HMO
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Latest property news
London property firm to pay back £60,000 in rent after operating unlicensed HMO
Read how a London property firm that operated an unlicensed HMO 'house of horror's on the Finchley Road is to pay back rent totalling £60,000.
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Features
Critical changes to Section 21 Notices
As The Negotiator hits your desks, says lettings guru Frances Burkinshaw, major changes will come into force for the residential lettings industry.
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Latest property news
Councils ‘unprepared’ for HMO regulation change next week
The National Landlords Association says too many councils are unprepared for or ignorant of their wider HMO policing role.
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Latest property news
How can it be so cheap? Online agent launches £35 HMO service
Online lettings firm No Agent is claiming to be the first in the industry to offer landlords a fixed-fee management service for HMOs, charging £35 per room a month in England and £55 in London. The package includes a tenant finding service but not photos, which landlords will have to pay extra for. No Agent’s launch, which it says would work out at a 4.5% management fee excluding VAT, is designed to undercut traditional agents which it claims charge between 10-15% for a similar service. Landlords are charged a £100 set-up fee for its HMO package to pay for licensing and property condition checks. Photos are charged at £250 for the first room and £35 for each subsequent one, a cost which includes 30 days of accompanied viewings. The online agency, which has so far been funded partly through two crowdfunding campaigns and private VC investment, says its new HMO service is designed to attract landlords caught between the recent buy-to-let tax increases and the looming tenant fees ban. HMO service Its £35 service for HMO landlords includes quarterly inspections, rent collection, contract renewals and property management. No Agent also reports tenants’ rent to Experian if they agree to it…
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Features
Protecting student deposits
Anyone living in a university city will be aware of the yearly transition of first year students from halls of residence to privately rented accommodation for the remainder of their studies. Not surprisingly, my office receives an increased level of complaints from students and landlords several months after this transition occurs on the top of protecting student deposits. The current trend is for tenancies to be agreed months in advance of the start date, often with significant sums taken upfront to reserve properties, as students want to secure a property for the next academic year prior to their end of year exams. In the past, under the previous tenancy deposit protection arrangements, where a security deposit was taken, the agent had been able to retain these monies before registering them shortly after the commencement of the tenancy. However, the Localism Act, which came into force on 6 April, changed Tenancy Deposit Protection legislation and now the deposit holder has a 30 day period to register it with a tenancy deposit scheme and provide the prescribed information effective from the date those monies are received. This is an absolute time limit which allows the tenant to make a claim, if needed, 31 days after payment regardless of whether the requirements relating to deposit protection have been met. The penalties for not registering the deposit and providing the prescribed information can be severe; the…
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