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laurence meade
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laurence meade
If I am typical, most landlords will be putting rents up as fast as they can to get money in the bank so that they can handle all to forthcoming legislative changes without the horrors of borrowing at the expected high anti-inflationary interest rates expected soon.

From: laurence meade 18 November 2021 16:55 PM

laurence meade
What I am reading here is a lot of good points but the shear number of them must mean that there is a lot of work involved. Will somebody (A Judge?) tell the world that tenants will be a lot better off without this complexity and that total cocoon like safety comes at an upfront, massive cost for what is a small risk for the tenant and which can be totally avoided by looking after the rented property. My experience and certainly others writing here is that bad tenants are the authors of their own fate. For good tenants their fate will usually be no problems at all and likely a lower rent as well if a long tenancy is involved. Which ever way this nonsense goes all tenants will have to pay out and this will be totally unfair to good tenants and good landlords.

From: laurence meade 20 August 2018 19:47 PM

laurence meade
I have been letting for the last twenty years. I have never had any contact with these associations. I don't know who they are and I am sure they have little actual use. If I join up then I would like to know what happens to the membership fee first. The UK is rammed full of associations which do little more than collect fees to spend on running themselves. If you want me to join then prove your worth. Letters to local MPs count for nothing because they are not more important than their particular belief ideology. Letters to councils will be laughed at. They are just creating their own problems to pay themselves from rates bills. Quite honestly, if these associations need me to tell them what they need to be doing they must be absolutely hopeless. All they need do is read the pages here. I can give them a useful tip. Keep clear of most newspapers, THE BBC, and anyone fitting the description of "labour".

From: laurence meade 17 July 2018 12:42 PM

laurence meade
Will someone please have a quiet word in this persons ear? He is clueless. It is a sad fact that a of people who end up homeless are not very capable people. With experience, I know a lot of these people have problems looking after the house they live in. Sorting that out costs money and is a never ending cost for the landlord until the tenant leaves and then there will be a refurbishment cost as well. This is not always the case of course but the only practical way to guard against it is to say, " No". When landlords do accept the risk of bad tenants you can bet they are not letting out their best properties to risky renters. If you are a risky renter this will be a curse you have to bear. A landlord will probably have little interest in "messing about" with a deposit. That costs money in fees and compliance but they do it as the only way of getting some sort of guarantee that the tenant might make an effort to look after the property. The only real thing that would help is to have a solid reliable system which rates people in the same way as a car insurance does. Tenants who do this will soon find they will have a magical access to good property and probably pay lower rent as well. The concept of loosing a no claims bonus is a powerful incentive to get things right and it will be very attractive for landlords.

From: laurence meade 13 June 2018 08:19 AM

laurence meade
Labour would do better to have a go at the "Councils Sector" who are proving themselves to be almost useless at overseeing lettings in their areas. From what I read the worst are large urban councils. Councillors constantly rubbish landlords but when landlords rubbish councillors they proudly stand up and tell us, as councillors, they are god like and we have no right to to tarnish their status as deities. They get away with it because they are elected by people who have the whole council's agenda in mind when they vote, not just property renting. There needs to be some statutory requirements placed on councils to understand property letting. In the past such acts have been created for such as burial of the dead and roads maintenance. These acts were introduced by governments desperate to make councils solve important problems they were constantly complaining about andthen blaming the government for their own ineptitude.

From: laurence meade 11 June 2018 10:49 AM

laurence meade
I voted this a good idea but it will never stop plain ordinary deception for what ever reason. What I hope it will do is offer the gullible some hard protection - if they even cross check with the data base. A caution: If spurious defamatory entries from bad tenants are allowed onto the data base then it will very quickly become useless. As said, a rogue tenant data base is important. Car insurers, immigration, tax authorities and property insurers do it so why not landlords? Even the police do it. A bad tenant can easily cost a landlord as much as a car crash.

From: laurence meade 23 May 2018 11:33 AM

laurence meade
A couple of points: Landlords can not work for less than what it costs to own and run a property and it does not matter who you are as the tenant. There are some bad landlords but most are just normal people who are providing a competitive service and become very upset by this constant harangue from people who damage their properties and expect immediate and free service to put it right. I am not talking about wear and tare appliance breakdowns or similar. It seems even collecting rent is an evil intrusion. When I was a child my peers well remembered the last of the Victorian age and the years up to the start of the welfare state. They were utterly obsessed by saving for their old age and putting funds aside for their funeral. It is pretty obvious that this obsession still has a place in society. Don't forget that back then they would have been talking about 5-10 years and not the 30--50 years we talk about. Sorry but if people realise this and do something about it a lot of foreign tour operators will soon go bust.

From: laurence meade 16 May 2018 20:06 PM

laurence meade
This is exactly what happened to me and mine when we married forty years ago. Financially it hurt like hell - having to buy a house that is. Nothing to rent and we had to sell our souls to the financial people to buy a small house that we did not really want. Thanks to Harold and his labour acolytes for that one. Lots of fantastic theories to get votes back then. The next step will be to put up interest rates at regular intervals to see how much today's poor small houseowners can stand. Last time it was 18% p.a. but it was truly amazing how fast the new Tory government sorted that out when the realisation hit that the country had come to a stop with people absolutely KO'd financially. The answers then were two fold. Cut the interest rates and bring in section 21 to get landlords back in charge of their properties. We are not quite there yet but we are about to abandon section 21 which is going to stop letting and flood the market with cheap houses which will provide the opportunity for banks to put up mortgage rates and there we go again. There is one difference now and that is the massive taxation load we all pay connected to the massive cost of old age which has to be supported. I know my supposed baby boomer wealth will drop like a stone as the current property market crashes and at seventy years old there is no way I will be going back to work. Can I add that I have never paid a penny of higher rate of income tax so those changes to property tax relief make no difference to me. I think the people who are going to be hurt are the ones who pushed their luck too far with leverage.

From: laurence meade 16 May 2018 13:27 PM

laurence meade
I have been letting property for thirty years. Always the same properties, so I know them well, but with different letting agents as they come and go. I had one who had no idea how to force an eviction and keep the deposit for me. Several agents did not know how to deal with debtor letters addressed to the household but referring to a departed tenant. (Phone the debt company and explain - job dome in 2-3 minutes) There is one thing that letting agents will not do and that is use a property inspector who really knows how a house works and can look for faults including hidden leaks, dangerous electrics and unacceptable levels of filth. Such people would also know when a boiler/heating system needs service outside of the annual check. Its all very well saying they will send around a "qualified contractor" when a minor observation/fault has turned into a disaster for the tenant and the landlord but as a service it is n.b.u.at all. None of the above inspection checks require a trade qualified person, just someone who looks at things and sees what there is to see. The electrical regulations even have a class of inspector called a competent person which is anybody at all. With plumbing it is easier - if you can see water on the floor then.............. Boilers are more of a problem but if they pass installation inspection then there should be very little that requires professional inspection but the risk is too high to say this is a fact. If you are a personable young person inspecting properties whose limit is changing a light bulb them I am very sorry but I do not like you. You are a risk to me. Another very useful service would be for agents to change safety alarm batteries. Most agents would not even test them although my current agents have started doing so. These safety and inspection routines are now so complex (not difficult!) and legally enshrined that they require someone who can do them.

From: laurence meade 30 April 2018 11:10 AM

laurence meade
Do these young people really know what they get for their rent? In essence they are being given the option to live in a house they can not afford. No problem with that but of course this comes at a cost. In essence this is no different to a wholesaler distributing goods from a manufacturer to shopkeepers which in this case is an agent. Many/most flats are leasehold so the rent paid will cover ground rent and block management. These charges alone can be around £1,000 a month and if the lessee where to buy the same property they would still be exactly the same. The agent may take about 10% of the rent but for that the tenant can hand over just about all the responsibility of maintaining the property. A new kitchen tap can be £100. The one thing lessees do miss out on is capital appreciation but they can also miss out on capital depreciation if the country's finances go badly wrong - that would be, "oooh Jeremy". I own my own house and it is a very considerable drain on my cash flow. Council rates are horrendous for everybody. There are plenty of owners who find it difficult to pays these. As a youngster I lived in lets. Some were good, some were something different.

From: laurence meade 18 April 2018 21:10 PM

laurence meade
Landlord to tenant, "You have turned this property into a filthy, unsafe dump. I am evicting you" Clever lawyer to same tenant, " sit tight and sue the landlord. They will have to put you in alternate lodgings while the damage is being sorted and then you will get the same property back again in good condition and get damages from the landlord. Useless tenant to lawyer, "Wow this is great stuff, let's go for it!" Lawyer to tenant, "Don't forget you can do this time and time again"

From: laurence meade 26 January 2018 17:02 PM

laurence meade
These scare mongerings "suppose" all buy to let investors are totally clueless. BTL investors will have all manner of loans which suit there best needs now and who are well aware that this may not last. As soon as the loan situation fails then investors will change their tactics. Oft reported here is that far more properties are being bought for cash. In any analysis you can not take the current conditions and project them forward unchanged. You have project likely future conditions and make a future analysis on future conditions. Of course this is too much like hard work for a quick prophecy in a magazine article.

From: laurence meade 26 January 2018 16:52 PM

laurence meade
Any fool knows this idea has a nasty kick back. Some tenants really do make a mess of their properties. Are landlords now to be sued for not keeping a property in the condition they aspire to? I can see some point for a property being in good condition at the start of the let but even then the tenant has the option to go elsewhere. The more I hear of ARLA the more I think of cloud cuckoo land.

From: laurence meade 17 January 2018 15:22 PM

laurence meade
The sample size is insignificant. You can not bring in millions of pounds of legislation on such a small sample. However I can agree the good intention. I am worried about so called revenge evictions. I have expensively earned experience that some tenants simply do not know how to live in a house and do a lot of damage. A landlord has to get these people out and it is no use repairing a property and then having them do the same again. Private letting is not a branch of the NHS or council which handles very problematical people. I am sure some private landlords could handle this sort of care work but the rent would have to allow for around £6,000 of damage p.a. (my experience of a two bed flat in very good condition.) A house could easily require double that expenditure.

From: laurence meade 30 December 2017 15:40 PM

laurence meade
Wonderful and I well know she is right. What is it all going to cost us or more likely the tenants?

From: laurence meade 04 December 2017 11:55 AM

laurence meade
I don't think either of the questions on offer deserve an answer. The second is bureaucratic dream form of dementia. The only things I want to be sure of with a tenant amount to two things 1. do they pay their rent -yes 2. will they damage the property and leave it filthy dirty and require an expensive refurb. -no I am not interested in any other information whatsoever but there are ever more legal compliance requirements which make this attitude impractical. They also create expense which will go to the tenant. If the law makers fail to get to grips with my two questions then the letting market will soon vanish as it did back in the 1960s.

From: laurence meade 16 November 2017 11:07 AM

laurence meade
So you have two tiers of landlord, possibly a freeholder screwing the leaseholder for land rent and the usual council stuff all taking from a single tenant? Next we will have the 'landlords' forming companies and paying out to investors as the freeholders are already doing. This is mad! The tenant has to be given the landlords details. Which one or which company? This is insanity which needs closing down.

From: laurence meade 16 November 2017 10:56 AM

laurence meade
Please, please, please to any regulator with a brain - if there are any. "YOU CAN NOT RELY ON TENANTS, AGENTS AND MOST PROPERTY OWNERS TO CHECK THESE BLASTED ALARMS!" The only interaction most people have with these alarms is take out the flat battery when it starts beeping on a cold night when the last dregs of life in the battery are reduced by the cold. They can always easily do that. NO, they do not go and buy a new battery the next day and fit it. NO NEVER. Don't ever think that a property inspection by most lettings agents is going to get new batteries into these alarms or even get them tested. No young lady is going to climb up a ladder to press the test button. If you don't know why that is put your best skirt on, find a small ladder and go and do a property inspection. Sorry about the childish capitals. If you want these alarms to function reliably the only real possibility is to have them mains powered and operated through a mains powered controller as you would for a large building. After that you still have to have to have some sort of reporting system to a competent person who no doubt while need to have firemans' training and a skilled person salary. Talking about problems with these alarms is not really talking about the problem. The problem is human stupidity and you can not talk about that or you will soon be out of your job. Fortunately I retired long ago. I used to design and sell scientific instruments with very complex controls.

From: laurence meade 09 November 2017 11:50 AM

laurence meade
Put the government people pushing this idea through the training course before they finalise the legislation. It will give them a big reality check. Better still make them serve some sort of apprenticeship in a lettings agency office for six months. Jeremy, you do need a stamp. I believe the PO just bin unstamped mail. Times have moved on.

From: laurence meade 01 November 2017 21:15 PM

laurence meade
When I have an empty flat it is redecorated, safety checked and repaired. At that point I am a good landlord and a tenant is moved in by my agent on a full letting contract. Five years later, when the wear and tear clauses run out, the tenant ups and leaves. This, usually with unpaid bills. I go to the flat and it is filthy, badly damaged in many ways and has unrepaired safety issues which which have not been reported or found by inspection. Technically I am then a rogue landlord. Factually, I am bloody furious but what the heck, I supposedly have a business which makes untold and never ending profits so what have I got to care about? When I have an empty flat it is redecorated, safety checked and repaired. At that point I am a good landlord and a tenant is moved in by my agent on a full letting contract. round and round we go etc. Tenants are no more angels than landlords. Our laws must consider this.

From: laurence meade 01 November 2017 08:53 AM

laurence meade
I am just sorting out my latest unfit rental property. Five years ago it was well decorated, fitted out well and very clean. Now it it is absolute shit! The so and sos waited five years before they moved out because they knew that after that date I could not claim fair ware and tear. The kitchen is saturated with gee. The carpets are brown with the stuff. Well fixed curtains have been changed and hung on new curtain rails which have fallen out of the plasterboard walls. There was a water leak which was never reported and the flat managers never found. It goes on. Why should I be responsible for this blasted mess? Nothing has ever been cleaned since they moved in. I am looking at thousands in costs just because these people did not know how to live in a British house and they did not know how to clean. If the idea of officially stealing unfit flats catches on then the supply of letting properties is going to vanish! This has all happened before back in the late sixties and the only way it was solved was by introducing section 21.

From: laurence meade 27 September 2017 21:02 PM

laurence meade
In no way is Corbyn unelctable! I thought the same about Harold Wilson but the great public did just that and we had to suffer the dire consequences. The poor man was absolutely distraught when the masses woke up and kicked his mob out years later. Ever since then the die hard lefties have been spouting hate at Margaret Thatcher for sort sorting out the colossal mess they left for future generations! Will the proletariat ever remember and learn? No they will not. I have an old passport with official stamps in it confirming that I had permission from the government to take foreign currency abroad for export business purposes. Those times were hell. My work took me to communist countries and I could immediately see how aligned our wonderful communist lefties were with the Kremlin. It makes me shudder. Quite honestly I am scared but I am too old to think all this is going to bother me for a lot longer. As for my children, they think I am mad and can not see what is coming. Such is our education system and a total lack of recent history teaching - the truth I mean, not the dreams of utopia.

From: laurence meade 27 September 2017 20:47 PM

laurence meade
This is silly stuff. Twenty four adults so monthly rents probably around £7,000. This sort of fine is only just about ,"annoying", no more than that. It might be unbelievable wealth for one of the tenants though.

From: laurence meade 12 September 2017 14:56 PM

laurence meade
This is getting silly. I have just started clearing up after a vacation. I once had a nice clean flat fit for any normal people. I really don't care about a few years wear and tare. That is quickly sorted and I would not touch their deposit for that. Now the place is beyond filthy. There is five years filth spread everywhere. The kitchen is thick with grease. There is mould where bags of clothes have been stacked against exterior walls. All carpets will need a heavy duty clean. They stink. A drop blind has been cut off its header and thrown away. Good curtains and rails have been taken down and replaced with absolute trash. There are holes in the plasterboard where the new rails have pulled out. The cooker ceramic top is in a ghastly mess. And there is more. I am going to need to pay out circa £3,500 and loose rent as well. These people simply do not know how to live in an English house and I am having to put up with the consequences. If tenants will have all these new proposed rights given to them then I think that landlords should be able to interview tenants and actively reject people who fail that interview. It is not discrimination. It is a commercial business and obvious risks need to be avoided. I have been is spotless households belonging to similar people to my late tenants. Can not say any more can I?

From: laurence meade 23 August 2017 22:27 PM

laurence meade
There are fees for everything in this blasted country. Bank charges Car parking charges Credit card charges road tax (most of which is not spent on roads) council charges to support vast bureaucracies and so it goes on. Why on earth do tenants think they are a special case?

From: laurence meade 21 July 2017 10:49 AM

laurence meade
You need to factor in house price inflation and to a lesser extent rent inflation. Over the last ten years this has been a very significant part of BTL investment. A property with very low rental profitability, in the right area, may have been a very high performing asset. Currently we do not have taxes on BTL. What we do have is a change in the tax allowance regime for running the let property as a business. This is what has been changed. Most people when they retire 'earn' very little. If they are sensible OAPs they have bought their house or made very sensible living arrangements and paid off their debts in full. Once their earnings fall inside the the 15% tax rate, if they ever were above that, then they have little benefit from the tax allowance they can claim against the costs of running a property rental. Thus as they move from work to retirement their status quo changes very little. The pensioners who do have a retirement income problem are the people who paid higher rate tax and have enjoyed the higher rate of deduction from their BTL costs whilst working. They are the pensioners who see a big drop in profitability. I will steer clear of left politics of envy here but I don't think these people will be at risk of starving. They may have to change their life style a bit but the less wealthy tax payers can easily show them how to do it. If you want a real scare story then swat up on Jeremy's push to bring in soviet style collective property ownership.

From: laurence meade 21 July 2017 10:41 AM

laurence meade
Landlords also need protection from slum tenants. I always clean and refurbish as necessary after a let. Currently I have two properties which have been vacated. One was a six month let. The house is now filthy. No attempt has been made to keep the house ventilated and clear mould from the window frames. We have also been left with rubbish to clear, old car parts in the garage and open bowls of old engine oil. The other has been let for about five years. It is disgusting inside. Mould is everywhere, walls are dirty and the kitchen units are water damaged. The carpets are filthy. The paint work is filthy. I used to live there and it was absolutely fine if you cleaned and let some fresh air in occasionally - just like any other house. Please will someone get it through their (***) heads that a lot of tenants' squalid living is down to themselves. No amount of licensing is going to solve this and ultimately landlords are going to have to resort to short period tenancies with renewal only after inspection - at cost to the tenant. As a landlord it is very tempting to let properties as you find because you know that's how they will come back to you. I am not tempted but it is a close call. Other landlords clearly take the alternative option. Of course there are bad properties and bad landlords and there are already plenty of laws to handle them. It is about time we had some laws to handle obnoxious tenants as well. Tenants need to get together and make sure that they comply with good standards of cleanliness and general house holding. Oh dear, I have been dreaming. I guess the people who want all these laws do that as well.

From: laurence meade 20 July 2017 14:04 PM

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