Search Results for: Tenant Fees Act
-
Regional Reports
Wokingham, St Helens and Walsall
This month we meet members of The Guild of Professional Estate Agents in Wokingham, St Helens and Walsall.
Read More » -
Latest property news
Rogue agent list must be available to all says ARLA as government mulls banning orders
The government’s plans to police letting agents and landlords from the private rental market via banning orders are ‘completely illogical and defeat the purpose of the legislation’, says ARLA Propertymark in its response to the government’s recent consultation. ARLA is concerned that the database of rogue landlords and agents subject to banning orders will only be available to local authorities and the Department for Communities and Local Government. “If there is no public access to the database how will landlords or tenants know if they are using a banned agent and how do agents see if those applying for employment are blacklisted or banned,” it says. ARLA instead wants access to the database granted to industries such as it and the NAEA because “unless we are included we will not know if our members are banned or blacklisted” and be able to take the “appropriate action against any member on the list”. But ARLA is pleased that the government has consulted on which offences by landlords and agents may attract a banning order and agrees with them, although it also says that agents who do not display their letting fees or who fail to sign up to one of the…
Read More » -
Regional Reports
Ledbury, Tring and Matlock
Each month we visit three agents across the country to discover what is happening in their business and local markets. This month we meet members of The Guild of Professional Estate Agents in Ledbury, Tring and Matlock.
Read More » -
Latest property news
Rogue letting agent jailed after National Trading Standards investigation
A rogue letting agent and landlord in Lancashire has been jailed for three years and nine months after he was convicted at Bolton Crown Court of nine counts of fraud, theft and forgery following a lengthy investigation by the National Trading Standards. Tahir ‘Tony’ Khaliq (pictured, left) operated a string of property companies including several letting agencies which he used as vehicles for his fraudulent activity. The most shocking was the theft of holding deposits of between £200 and £400 from over 100 prospective tenants, many of whom were extremely vulnerable people mainly in the Rochdale, Bury and Oldham areas. Khaliq, with the help of accomplice Paul Dickinson – who received a two-year suspended sentence and 240 hours of community service – took the holding deposits and claimed they were processing fees for unsuccessful tenancy applications. The court heard how one woman, after losing her holding deposit, was forced to move into a Mother and Baby unit, as well as another who experienced extreme financial difficulties while trying to save money to leave her violent and abusive partner. National Trading Standards says Khaliq was involved in other illegal activities relating to his property businesses including forging documents, the theft of…
Read More » -
Latest property news
Housing White Paper: key rental policies revealed
The Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government Sajid Javid (pictured, right) presented the government’s housing White Paper to the Commons today with the aim of fixing the UK’s ‘broken housing market’. During the run-up to Javid’s statement to parliament several ministers including housing minister Gavin Barwell had suggested that the government was keen to break its historical fixation on home ownership and focus instead on the rental market. His preamble to parliament sounded promising. During it he warned that even renting a decent home had become a “distant dream” for many, and that this was the “biggest bar to social progress this country faces”. But there is less evidence of this in the White Paper than many within the industry were expecting, and Javid only referred once to the rental sector in his statement, saying he wanted to “improve safeguards in the private rented sector”. You have to scroll down to page 50 in the White Paper before key measures designed to achieve this aim are found, not quite the seismic change of direction many were expecting. Build to rent The first measure is to encourage more institutional investors to get into in Built to Rent, which is not new,…
Read More » -
Latest property news
Martin & Co embraces hybrid opportunities from Ewemove acquisition
Letting agency franchise giant Martin & Co enjoyed a ‘robust’ 2016 and has put the business model and technology of recently-acquired Ewemove.com at the heart of its operations, its latest trading update reveals. Martin & Co increased its revenue by 15% last year to £8.2 million during 2016 and added 90 branches to its network as well as increasing the number of tenanted properties it manages by 3,000 to 48,000. Looking to the future, CEO Ian Wilson (pictured) also says that the fees ban is unlikely to be “significantly impacting our business”. The group says its robust performance has taken place despite the challenging market conditions following the Brexit vote, a result it has managed by growing fees and lowering costs and also the inclusion of a modest contribution from hybrid agency Ewemove.com, which is acquired in September 2016 and that now has 96 franchisees. The trading update also says that the Group is also importing some of the intellectual capital of EweMove into its five traditional high street brands, and that it will be launching new websites with a facility for customers to book valuation appointments in real time. “The acquisition of EweMove marked an important milestone for the…
Read More » -
Latest property news
62% of letting agents say ban will reduce rental property quality
The Association of Residential Letting Agents (ARLA) has come out fighting on the fees ban, saying it opposes a total ban and that fess should instead be spread out over the first six months of the tenancy. It also says a ban is likely to have shocking consequences for the industry, tenants, landlords and the wider economy. ARLA has also completed research that it says shows 42% of letting agents think their headcount will reduce following a total ban, while 62% of the 1008 agents it canvassed think a ban will prompt a reduction in rental property quality, and 61% believe property management standards will drop. The research also reveals that letting agents “overwhelmingly” believe that rents will rise if a total ban is introduced, as they will “need to recoup the costs it takes to undertake the important jobs that fees currently cover [and] pass these on to landlords”, the research says. Agents spend eight hours on average completing the tasks needed to prepare a tenancy agreement including completing credit checks and collecting references, ARLA says. ARLA also claims that spreading the cost of fees to tenants over six months would make tenancies more affordable, enable agents to maintain…
Read More » -
Latest property news
Heavy regulation has been good for Scottish rental market
Heavy regulation of the Scottish rental market in recent years has been a good thing for all concerned, says housing charity Crisis Scotland. After a clamp down on landlords and agents over the past ten years which has included four pieces of legislation, Crisis Scotland claims that all the potential downsides claimed by agents and landlords have failed to materialise. This has included increased responsibilities for and regulation of landlords and agents including an end to ‘no fault’ tenancy terminations, a Repairing Standard to enforce minimum property quality, strict HMO legislation, landlord registration and a ban on letting fees. Neil Guy (pictured), policy and practice manager at the charity, says the legislation has not restricted the growth of Scotland’s privatge rented sector (PRS) over the past ten years and that it has expanded faster than England’s, according to Scottish government housing data. Agents generally agree that the market is robust; for example Fiona Hindshaw of Clyde Property last month said that the “the general consensus across the board in Scotland is that the lettings market [during the final quarter of 2016] demonstrated continued strength and growth when compared to the same period in 2015 and we expect to see this growth…
Read More » -
Features
Buy-to-let, what happens next?
Scott Hendry, director at specialist finance provider Together, discusses what to expect from the buy-to-let sector after a challenging 2016.
Read More » -
Features
The next big things for lettings tech in 2017
Organising viewings for potential tenants demands a lot of an agent’s time. Nigel Lewis looks at two new and very different, digital solutions.
Read More »
