Tax Incentives To Improve Standards
October 15, 2014
Amid the gloom of proposals for landlord registration and licensing, longer tenancies, rent control and most recently legislation to stop retaliatory eviction – with all the usual media images of feckless landlords and tenants surrounded by mould – came one ray of sunshine this Autumn. The Resolution Foundation and Chartered Institute of Housing Report ‘More Than A Roof’ makes some refreshing proposals. Initially it recommends a national framework for landlord accreditation, nothing revolutionary in that. A fraction of the UK’s 1.4 million landlords […]
Last week I took part in a debate on the new TV channel London Live. 25 year old Alice Carder had made a documentary ‘No Place Like Home’ which charted the plight of young Londoners trying to find housing they could afford. One important option is house sharing. Many of London’s 300,000 landlords provide good quality housing for sharers who sign a joint tenancy agreement and share the rent. Sensible lenders will also provide buy to let mortgages where there are up to four people […]
The government’s Immigration Bill received Royal Assent in May 2014, paving the way for landlord immigration checks to become law later this year. The act forms part of their commitment to “take firm action to address illegal immigration.” The government is also “determined to tackle the problem of rogue landlords and the exploitation of illegal immigrants within the housing sector.”
There are an estimated £1.4 million landlords across the UK, around 300,000 in London where I am based. The latest National Landlords Association quarterly survey of landlords tells us that business expectations among landlords are good or very good and most see a positive outlook for the economy and capital growth across their portfolio. 65% of landlords in the survey were confident that they could cope with bank base rate rises to around 2.5%, which I don’t think we will see until 2018. […]
The National Landlord’s Association announced in December 2013 that half of landlords say they will not consider letting to tenants on benefits: 52% according to its latest landlord survey. Three years ago 46% of landlords let to tenants on benefits, this has fallen to 22%. To those of us in the business this was not news, but since Sky News broke the story, there has been considerable press interest. This week Channel 4 News ran a piece on major […]