David Smith
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Latest property news
‘Suspend Right to Rent’ say landlords as Home Office reconvenes panel
Ongoing complaints from landlords about Right to Rent has persuaded the Home Office to revisit its controversial flagship immigration policy.
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High Court gives green light to Judicial Review of Right to Rent
A High Court judge has given a charity permission to challenge the government on its flagship immigration policy Right to Rent.
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Revealed: why house sales are going down every year
Agents who wonder why the number of house sales continues to decline every year, and why it’s harder to find stock and buyers need ponder no more. The answer is that young middle-class buyers has been all but wiped out from the property market by fast-rising house prices over the past twenty years. Or at least that what is being claimed by the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS). The venerable organisation has crunched the figures and says that in 1995 65% of those between 25 and 34 years old in the middle 20% income bracket owned their own home, a figure that today is just 27%. The key reason for this, the IFW says, is that house prices have risen too fast. The mean price for a property in the UK has soared by 152% since 1995 when adjusted for inflation while the average family income has barely caught up, rising by just 22% over the same period. This has helped the average income to house price ratio to double from four to eight times, while for 38% of first time buyers the homes they want to buy are ten times their income, up from 9% of FTBs in 1995.…
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Tenant Fees Bill is last thing sector needs, Residential Landlords Association tells MPs
A group of MPs leading an investigation into the private rented sector and the draft Tenant Fees Bill got more than they bargained for yesterday afternoon when David Smith (pictured, right), Policy Director at the Residential Landlords Association (RLA) came in to give evidence. The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government Select Committee had convened to hear from the RLA but also the National Landlords Association, a build-to-rent company called PlaceFirst, campaigning group Generation Rent and Citizen’s Advice about how best to police the private rental sector. It’s other task was to find out what the wider world thinks of the proposed lettings fees ban Blunt language David Smith, during a sometimes tour-de-force performance, told the MPs – who included former housing minister Mark Prisk – his views in sometimes blunt language during a two-hour session. His main points, some of which were echoed by the other people giving evidence, were: Fees charged by agents are charged at different levels and employed in varying ways all around the UK, so a blanket ban will be a blunt tool. It’s not true to say fees have been banned in Scotland – they’re now just post-loaded into tenancies, rather than being…
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Right to rent is “dangerous, divisive and must be scrapped” says RLA
The government’s Right to Rent checks introduced in February 2016 have been heavily criticised by the Residential Landlords Association (RLA) following research among its members. Launched today, the research reveals that nearly half of its member landlords are less likely to rent a property to someone without a passport. “This is a dangerous and divisive policy that is causing discrimination. It must be scrapped,” says the RLA’s Policy Director David Smith. The Right to Rent checks, which were designed to help prevent those without permission to be in the UK to rent a property, are also affecting the 17% of UK adults in the UK who don’t have a passport, the RLA says. Right to Rent has also made landlords more cautious about renting their property to non UK citizens in general; 51% of landlords questioned said they were less likely to considering letting a property to foreigner arriving into the UK whether they have the right to rent here or not. And as uncertainty of Brexit continues, nearly a quarter of the landlords said they were less likely to consider renting their property to someone from the EU. But the research suggests that, rather than being xenophobic landlords are…
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Martyn Gerrard laments “overreaction” to ad that ASA wants taken down
An estate agency asked to remove a poster advert from an Underground Station in north London by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) following a complaint from the public has hit out against the decision. David Smith (pictured, below), who is Marketing and Compliance Director at 14-branch Martyn Gerrard, says that although in the “strict interpretation of the rules” the ASA code means the complainant is technically correct, he wonders is this is “really the sort of image they had in mind when they devised their rules? I very much doubt it”. “We were quite surprised to receive the letter from the ASA,” he told The Negotiator. “This particular advert was on an underground station platform and had been up for over a year.” The ASA rules say an advert can’t condone or encourage an unsafe practice or show anything that will result in physical, mental or moral harm. The ASA wrote via email to Martyn Gerrard on 10th March and in his reply to them David agreed to take the advert down, as we reported yesterday, but highlighted his disappointment with the request. He wondered if the complaint may have come from a “vexatious competitor agent” rather than a concerned…
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