Double Council Tax Is on the Way for Second Homes
Ministers want to double the council tax charge for empty second homes and holiday lets under the powers of a new bill. The government also wants to give councils extra powers to force the landlords of empty shops to rent them out. The measures are part of the...
Minister Says No to Rent Controls and Other News
Minister Says No To Rent Controls Ministers are fighting calls to impose rent controls from housing charities backed by Labour. The latest skirmish was between Shadow Culture Secretary Rachael Maskell, who asked if the government would assess the merits of imposing...
Buy to Let Rent Growth Soars to Six-Year Record
Rent rises for new tenants are accelerating as inflation stokes the economy. Tenants are paying more across the country as the cost of housing increases at the steepest rate since January 2016. In April, rents were up 2.7 per cent year-on-year and added an extra 0.3...
Renting Homes (Wales) Act Delayed Until December 2022
Julie James MS, Minister for Climate Change, has today (30 May 2022) announced that implementation of the Renting Homes (Wales) Act 2016 is to be delayed until 1 December 2022. It was scheduled to commence on 15 July 2022. The written statement says: ... I have over...
Landlord Views on Gas Safety Checks Wanted
Gas experts want to know what landlords think about how regulations designed to improve safety are working. The Health & Safety Executive (HSE) wants to know if landlords have had any issues with the latest gas safety rules, which came into force in 2018. Changes...
Cash Help for Families Struggling to Pay Energy Bills
Chancellor Rishi Sunak has decided to cool energy price concerns by giving cost of living help to hard-pressed families struggling to pay their bills. He launched a £15 billion aid package in Parliament that targets the most in need. The package comprises several...
Can Landlords Cope With the Cost of Living Crisis?
Prices are going through the roof wherever you look - from the cost of borrowing to food, fuel and energy. And the signs are inflation will soar even more over the coming months as the country nervously awaits another energy bill hike in the autumn. The latest...
Smoke and Carbon Monoxide Alarm Changes (England)
The Smoke and Carbon Monoxide Alarm (Amendment) Regulations 2022 (links to draft as not published yet) will commence from 1 October 2022. The regulations amend The Smoke and Carbon Monoxide Alarm (England) Regulations 2015. They apply to England, and below are the...
Fire Safety Act 2021
The UK Parliament has recently passed the Fire Safety Act 2021. For England, the Act commenced on 16 May 2022 and for Wales, from 1 October 2021. The Fire Safety Act will apply to both England and Wales. One of the primary pieces of fire safety legislation is the...
Rent Repayment Battle Heads for Supreme Court
Judges involved in a long-running legal battle will have another go at ruling who tenants can take to court to settle a rent repayment order. The Supreme Court will hear an appeal in the case of Rakusen v Jepsen later this year or early in 2023. The legal battle is...
Chance to Expose Complicated Property Tax Rules
Government tax gurus want landlords to tell them which aspects of property tax rules are too complicated - and to suggest how to improve the law. The Office of Tax Simplification (OTS) is collecting evidence about how to make property tax easier. The call for evidence...
Property Experts Predict a 5% House Price Fall
House prices could fall by up to five per cent in the next two years, wiping out much of the recent gains in value, say, market analysts. The experts at think-tank Capital Economics predict homes will drop by 4.8 per cent by the end of 2024. Although many experts have...
£670,000 to Find Out Why the Green Homes Grant Failed
The government is still trying to understand what went wrong with the abandoned English Green Homes Grant. Since the scheme closed a year ago, three official inquiries and several unofficial investigations scrutinised gross underperformance. But with the reasons for...
Rocketing Cost of Living Pushes Rents Sky High
Rocketing inflation pushes living costs through the roof for tenants as rents continue to rise at the fastest rate since July 2016. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) says buy to let rents jumped by 2.4 per cent in the year to the end of March even though a soft...
What Do Renters Think About Their Homes?
A shock report from MPs claims one in eight tenants lives in squalid private rented homes that are a danger to their health. But other reports suggest 85 per cent of tenants are happy with their living standards in their homes. So, who is right? On the one side,...
Homes for Ukraine – Landlords Guidance
Government websites are creaking under the strain as tens of thousands of well-wishers rush with open arms to welcome refugees from the war in Ukraine under the Homes for Ukraine scheme. The scale of the...
Landlords Stake Their Faith in Buy to Let
Property investors added 477 homes a day to their buy to let rental portfolios in the first three months of this year. While landlords are stepping up on the number of homes they are buying, the number for sale dropped from 14 per cent of all sales in 2021 to 10 per...
Debt Charity’s Cost Of Living Warning For Landlords
One in three of the thousands of people turning to debt charities for advice are private renters. The fear is the impact of the worst cost of living squeeze for decades will lead to tenants falling behind with rents. Leading debt advice charity Stepchange 35 per cent...
Soaring Cost-of-Living Squeezes Rent Affordability
Tens of thousands of private tenants are struggling to keep pace with the rising cost of living as rent and bills increase to take an ever-larger share of their earnings. As a litre of diesel hits 151.6p and energy prices soar to new record levels, more than three out...
Rents Still Rising at Fastest Rate for Six Years
According to the latest official data, buy to let rents are rising at the fastest rate since December 2016. The Office for National Statistics says rents were up by 2.3 per cent in the year to the end of February - the most significant annual rise for more than five...
Coronavirus Guidance
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