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TODAY'S OTHER NEWS

Eviction ban ‘not to be extended beyond late June’ - claim

A landlord website claims the current ban on evictions is not to be extended beyond its scheduled close of June 29 - although there is no official confirmation.

Neither the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government nor the Ministry of Justice have confirmed a claim made on Landlordzone that suspended and new eviction hearings will re-start on June 29, albeit in virtual and telephone format because of Coronavirus restrictions.

However, the story on the landlord site is completely unsourced.

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A week ago Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick told MPs that the government was “thinking carefully” about what more it can do for private tenants, especially after the eviction moratorium finishes.

Jenrick, addressing the House of Commons, responded to a series of questions from Labour MPs about tenants potentially running up arrears. 

Jenrick said that the moratorium expired at the end of June. He added that shortly before that time he would make a decision based on the state of the market, medical advice about progress in combating Coronavirus, and any court information about evictions.

 

On March 27 all court possession orders were suspended to cope with the Coronavirus crisis.

This meant that neither cases then within the system, nor any about to go in, could progress to the stage where someone could be evicted. 

At the time it was said this suspension of housing possessions action would “initially” last for 90 days but could be extended if needed. 

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    • 20 May 2020 08:21 AM

    Too right. Earlier would be even better.
    Get these crooks out of OUR houses as soon as possible.

  • PossessionFriendUK PossessionFriend

    For a number of years now and certainly in London, its been estate agents practice, as it should be All Landlords, to check potential tenants on Social media ( you could look at our Twitter account [ @possession_uk ] for example to see the protagonists for Not paying rent.
    Landlords will them make the informed decision to not rent to tenants who they feel have a poor credit history or character. ( which isn't one of the Nine ' protected characteristics ' for discrimination )

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    We let plenty of rooms and it seems many of these people think they can now live for free. Wish i could send the heavies in. They fall into the won't pay rather than can't.

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    • 20 May 2020 21:07 PM

    A question

    If you have a 5 bed house which requires a HMO licence if all rooms were occupied by unrelated sharers what would prevent a LL letting the house to a tenant who the LL allowed to take in 4 unrelated lodgers?

    Now obviously the tenant who would be the live-in LL wouldn't be charged the rent for the whole house.

    They would be charged a room rent.
    Now possibly the Live-in LL would be given a rent reduction for agreeing to becoming the live-in LL.
    Being a live-in LL obviously has certain legal responsibilities which a LL would reasonably renumerate for.
    The rent from the other 4 lodgers would be paid to the live-in LL who would then pass on the lodger rent in cash to the LL.
    Potentially the live-in LL would even qualify for the RFR Allowance which would obviously never exceed £7500.
    If any lodger chose to default on rent then the live-in LL could give NTQ of usually 1 month.
    If the lodger refused to vacate then the LL would assist the live-in LL to change the locks to prevent the rent defaulting lodger from entering the property.

    It can surely be seen that a LL effectively employing a live-in LL guarantees that the LL can get rid of rent defaulting lodgers very quickly.

    The LL can charge what rent he likes to the live-in LL.
    What that live-LL charges the 4 other unrelated lodgers will never be known by HMRC!

    The only issue I could see would be that lenders would expect all occupants of an HMO to be on individual AST as is usually prescribed in HMO mortgage conditions.

    But of course with one tenant only in a 5 bed house at what point would a lender consider that a certain number of lodgers would mean the property BTL mortgage had to be converted to a HMO mortgage!?


    I'm sure there are other issues I haven't considered but ostensibly in principle there DON'T appear to be many downsides to such a strategy.
    Interesting to see what opinions others have towards this possible strategy.


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