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Tony A

Developer -Landord

1659 Profile Views

About Me

Developer and landlord

my expertise in the industry

LL for 25 years
Developer for 18 years

Tony's Recent Activity

Sorry Martin, I am a senior tech coordinator for a large developer and I'm afraid your original posting reads like a Government press release. As a surveyor, hand on heart, do you really have *no* scepticism about EPCs? The more I experience them and understand how heat loss, ventilation and cooling work in historic houses, the less I like them. EPCs are simply not fit for purpose: they don't even measure carbon costs, just fuel bills, hence all these people who replace their gas boilers with electric air source heat pumps (ASHPs) and find their EPC rating actually gets worse. EPCs are also well-known to be full of errors and incorrect assumptions, and completely ignore draught-proofing (there's no air leakage test). How can anyone possibly measure a house's heat profile in 30 minutes? Or give house-specific, genuinely relevant advice? Before anyone spends tens of thousands on renovations, we need to be doing proper energy surveys, using the SAPr standard, based on the SAP rating used for new-builds, and conducting proper validation tests, again as per new-builds, all under supervision and sign-off by Building Control. The emphasis should be on Fabric First, not the bolt-on tech so often recommended by EPCs and so heavily pushed by solar power and ASHP installers, who are in danger of becoming the latest incarnation of double-glazing salesmen

From: Tony A 30 June 2023 11:08 AM

No, no, no. Having been shafted at least three times in my landlord career by agents failing to do their jobs properly, and having worked for uan agent which padded its charges, I will never use an agent.

From: Tony A 05 June 2023 19:54 PM

Just checking: are you comparing like with like here? 2% net rental yield on your house's value is not comparable with 4.5% bank interest on the capital embedded in a mortgaged property, because the denominators are different.

From: Tony A 12 May 2023 12:21 PM

As usual there's never a word in the S21 debate about houseshares. Mostly my HMO (a term I hate) tenants rub along together fine, but once in a while there's a dispute which the parties refuse to compromise over - a stray kitten brought into the house without me knowing and scratching the furniture, peeing everywhere and inflaming a tenant's asthma, or arguments over cleaning up, fridge space etc and it escalates to fights, note posting, screaming matches, the police called and so on. I try to mediate but someone - me - has to break the deadlock and use a Section 21 to give the guiltiest party notice, because life has become entrenched and intolerable for everyone. What am I supposed to do once S21 is abolished? I get seen as the bad guy because the tenants can't behave like grownups and I'm the one paying the costs of their intolerance. HMO landlords are already demonised, so I am seriously considering joining the exodus and exiting the sector.

From: Tony A 12 May 2023 12:16 PM

I doubt the 3 year tenancies will work both ways: the tenant will have all the benefits, so will continue to be able to give notice whenever she wishes - perhaps after the initial six months, though I suspect that element of the AST will disappear as well - whereas the landlord will have no options once the tenancy agreement has been signed: that's it for 3 years, unless the tenant decides to leave early. This proposal is going to play havoc with the short-term rental market, for example with expatriates who want to rent their house out while they are abroad for a year or two; or with people who move in with a new partner but want to hang on to their home and rent it out, in case the relationship doesn't work out; or with small builders or developers who buy a property with the intention of redeveloping it and its land, but rent it out for a year or two until they secure planning permission and the necessary resources. All these people, of which there are tens of thousands, are going to have to consider leaving their properties empty, as they will otherwise be trapped with a tenant for three years. Any small landlord with only a few properties is also going to be in serious trouble if they want to churn their assets: they will no longer be able to sell and buy with relative freedom, as their financial circumstances change - for example if they get married or need a larger house themselves for an expanding family, they won't be able to just "sell a rental house" to release capital. All of this is going to lead to a reduction in the supply of rental property, and increasing sclerosis in the circulation of tenants and stock. Landlords are going to have to be far, far more cautious about who let to, because you can bet there will be no improvement in their rights of eviction, or the speed of the courts, and a three-year tenancy sounds like positive encouragement for a rogue tenant to string out the process as long as possible. Will the 3-year rule apply to incorporated landlords, I wonder? Perhaps we will see a return to the old "company lets" that preceded the 1988 Housing Act.

From: Tony A 02 July 2018 16:13 PM

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