Agents beat the crunch with Holiday Lettings

Agents selling and letting property are turning increasingly to short term holiday lettings as tides turn in the property industry. A quarter of the properties advertised by letting agencies through holidaylettings.co.uk have been new business since January this year; an increase of a third in new agent business compared to the first eight months of 2007.

Holidaylettings.co.uk attracts in excess of 1.5 million visitors each month, bringing more holidaymaker traffic to its holiday home adverts than any other site. In 2008 it is dedicating over £1 million to advertising in print, online and in-flight marketing channels, focusing largely on online marketing as it proves the most directly beneficial and immediate source of unique site visitors. Furthermore, Holiday Lettings is devoting over £20,000 for staff training for all consumer and agent account executives in order to equip customer-facing staff with the skills to maximise the consumer advertising experience and have a full understanding of the marketplace in which the company operates.

Agents, particularly those in cities and places of tourism interest, are turning to sites like holidaylettings.co.uk to help promote the properties on their books to the short term rental market, where demand for accommodation remains buoyant. There are now nearly one thousand letting agents using the site as a supplementary marketing tool for their clients, whose homes they manage on their behalf.

Holidaylettings.co.uk has new letting agent customers on its books in Oxford, Bath and London, amongst others. Supply and demand factors in short term lettings, especially in tourist-friendly cities, creates the perfect niche for letting agents. For example, properties in Oxford and Bath attract one and an half times more booking enquiries than the average number generated per property through holidaylettings.co.uk; properties in central London are even more popular attracting more than three times the average number of enquiries.

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Why the rich are buying cheap houses

First-time buyers are squeezed out while cash-rich investors buy properties free of stamp duty
Property developers and house hunters bid for the best price.

Judith Heywood, TimesOnline.co.uk - 26 Sept 2008

Oil, gold and repossessed property - these are the safe havens being sought out by cash-rich investors as financial markets around the world try to shake off the turmoil of the past two weeks. Bargain hunters are wading into the property market - particularly at the bottom end, where prices and sentiment have been most afflicted - despite predictions from many observers that values have farther to fall and signs of recovery cannot be expected for at least a year. Their ability to move fast to snap up affordable homes on the open market is leaving nervous first-time buyers shut out as they struggle to secure home loans.

Liam Bailey, head of research at Knight Frank, believes that in this slowdown there are signs of an enduring belief among investors that, despite falling prices, a recovery must occur. Jeremy Leaf, an estate agent in North London and the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors’ spokesman, says that the plunging values of shares and near-demise of HBOS and AIG will, over the medium term, help to bolster the appeal of property as a safe haven for investment.

Some buyers are showing signs that they expect the market to bottom out sooner than next year, at least in the case of properties being sold off by pressured sellers for much less than their peak value. Last week - in the dark days following the shock collapse of Lehman Brothers and only hours after LloydsTSB stepped in to bail out HBOS - the auction house Allsop presided over the first day of a bumper auction, at which 82 per cent of the UK homes offered sold. The second day, held on Monday, achieved a sales rate of 92 per cent. Gary Murphy, an auctioneer at Allsop, says: “The market is not dead. There is plenty of trade, but the key factor is price.” Full Article

Furnished or UnFurnished?

Furnished or Unfurnished? What is the legal definition? My tenant claims I have not provided what I should have done.

In fact there is no legal definition of furnished, unfurnished or even part-furnished in the UK - these are terms which have come about through custom and practice - in reality they have no industry standard so legally the tenant accepts things as they are when he signs the contract.

What is defined in law is that all furniture and furnishings supplied must meet fire safety standards and it’s in your interest as a landlord to check that they all comply with fire resistance specifications. Electrical and Gas appliances should also be checked.

Letting fully furnished, part-furnished or unfurnished no longer has any implications regarding security of tenure for the tenant or for taxation. However, Council Tax and the 10% Depreciation Allowance may be affected - you don’t pay Council Tax during voids if let unfurnished, but if you do this you cannot then claim the 10% Depreciation

Continue reading Furnished or UnFurnished?…

Squatters in my Property - what can I do?

Squatters - my property has been unoccupied for only a short time and I have discovered that squatters have moved in. What can I do?

This is a question that comes up quite often. Most landlords are surprised to learn that squatting in itself is not a crime. Occupying a property without the owner’s consent is technically known as trespassing but you as landlord cannot use force to effect an eviction without yourself committing a crime.

However, waiting until the property is unoccupied and then changing locks is not a crime either, though you are obliged to take care of belongings.

Fortunately, it is quite straightforward for owners to evict trespassers legally if they follow the correct procedure. The owner will need to apply to the local County Court or the High Court for a possession order using the special procedure for squatters. You don’t need to know the name of the squatters to use this procedure.

If you can show that the occupiers are in fact trespassing you should receive a possession order within a couple of weeks, which may be delayed further depending on if the occupiers defend their position or ask for more time to find alternative accommodation, which may cause delay in the leaving date.

Continue reading Squatters in my Property - what can I do?…

License or Lease ?

I understand that if I let on a license my tenant has fewer rights under the law. Can I simply call my agreement a license instead of a tenancy agreement?

Landlords would often prefer to let under a license as it does indeed give the tenant fewer rights under the law.

However, this is far from a straightforward issue and there have been many legal cases fought over the distinction between a license and a lease (tenancy agreement).

Property can be occupied but not necessarily “possessed”. The distinction is a subtle and elusive one but nevertheless very important. Occupation of property comes under four main headings in English law: Freehold (owner), Leasehold (tenant), License (authorised occupier) and trespasser (squatter).

A license allows occupation but does not give the occupier legal title in land, as does a tenancy. So, a guest in a hotel has a license to occupy, as does a lodger in a property where the landlord is in occupation, and as does a company which occupies a serviced office or workshop space.

The big advantage to a landlord is that the licensed occupier can be removed (subject to the notice period in any agreement) without too much trouble – they have no legal protection.

Had the occupier been granted a tenancy, then they would have legal protection (security of tenure) either under the Housing Acts (1988 & 1996) for a residential tenancy, or under the Landlord & Tenant Act 1954, in the case of a commercial tenancy.

Continue reading License or Lease ?…

Tenant Absconded – Abandonment?

My tenant has abandoned the property, or at least it appears to be the case, since there’s been no sign of him for 3 weeks now. He owes me 2 months’ rent but he has left all his possessions in the property. What can I do?

This is a common story and one which we get asked about frequently on the LandlordZONE Forum.

The legal term for this is abandonment.

The major problem for the landlord in this situation is that legally there is no conclusive evidence that the tenant intended to surrender the tenancy, which is valid until the end of the fixed-term.

The fact that all the possessions are still present appears to support that view.

Even though the tenant appears to have left owing 2 months’ rent it does not give the landlord the right even to enter the property, let alone take it over and re-let.

Had the tenant handed back the keys, given notice of intention to surrender, or indeed had a removal van round to remove possessions, then the case would be a straightforward one and the landlord could safely take-over again.

As it is the tenant may be on an extended holiday, in hospital, unavoidably delayed somewhere or even in prison – the landlord takes over at his peril.

Continue reading Tenant Absconded – Abandonment?…

House prices ‘to reduce by 25%’

Graham Beale’s forecast for the housing market

The chief executive of the Nationwide Building Society has told BBC News that he thinks house prices could fall as much as 25% from their peak.

Robert Peston, BBC business editor, BBC News - 8th Sept 08

This prediction implies that 2.5 million homeowners could be pushed into negative equity.

Graham Beale also said he does not expect to see signs of recovery in the housing market until 2010.

Nationwide is by far the UK’s biggest building society and is closer to the housing market than many others.

Over the course of the business cycle it provides slightly fewer than one in ten of all the mortgages in the UK - though its recent share of new home loans has been a bit less.

So Nationwide’s chief executive, Graham Beale, carries weight when prognosticating.

What he said in an exclusive BBC interview on Monday is that he does not expect the housing market to show signs of recovery till 2010.

“I think we are into 2010 [before we see signs of recovery],” Mr Beale said.

“I think that next year we will see a similar pattern to this year…we will see further falls in house prices. And I think before we really get to the new world, whatever that is, I think we will be into 2010.” Full Article

Number of rentals ’soars by 20%’

The number of people renting a home has soared by nearly 20% during the past three months as the housing market turmoil puts people off buying a property, a survey shows.

LoughboroughEcho.net - Sep 9 2008

Around 64% of letting agents outside of London said demand for rental property outstripped the number of homes they had on their books, falling to 41% within the capital, according to the Association of Residential Letting Agents (ARLA).

Unsurprisingly, given the boom in demand, rents are also rising, with average rents for a house increasing by 3% to £387 a week during the three months to the end of August, while rents on flats have jumped by 7% to around £253.

At the same time, the average amount of time a property is empty has fallen to just four weeks or less each year, while tenants are now staying in properties for around 16.7 months, rising to more than 18 months in London. Full Article

Like house prices, immigration could fall too

The thing about population projections is that they are usually wrong. Our problem in future may be getting people to stay

David Aaronovitch, The Times - 9 Sept 2008

It was a strange conceit, I thought as I listened to their Laurel and Hardy act on the Today programme yesterday, to suggest that if Nicholas Soames and Frank Field agree on something, then they must be more likely to be right. And I imagine that they conceived that their rectitude was further enhanced by the support of the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Carey of Clifton and the erratic Muslim Labour peer, Lord Ahmed.

There they are then, bound together in a new group, Balanced Migration (well, it’s hardly going to be called, “Chuck ‘em Out” is it?), all their religious and ethnic bases cleared and ready for action. Though why, since they commissioned Migrationwatch UK (aka “Send ‘em Back”) to create their platform for them, they didn’t just join that organisation, is a bit obscure.

Balanced Migration is so called because it wants to create a rough balance between people going and people coming in. It imagines that by so doing it can limit Britain’s population growth to “sustainable” levels, as well as limiting what Mr Field called the transformation of some neighbourhoods “from settled working-class communities to societies they can barely recognise” Full Article

Rapist sues landlady from prison - costs her £18,750

A hairdresser has said she hopes to appeal after a convicted rapist sued her from jail when she cleared out the flat he rented above one of her salons.

BBC News

Thomas Cope, 55, disappeared eight months after moving into the flat above Melody Goymer’s salon in Hailsham, near Eastbourne, East Sussex.

He had been arrested for the rape of a 19-year-old woman and was jailed for life at Hove Crown Court in 2007.

A judge last week ruled that Mrs Goymer had unlawfully terminated his contract.

Cope sued Mrs Goymer, 60, in a publicly-funded case while serving his sentence on the Isle of Wight. Full Article