Private landlords to be handed £2,000 cash in social housing deal

Tuesday 29th May 2012

A new letting service which will hand landlords a £2,000 cash incentive has been launched in the South-East of England.

The money must be used to carry out necessary repairs to property in line with the Government’s decent homes standards. The properties can then be let to council tenants at guaranteed rents, with the properties fully managed.

The initiative comes from Orchard & Shipman, a private lettings provider, in partnership with Bromley Council in Kent.

Landlords taking up the offer will be able to lease their properties to Orchard & Shipman on their ‘private sector leasing' (PSL) scheme which is also being run in partnership with Bromley Council and which aims to increase the number of houses available for private renting by those on the housing register.

John Taylor, managing director of Orchard & Shipman, said: “PSL schemes have become increasingly popular with landlords in the current economic climate as they provide the security of a regular monthly income from guaranteed rent, which also means landlords avoid incurring expensive costs from typical void periods that occur in between tenancies.

“However, we currently operate in a highly unregulated industry, and this, combined with a new breed of reluctant or accidental landlords looking to letting as their properties fail to sell, has led in our experience to many landlords having low expectations of the standards required to let property.”

Orchard & Shipman started out as a conventional lettings agency but now provides PSL schemes to local authorities in England and Scotland. It portfolio consists of over 4,500 units, and the properties are leased from private landlords for between three and ten years.

Bromley is the latest authority to enter into a deal with Orchard & Shipman. Others include Kensington & Chelsea, South Gloucestershire, Brighton & Hove, and Edinburgh.

www.orchard-shipman.com