Richard Blanco

We are seeing an increasing number of press reports about housing benefit where the landlord is cast as villain.  Today BBC London reported on a house that had been converted into an HMO housing five tenants on benefits. The tenants were receiving the one bed LHA rate and the story argued that the landlord was receiving housing benefit for five studio flats.  I’m not a great fan of converting houses into grim HMOs with lockable doors and austere communal areas and I don’t condone greedy […]

Here are my latest top ten tips for running a successful property business which I presented recently at The Property Investor Show at Excel in London.
1. Get The Right Structure
Section 24 tax changes have made purchasing and letting property as an individual less profitable.  This is because you will be taxed on your turnover – tax relief on mortgage interest at 40% is being phased out over the next 4 years.  So it may be more tax efficient to buy using a limited […]

If you own four or more properties, brace yourself for the latest tranche of buy to let criteria being introduced by lenders as a result of Bank Of England regulation.  From 30 September 2017, the bank’s Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) now defines you as a portfolio landlord and lenders must seek additional information from you such as your experience of the buy to let market, full portfolio of properties and outstanding mortgages, your assets, liabilities and tax liabilities, your business plan and cashflow predictions.
These requirements […]

The ironically named 2015 Deregulation Act brought us revisions to Section 8 and section 21 possession proceedings and deposit protection, plus measures to prevent retaliatory eviction.  Since then, we have seen compulsory licensing and accreditation across Wales and a raft of provisions in the 2016 Housing & Planning Act including civil penalties, banning orders and the sharing of deposit protection data.  You’ll have read acres of copy on tax changes and the regulation of buy to let mortgages since January 2017.  Or have […]

Have you seen ‘The Week The Landlords Moved In’ on BBC1?  Chris Norris, Sarah Davidson and I  reviewed episode one on radio show and podcast Inside Property this week.  Some of the opening salvos were a parody of landlords that wouldn’t have been out of place on a sketch show.  Successive investors tell us to “let it and forget it” and “buy low, rent high.”  “We buy property for one reason and one reason only – to make money,” one landlord proclaimed, as if a property […]