Monthly rents will hit an average of £800 in England and Wales in two years’ time, while one in five people will be living in private rented accommodation...

Shelter’s campaign to get tenants' fees abolished has come under fierce attack from the Residential Landlords Association. Although the campaign is aimed at letting agents, RLA chairman Alan Ward said it was anti-landlord because of the proposal that landlords should bear all the costs of setting up a tenancy...

Belvoir Lettings has hit a milestone with the recruitment of new franchisees, bringing the total number of offices in its network to over 150. CEO Dorian Gonsalves said: “The network is expanding rapidly, and as well as the recent new cold starts we have also implemented an ambitious acquisition programme, which was made possible following Belvoir’s flotation on AIM in February 2012...

Yorkshire agent Linley & Simpson has added to its network of nine branches by taking over Carrington Property Management for an undisclosed sum...

Shadow housing minister Jack Dromey has applauded Newham Council for its crackdown on landlords. Dromey went with the mayor of Newham, Sir Robin Wales, on a joint operation between the council, police and UK Border Agency...

Letting agents are calling for Shelter’s charitable status to be withdrawn, and for the organisation to be reported to the Charity Commission The call – supported by Martin & Co’s Ian Wilson (see separate story) – was sounded loudly and clearly in a number of comments made on LAT to our report of Shelter’s bid to get letting agent fees to tenants banned by law...

Over half of Martin & Co’s lettings franchise group is now trading in estate agency, with more to follow. Managing director Ian Wilson – who today is calling for the lettings industry to set up a fighting fund to challenge Shelter –  said that so far, just under 1,000 sales have been agreed and £500,000 worth of fees have been banked...

Despite repeated statements by ministers that they have no plans to burden letting agents with any more red tape, a leading industry figure has warned against any complacency over the charging of letting agency fees...