houses of multiple occupancy
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Latest property news
London borough proposes huge HMO licensing push
Agents and landlords in the area face significant additional and admin costs if the proposed borough-wide additional licensing scheme gets the green light.
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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
Three letting agents fined £90,000 over unsafe and dangerous HMOs
Three letting agents in London have been fined a total of £90,000 this week for breaches of local HMO regulations.
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Latest property news
Brighton leads campaign to charge landlords business rates
Agents with landlord clients operating HMOs beware – Brighton and Hove Council is urging the government to treat them as enterprises and enable councils to charge business rates on their ‘premises’. The city’s Labour administration has just announced that it is preparing to write to the government to introduce such measures as it struggles to finance the policing of its huge HMO property market, which is driven largely by the city’s 30,00-strong student population. Business rates last year brought in in £2.7 billion for the government, according to the Office for Budget Responsibility, which means the average charge was £1,516 for each of the UK’s 1.8 million eligible premises. According to Brighton and Hove’s Labour group a new levy would create a level taxation playing field for HMOs with hotels, self-catering holiday homes and short-term lets while helping to control the city’s vast HMO market of more than 15,000 properties. A Labour party spokesperson told The Evening Argus that the support of rival political parties in the area would be sought before presenting the proposals to central government. The chances of that happening look relatively slim, though. Conservative group leader Geoffrey Theobald believes landlords will pass the extra costs on to tenants,…
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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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