Landlords are not greedy

clutton_2

i have just been going through the huge amount of paperwork that came with a Selective License which i hold in the Manchester area


These "Selective" licenses were an optional part of the 2004 Act and several large councils realised the financial potential in this option and so are taking them on board for large areas of "difficult tenancies/poor housing stock/areas in need of regeneration.

These licenses are compulsory, and a LL could be fined £20k if unlicensed.

These licenses are meant to help landlords to "tidy-up" difficult areas.

These licenses put the onus of responsibility for tenant-ASBO-type behavoiur firmly and squarely on the shoulders of the LL. HOW am i supposed to influence my tenants behaviours ? I am not their parent, nor their friend, nor do i have a legal authority to force them to behave better ........

So Julie Ruggs attempt at a small landlord register is nothing in comparison to what Selective Licensing has to offer. ......


Some of the T&Cs of SL are


if i dont get a license when i should - i cannot serve a Section 21
if i dont get a license when i should - i could have a years HB/LHA clawed back from me - OR be made to return rent to the tenant

Things i need to disclose

i need to disclose unspent convictions
i need to disclose any offences i have committed under ENvironmental health
I need to disclose any civil or criminal proceedings brought against me by the police, local authority or any of my tenants
i need to provide a CRB check at my own expense
i need to provide details of all my employees who also need to be CRB checked
i need to detail my tenant referencing procedures
i need to send a copy of my AST
i need to have an anti-social behaviour policy which the tenant has seen
i need to provide a planned maintainance schedule for each property
i need to provide a copy of my inventory
i need to provide my name and address which will appear on a public register
i need to provide the name and address of the Lender if i have mortgage/and/ or any other legal charges on the property
i must supply smoke alarm and notify the council who is responsible for changing the batteries
i must supply a Landlords gas safety certificate every year
i must supply a Periodic Electrical inspection certificate
i must supply PAT certificiates for all electrical equipment
i need to disclose convictions i have for discrimination of any sort

and these were just a small number of the points i would need to address in order to get this license



i would not mind QUITE so much about this huge amount of personal privacy issues and form filling if there were ANY measures in place to address poor tenants in these areas.. but i have yet to find any.

Councils seem to be trying to displace their own responsibilities under Environmental Health onto landlords when it comes to tenant behaviours.....

Others have mentioned that other industries are equally widely-policed-beaureacratised - perhaps someone can produce another business which has to be quite so self-soul-searching as this .....

RE the 2 links re landlord education - i briefly looked at both - one is 2 and a half years out of date, and the other makes no mention of TDS schemes... so also out of date

i think i will stick with my NLA manuals and Tessas books thanks


Lynzpower says ""If you had to show consent to let as part of the conditions of being registered, tenants would only have the option of a registered LL with consent to let, OR unregistered LL.

This has to be a good thing- surely????" - absolutely right Lynz - its just all the rest of the beaureaucracy that i have mentioned above - it aint on the ""nationally compulsory"" cards now, but i bet any money it will be in 5 years time. ......

lynzpower

Others have mentioned that other industries are equally widely-policed-beaureacratised - perhaps someone can produce another business which has to be quite so self-soul-searching as this .....

Social work :rolleyes:

im quite shocked with this list clutton. i had no idea. I think some level of registration s OK but to be honest, most of this data you have to provide is collected by the state n any event.

Surely it makes sense for them to access all the data they already have. It take the p that you have to pay for the CRB, when its the gov that gives them out :rolleyes:

clutton_2

hi lynz - i can understand CRB etc for social workers - re Child Protection issues - but i am Never likely to be alone with my tenants children

like many things Tony Blairs lot did - they invented a sledge hammer to crack a peanut.

i typed the list so that some of the more aggressive " landlord-knockers " can see just how much some of us do have to go through to "prove out worth" as landlords - AND - i have only typed a selection (maybe 60%) of the questions I had to answer

like you - i think most of what they need is already on some computer system somewhere or other ... just a matter of collation - but then there would be no more "jobs for the boys" to be set up would there ??

me - cynical ??


Manchester Selective license fee last year ranged form £395 to £495 and if you got a question wrong and they sent the form back to y ou for correction they added £25 on to the fee for every wrong answer........

bumpoowee

A compulsory register which made information publically available regarding the proportion of all landlords previous tenancies ending in deposit disputes or court cases would be a brilliant idea.

Also if surveys were sent out after the return (or not) of the deposit where the tenants could give an honest appraisal of the landlord and rate them on things like responsiveness to reporting of faults and then the survey results were also kept on record for prospective tenants to review this would make life for tenants much better to give them a chance of avoiding being locked in a contract with a greedy !!!!!! landlord and soon put the rogue landlords out of business, and encourange a rise in the poor standards of private landlording that we have in this country at the moment.

lynzpower

clutton wrote: »

hi lynz - i can understand CRB etc for social workers - re Child Protection issues - but i am Never likely to be alone with my tenants children

like many things Tony Blairs lot did - they invented a sledge hammer to crack a peanut.

i typed the list so that some of the more aggressive " landlord-knockers " can see just how much some of us do have to go through to "prove out worth" as landlords - AND - i have only typed a selection (maybe 60%) of the questions I had to answer

like you - i think most of what they need is already on some computer system somewhere or other ... just a matter of collation - but then there would be no more "jobs for the boys" to be set up would there ??

me - cynical ??


Manchester Selective license fee last year ranged form £395 to £495 and if you got a question wrong and they sent the form back to y ou for correction they added £25 on to the fee for every wrong answer........

Would be interesting to know if this is a legal charge??

kippen_noedel

Simple rule for tenants, if the landlord doesn't have a scheme in place for deposits, don't use that landlord.

http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/TenancyDeposit/DG_066383

franklee

clutton wrote: »

i cannot imagine how awful it must be to get a letter from a court saying that you are to be evicted and then no one will talk to you about it - and i am truly sorry for anyone whose landlord does this to them

but, to be honest, whether a LL goes bust and is repossessed has little to do with what Type of mortgage they have - but rather on their own business-behaviour, how they manage their property, whether they have other income, what state of repair the portfolio is in, what type of tenants they have had in the past and so on - it is not a simple equation.

a new LL who cannot sell (for example because he has been promoted to a different part of the country), may choose to rent out his home - if he asks his lender for permission to let he may get swingeing "fees" (Halifax charge the earth - thousands in some cases) PLUS a swingeing increase in mortgage interest rate on a BTL product. If he does not tell his lender he will stay on a residential rate which is often a lot cheaper than BTL rates .....

i think that some of the greed here is that of the lender - some lenders recognisethat some folks need short term (say up to 2 years) help in a difficult sell/buy market and will not charge fees at all, some charge a couple of hundred quid, some charge thousands and increase the ERC% and length of time they apply .... so it then becomes a VERY expensive swop. It is not surprising that some landlords dont tell their lenders.

As i say frequently, it is the BLT insurance that is the crucial thing - as that include a much better public liability protection for tenants.

Surely the whole point is that the tenancy being binding on the landlord's lender makes a difference to the way the tenant is treated should a repossession occur. It being binding may mean the tenant gets two months proper notice or it may mean the lender takes over the tenancy, either far preferable to the situation described by princeofpounds.

As for the extra charges, yep, the lender is exposed to more risk with a let especially if there is little equity. (Many accidental landlords underestimate how much letting out costs, agent's fees, voids, repairs, etc. on top of the costs the landlord has for living elsewhere and that's just if a tenancy goes well which it may not). That there is temptation not to declare the let is just the reason why a tenant needs to check.

BTL insurance is a separate thing and won't help the tenant over the repossession although of course it is essential to have it too, Unless you mean a tenant may be able to make a claim against the LL's insurance if the booting out breaches the tenancy agreement? Something I've not heard of before but sounds of interest.

clutton_2

""Surely the whole point is that the tenancy being binding on the landlord's lender makes a difference to the way the tenant is treated should a repossession occur.""

i simply dont know franklee - when i have bought properties with tenants in situ, i am required to send a copy of the tenancy agreement to the lender as part of the conveyancing process. But am not required to send copies of the new tenancy agreement to the lender when i get a new tenant - so the lender is never aware of who, if anyone, is living in their property.

Lenders are very mercenary - if they dont get their mortgage payments, they can, quite legally, invoke legal action to repossess if a landlord is 2 months in arrears - few of them do this at such an early stage.

Never having been in arrears, i dont know how it works from a LL's perspective, but, i would hope that the Governments recent initiatives have at least made lenders write to "the Occupier" soon than they used to in the past - which was never.

you also say


"" Unless you mean a tenant may be able to make a claim against the LL's insurance if the booting out breaches the tenancy agreement? ""

i did not mean that - but an interesting thought.....

My landlords policy insures me for certain risks (fire flood earthquake etc) and certain types of tenant behaviour - such as damage to the property (but i have to pay a huge excess). Since the policy is in my and the lender's name, i pay the premium, and the sole purpose of the policy is to protect the property for the lender (and for me) against tenant damage, then i don't see how any tenant could claim on my insurance .....


my comment ""as that include a much better public liability protection for tenants." was my thinking about if there is accidental injury/damage to my tenant -

if say the chimney fell through the bedroom ceiling or something like that (and it was not caused by lack of maintainance) then the tenant is going to be more than covered for their injury aqnd consequential losses as long as i have a BTL insurance policy - rather than a residential one - which clearly does not cover tenants, as it is not a BTL policy.

clutton_2

Lynz asks

""a question wrong and they sent the form back to y ou for correction they added £25 on to the fee for every wrong answer........
Would be interesting to know if this is a legal charge??


Manchester City Council are a law unto themselves - they are been criticised by central government for "over-zealous" interpretation of the Selective Licensing regs ..... Their staff at the housing benefit call centre do tend to treat landlords as scum of the earth ....

tbs624

clutton wrote: »

...RE the 2 links re landlord education - i briefly looked at both - one is 2 and a half years out of date, and the other makes no mention of TDS schemes... so also out of date..

It must have been a *very* brief look Clutton because otherwise you would have seen that (a) both the links lead to the same copy of the Manual (b) the tenancy deposit scheme is mentioned ( p44 IIRC)as it was 06/07 when the manual was put out and of course the law was about to become applicable and (c) the idea of the LACORS provision of the LDM was that it would be updated, amended, made specific to local areas etc , as and when necessary, and used as part of LL training schemes

clutton wrote: »

i think i will stick with my NLA manuals and Tessas books thanks

If you are sticking to the NLA maybe you should know that their manual is ...ahem...based on the LDM and, as I said before

tbs624 wrote: »

....The NLA are so up to date - their website mentions that they are updated their version of the LDM and that it "will be available early in 2009" - that's okay, it's only July