeuppance - but I don't think that will happen unfortunately and the furloughed fortunate will revert to complaining about paying to support those in need.

     
    icon

    @ Robert, the wind is a blowing here in Norfolk this Sunday afternoon, I'm alright Jack, I'm sat here in front of a log fire nice and toasty warm being amused by Seb's idiot replies to your posts, you will never win with the likes of Seb and Mark they will always come back with a daft reply, funny though.

     
    icon

    Andrew

    Having an equally enjoyable and cozy afternoon/evening in Scotland.

    I've now got over any annoyance or outrage to some posts from various ill-informed posters and moved on to enjoying our various exchanges.

    I'll continue to enjoy them as long as it remains harmless, coupled with a nagging thought that there are some real undeserving victims on both sides.

    My main nightmare is if my IQ and bank balance ever got confused with that of some of our fellow posters!

    Thanks for all your likes - much appreciated!

     
  • icon

    Forget about Consultations there is no such thing they are just going through the motions, they call it a process. I attended 3 different so called consultations in one Borough years ago, everyone had their say but it didn't count for anything. A guy came from York to present the meetings based on what was called The Mayhew Report. He proceed to tell us what was coming-in and that's exactly what happened so there was no Consultation, incidentally the Borough paid £100k for this nonsense scam.
    I agree with Terry it's a money grab but I think she could have included the Housing secretary as well, (the 3 blind mice) no one that has any idea is in charge or they wouldn't have wasted Billions on furlough that's another story.
    I agree with Seb' we don't like our income going down, being robbed by Rogue Councils.
    We don't like our costs going-up, unfairly and by Statute that don't apply to other LL's who have not got to comply with anything, just one Fire door to kitchen, battery
    smoke alarm maybe change front door lock to thumb screw type or equivalent, a fraction of the many thousands of £'s we have to spend and anyone who thinks its just a license fee dream on. Many Businesses are forced to move with the times but we are the exception we are being forced out simple.
    It wouldn't be too bad if the Authorities weren't all in collusion that's the worst bit very sad, how can we have any confidence in them, when they see fit to behave like this. Plenty of cases the Tenant makes a complaint to Council they are delighted with this & prosecute the LL, the Magistrate gives a big fine then they divide the spoils between themselves, Court gets 12.5%, Council 37.5% and Gov' gets 50%. no wonder LL gets fined any time they want a few bob hit the LL again.

  • icon
    • 24 September 2020 15:37 PM

    @seb forbes

    Unfortunately LL are simply unable to facilitate the cashflow needed.

    LL are unable to quickly remove rent defaulting tenants.
    It is simply impossible for LL to have sufficient cash flow.
    Every year rent defaulting tenants cost LL £9 billion in losses.
    No business could have that amount of cash flow.

    This is not a problem in Australia.
    This as Oz LL can remove rent defaulting tenants 14 days after 1st rent default.

    Consequently Oz LL don't need much cash flow.
    UK LL are massively disadvantaged by the dysfunctional eviction and civil recovery processes.

    icon

    Something in the business model makes LLs believe that it is worth the risk ?

    I converted all of my assets into UK gold sovereigns - I can't complain if the value of gold goes down or the UK Gov't remove all of the non-taxable benefits... can I ?

     
    icon

    Seb

    Would you complain if someone could hijack any increase in their value but you still had to bear any risk of loss, insurance costs etc.?

    Despite being told countless times, you haven't grasped the inequality of landlords being forced to continue to provide a service that is no longer being paid for, with no right to limit their losses to those already accrued and to offer that same service to an alternative paying customer.

     
    icon

    My heart bleeds for you ?.. oh, actually I'm not too bothered - many of you sit on here whining and moaning, talking about how this will be the year that you finally get out of the LL business, and what do you do... nothing ?

     
    icon

    Seb

    I have set my portfolio up so that I actually own a very small portion of it ( around £1 million equity) with the majority of it already in the names of my grown up children - to minimise inheritance and capital gains tax whilst continuing to benefit from the entire rental stream. I'll never get out of the PRS and the current debacle with high density student accommodation has led to unprecedented demand from students desperate to get into normal domestic accommodation, so I personally continue to feel optimistic about the future of my portfolio but that doesn't mean I don't support or sympathise with fellow landlords trapped with rent dodging scum, apparently supported and lauded by some of the contributors to this platform.

     
    icon

    Again Robert, by the sounds of it, every LL on this platform is a very successful go-getter with a well diversified portfolio... and yet, all you (plural) ever seem to do is complain... no matter how optimistic you're feeling ?

    Now, tell me again, why do LLs get a bad rap ?

     
    icon

    Seb

    I had replied earlier but it ended up in the wrong place (like some of the more recently joined posters).

    Anyway you'll find my reply in a reply to the post above. Hope you can find it more easily than you can find any common sense in most of your posts!

     
  • icon

    Personally I'd rather the whole sector was licensed under a national scheme, the funds should be used to fund a team to check all properties, to weed out the rogue landlords that give the sector such a bad name, and lead to onerous measures (that they ignore anyway). The sooner we make the sector a professional body, the better for all.

    icon

    Agreed, but the cost to landlords needs to be fair.

     
    icon
    • 24 September 2020 16:41 PM

    It will never happen as millions of tenancies are fraudulent.

    Just consider LL who are letting on residential mortgages WITHOUT lender CTL.
    Those LL wouldn't pass licence requirements.
    So meaning about 1 million tenants having to be removed.

    I strongly advocate proper LL licensing because I know it would result in millions of homeless tenants meaning rents could be raised to realistic levels.
    Take all the fraudster LL letting to DSS tenants which mortgage conditions strictly prohibit.
    They wouldn't qualify for a licence.

    There is NO way Govt will EVER introduce National LL licencing due to the millions of homeless tenants it would create

     
  • icon
    • 24 September 2020 16:10 PM

    @seb forbes

    Yes indeed the gamble for LL has been that repossession was relatively easy to achieve years ago.

    Therefore a reasonable gamble that LL wouldn't end up with rent defaulting tenants who could be removed relatively quickly.

    That has now all changed.
    The gamble is no longer there as everything is in favour of tenants.
    This is why I no longer have tenants.
    I have lodgers in my now officially registered 2nd homes with the Council.

    Sometimes I have lodgers sometimes I don't.
    No one will ever know.

    I now no longer have any problem getting rid of rent defaulting lodgers.
    Just a bit of a fag residing at multiple properties once per month.
    But no biggie now that I am no longer subject to tenancy regulations or rather very few.

    No way will I EVER take on a tenant.
    Utilising lodgers has meant my low cash flow reserves are more than adequate to cope with voids or rent defaulting.

    Tenants are a bankrupt business model.
    Lodgers aren't!

    But I Do intend to sell up and reduce to one house for the sake of financial resilience.

    Of course the only hassle is I will not and cannot take on family lodgers.
    It is either couples or single sharers who could be in a family but I charge per room so unviable for a family.
    There is the hassle of churn but I find spareroom fulfils all my requirements.

  • icon
    • 24 September 2020 19:18 PM

    @laura b

    Unfortunately many LL can't afford to use LA.

    You clearly choose to and you consider they keep you compliant in all areas.
    You are in a minority.
    Most LL don't use LA.
    They can't afford them.

    There does need to be a CHEAP National Licensing service to put out of business the hundreds of thousands of fraudster LL.
    These fraudster LL are UNFAIR COMPETITION to compliant LL.
    So to detect these fraudster LL a simple cheap licensing system is required.
    Just by asking a few questions I could make millions of tenants homeless.

    These simple questions which would have to be answered would be these.

    Prove that your lender if you have one allows letting to DSS tenants

    Prove that your insurer is a BTL insurer


    Prove that your insurer knows the tenants are DSS tenants if they are

    Prove if you have a resi mortgage that the lender and insurer is OK with this

    Prove that you have relevant PLI for letting property

    Prove that you have all relevant council licences.
    Substantial numbers of LL would NOT be able to give satisfactory answers and therefore would not be able to obtain a licence.
    Tenants would have to be removed and councils would be faced with MILLIONS of homeless.

    This is why there will NEVER be a National LL licensing system.






  • icon

    There needs to be a web site where a LL can advertise his property directly to the Tenant, the placed is Plagued with web-sites putting you through third parties its rubbish, not their Property everyone has hijacked our business living off our backs putting us at risk. Huge amount of sub-letting Companies they want to take your property and let it out in rooms breaching every regulation, so many doing it all Digital Academics in suits & shiny shoes its ridiculous. For decades we were able to advertise just put an ad in the Evening News or Loot for that matter but not through third party.

    icon

    In the 90s I used to put a small add in the local paper and the phone never stopped ringing, all changed now, but still a strong demand in Norwich, only differance is I am very much more carefull who I rent to.

     
    icon

    I believe that all connection websites are started with the very best intentions - connect a person who provides a service to another who requires the service. That service can be social networking, emergency repairs, insurance or property.

    When your exposure rises significantly, you will inevitably be approached by the big guns who want to pay big money to appear on your connection website... and that is where the website loses its best intentions and becomes a money spinning portal - just like every other.

     
    icon

    I have used Gumtree quite successfully in the past, along with newsagents' windows.

    However I did find out that my rents were lower than market rents a couple of years ago when I contacted an LA. £900 tenant find fee gave me an extra £6000 annual rental, so I will test them out every couple of years just to make sure that I am not inadvertently causing problems for fellow landlords by not charging the full market rents. I also owe HMRC the same duty of care to maximise my rental revenue, profit and consequently my tax liability.

     
    icon

    "I also owe HMRC the same duty of care to maximise my rental revenue, profit and consequently my tax liability."...

    Were you saying something about, 'crass comments' ?

     
    icon

    Surely every tax payer has such a duty of care - not only to HMRC but also to our fellow tax payers - and even to non tax payers? However your grasp of business is so poor that you don't understand the principle of needing to maximise income to ensure expenditure can be afforded. You also don't grasp irony!

     
  • icon
    • 24 September 2020 22:38 PM

    @seb forbes

    No LL on here is whining.

    All we all want is the opportunity to trade.
    Personally I expect to maximise income and profits.
    That is the ONLY reason I am a LL.
    I have absolutely NO public spiritedness
    I am in the game to make as much money as I can.
    I have an offer and I hope to attract those who will pay for my service.
    It is not my fault if the public resent my business.

    We all accept there are no guarantees that we can trade successfully.

    We just require the chance to trade.

    The dysfunctional repossession and civil recovery process is what conspires to prevent LL having a chance to trade successfully.

    This is the only business where the service we offer is forced by law to be provided for free.
    Ultimately resulting on our potential bankruptcy.

    As LL faced with such iniquity it makes little sense remaining a LL with tenants.

    It is obvious that Govt is unfairly discriminating against LL.
    Is this acceptable has to be the question?
    Obviously LL don't believe so.
    LL I believe are correct.
    Unfortunately as LL we are up against a Govt ideology that seeks our destruction.

    Should we just roll over and take it!?

    If yes then why yes!?

    icon

    David Wirth was pretty quick to come in and say, "rather than react in these terms, could the same people come up with positive suggestions for how tenanted flats can be checked for health and safety hazards by independent inspectors - so that time can be called on uncaring landlords?"

    Still yet, you don't want to participate and look for solutions ? When it's all over and the dust has settled, a lot of you will be saying, "See, I told you it was all a waste of time !"

     
  • icon
    • 25 September 2020 00:51 AM

    @seb forbes

    No seb I support a very cheap licensing system.

    I want rogue LL driven out of business leaving good LL to make even more profit on what would be very scarce resources.

    Bad LL are UNFAIR COMPETITION to good LL like me.

    I want them driven out of business.
    Licensing every rental property and every LL at £100 every 5 years each will generate sufficient income for all council enforcement activity.

    Hopefully with just good LL remaining we will have mass homelessness and then we can jack up our rents to realistic levels.

    Bad LL suppress rents.

    Only good LL should be allowed to prosper.
    Unfortunately this would result in millions of homeless.
    That would not be the good LL fault

  • icon

    It's very interesting reading all the comments relating to local licenses, but the two most important points seem to have been overlooked:
    1. Dodgy landlords don't obey the current rules, so Councils must be living in cuckoo land if they suddenly think that a license will make these scum bags suddenly tow the line!
    2. The cost is totally irrelevant. It doesn't matter if the price is £50 or £5000 - at the end of the day it will be the Tenant who ends up paying for it, not the Landlord. So how does that help the Tenant in long run then?
    Dodgy landlords carry on renting crap accommodation, good quality property becomes more expensive, and the honest landlord has to jump through a few more hoops. All to satisfy a few empty vessels who are not affected by the fall out. And whilst we're at it, since the Councils are now incapable at running anything these days, why not contract it out to an organization like Crapita who can over charge, under deliver, and award obscene bonuses to their management? Trebles all round?
    And don't forget, whatever we do, you can be assured that it will be 'World Class'!
    I'm beginning to think it might be time to call it a day on providing affordable, good quality accommodation to families who need it, and let the Councils and Government take it on as they are obviously so much better at it , a la Grenfell.....
    I rest my case.

    icon

    I agree with everything you say except, "it might be time to call it a day"... where have I heard that before ?

    You won't sell up because your property has just lost 20% value, and LLs can't conceive giving up the 20% that they don't have ?

     
    icon

    I agree, other than the giving up part, decent properties with decent tenants and increased rent, leave the feckless to the dodgy landlords and the councils, they are not our problem and we don't want them.

     
  • icon
    • 25 September 2020 15:25 PM

    It has been mentioned that rogue LL wouldn't bother with licensing.

    Well I'll tell you how wrong this is.

    RRO for detected unlicensed LL would very quickly get around the other criminal LL.
    It is pointless engaging in criminal activity if the proceeds of crime can be taken via RRO.
    Criminal LL would be gambling that they wouldn't be detected.

    If RRO aren't successful then the Council can apply a charging order to the property and force the sale of the property.

    Very quickly unlicensed LL would realise the game was up!
    They would then become compliant.
    Hopefully this would result in the 2 million illegal immigrants being detected and deported.
    Most of these criminal LL are in diverse areas and those are the areas which should be investigated first.
    Doesn't matter whether people say this is racial profiling.
    It is just a fact that few rogue LL are white though this has changed slightly with WHITE criminal East Europeans.

    It is accepted that Licensing isn't a perfect solution.
    But it would go some way of identifying good LL.

    Tenants would naturally gravitate to licensed LL.

    It would tend to be illegal tenants gravitate to illegal LL.
    They deserve eachother.

    They would eventually be detected.

    It would be easy to make a start on licensing.
    Every address where HB is paid would need to have a licensed LL.
    So start there as Councils would know where all these addresses are.

    icon

    masses more than 2 million illegals--20 million more realistic

     
  • icon
    • 25 September 2020 16:21 PM

    In very general terms, as far as I care, the Govt., Councils, Local Authorities, Letting Agents, Courts, or anyone whatsoever who has power to make me pay more, can put whatever ways they can dream to make more money out of me, matters not one JOT to me.

    Because all I will do is put up my rents and the tenant pays NOT ME. I will also add an extra 15% onto any crazy scheme any of these people want to slap on me.

    It is quite normal practice for any business that when they have increased overheads the product price goes up to cover the increases.

    What business will just ignore increases and just carry on...NONE......And that includes LLs.
    Me anyway.

  • icon

    It's the end user that pays, always.

  • icon
    • 25 September 2020 17:17 PM

    Expecting the end user to always pay is all very well.
    In practice this doesn't work.
    I have needed to reduce rents.
    So S24 causes even more of a burden.
    Unfortunately the sad reality is very few LL can just increase rents to pay for all the new madcap schemes Govt and Councils introduce.

    The actual effect is to reduce LL income.
    S24 LL could find they have insufficient income to pay S24 taxes caused by these madcap scheme costs.
    That is what I am facing.
    Therefore I need to sell off.

    It would be nice to think we LL could just increase our rents to cover all these bonkers schemes costs.
    .
    Sadly that isn't possible for the vast majority of LL.

    Essentially many LL are being priced out of the market by these bonkers regulations.
    Those who can will sell as they aren't charities and will not operate a loss making or zero profit property.

    Of course there is a problem with zombie LL who are not able to sell up as they would have insufficient sales proceeds to pay CGT bills.

    This may be as a consequence of borrowing on supposed equity in past years.

    Many such LL will be forced to maintain such zombie properties because they can't afford to sell up.

    Obviously most such LL gambled on ever increasing prices so that eventual sale proceeds would be sufficient to cover CGT bills.
    Many LL have got this calculation WRONG.
    S### happens.
    Property is NOT a one way bet.
    Something that many LL haven't considered.
    More fool them!!

    icon

    In the long run the end user will pay, rents will rise but not all at once, there is still a strong demand in Norwich, I exspect London may well be differant.

     
  • icon
    • 25 September 2020 17:27 PM

    @terry sullivan

    Yes I have seen the 80 million population the supermarkets reckon they are feeding compared to the official 60 odd million.
    Where are those 20 million hiding!?

    2 million can be hidden fairly easily and we all know where they are but 20 million!?

    But if the supermarkets reckon they are feeding 80 million most people wouldn't dispute their figures.

    Just seems an incredible amount of illegal population that remain hidden.
    Surely most of them are renting?
    That would make most of the PRS illegal.
    I just can't see it being 20 million.
    2 million easily could be the case

    icon

    There are also reports of around 1/3 of food bought being thrown away, which would explain a lot of the 80 million versus 60 million figures.

    Interesting to see what clothing sales tell us about the ethnic styles and quantities of clothing sold? That might be more reliable evidence of a hidden immigrant population - unless they stay hidden and naked!

     
icon

Please login to comment

MovePal MovePal MovePal
sign up