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Tony A

Developer -Landord

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About Me

Developer and landlord

my expertise in the industry

LL for 25 years
Developer for 18 years

Tony's Recent Activity

Ditto. The Welsh government never normally misses any opportunity to increase taxes and regulation of the PRS, and then mis-spend the proceeds. The 20mph national speed limit just reflects its desire to sink ever deeper into the slow lane. Ah well, at least everyone's at the same level down there and everything's "fair".

From: Tony A 17 April 2024 01:28 AM

I should add I'm not focusing on immigrants because I've got some anti-immigrant agenda. I'm just genuinely curious where on earth these hundreds of thousands of people per year are finding accommodation, as all the trends appear to be towards less availability in the PRS.

From: Tony A 31 March 2024 21:46 PM

Has anyone done a study of where on earth the 750,000 net immigrants per year are finding places to live? They must be having an impact on rental demand and occupation density but I've never seen any reporting of where the pressure points are and what proportion is attributable to increased demand from immigrants.

From: Tony A 31 March 2024 21:43 PM

Is there any chance the journalist who wrote this piece could cite his or her sources? Where is this "research" by Benham and Reeves? There's nothing recent visible on Benhams website, including the Press releases section

From: Tony A 27 March 2024 11:18 AM

This is why the grant needs to be kept secret! The landlord should commission the work as if it's on a self-pay basis, and silently incorporate any specification required by the council. The council can validate the work done - which should be happening anyway through RdSAP and Building Control - but on the QT when the builder isn't there. And then the grant is quietly paid to the LL to help pay the contractor. It should be simple, but if the council insists on stamping its mark over everything, up will go the prices.

From: Tony A 15 March 2024 08:50 AM

Martin, you are correct about rational investment but I'm unclear what you are recommending. It is also rational *not* to invest in an asset where the ROI is very poor. So if mortgage companies or HMG regulations require EPC C (why not A, if they're so devoted to net zero? And why not owner-occupier mortgages too?), rational behaviour for landlords if the investment costs are too great will be to sell the problem to owner-occupiers, who face no such requirements and don't have to pay 28% CGT when they sell. Landlords will either then buy a replacement property that is already C, or more likely reduce debt and reduce their exposure to what has become a low-profit, over-regulated business sector. Net zero policy with a heavy stick, minimal carrot, and targeted solely at landlords while owner-occupiers face no such requirements thereby means a net reduction in PRS property available for rent. And all because landlords have behaved rationally, as most were already doing before you made your observations.

From: Tony A 17 February 2024 09:21 AM

There are tax strategies for moving properties into a limited company without payment of personal CGT, and you can then pass control of the company to your children before you die. It's then up to them to decide whether to wind up the company or run it as an investment company or, better, a development company with rental stock, from which they can steadily withdraw income and surplus capital as dividends as they wish over an extended period. I appreciate this can look like letting the tax tail wag your capital dog, but how much money does one need in retirement, really, especially when you could well end up being bled dry by nursing home fees as well as CGT? I am approaching retirement but I can't see myself selling more than a couple of properties and taking a CGT hit, for some extra spending money and to give my young adult daughter as cash assets. The remainder will be in a corporate structure for her to run as she sees fit, with my advice and training on the side so she understands her options, as she decides whether she wants to run a business and/or have an employed career.

From: Tony A 20 January 2024 23:20 PM

Steve, legally you can't "refuse to rent to tenants on benefits" but I suppose as long as you have a range of interested applicants and you know their sources of income, landlords will be making their own choices about whom to accept. Landlords not wishing to tangle with the benefits system can also of course make sure that the quality of their properties justifies rents that always substantially exceed the local LHA.

From: Tony A 05 January 2024 10:15 AM

Martin Gibbons has the rhetoric but does he have a single policy proposal on how all these electric cars - themselves horribly destructive of the environment and with huge carbon costs because of all the precious metals that need to be found and dug up - and heat pumps are going to be paid for? I've been estimated £40,000 to meet building regs and insulate my solid-wall Edwardian detached house, just to get it ready for a heat pump powered by mains electricity. So that's external wall insulation, internal insulation to reach the loft insulation where the roof overhangs too much for EWI, underfloor insulation, draught-proofing, new double glazing throughout, and then another £18K for a air heat pump, new radiators and controls, and a new hot water tank. How can I ever afford that when I am currently making a loss due to high interest rates? And if I sell, how is an owner-occupier couple meant to afford that sort of money, plus two electric cars, a recharger unit, solar panels and a storage battery? Because once they've finished with the LLs, the owner-occupiers will definitely be next in line to be forced to meet EPC Level A.

From: Tony A 21 September 2023 22:43 PM

I wonder if these properties will be run as HMOs? Council housing departments and housing associations are usually too cowardly and incompetent to run these, so they leave the whole housing type to the PRS. And will Newham be charging itself a licensing fee for such properties? I would love to see one of its departments complaining about the ruinous cost of running HMOs and the size of the fee and how few services good landlords in return, whilst another department is forced to defend itself and say it's of course all the fault of profit-greedy private landlords that registration is needed in the first place, and if only everything was state-owned, everything would be perfect.

From: Tony A 16 September 2023 20:25 PM

Chris and John Thompson: incorporation is no panacea. If lots of private landlords incorporate to avoid S24, guess what? The Government will just change company tax law to ensure property-owning "investment" companies cannot deduct their debt interest changes in full, or they will be forced to pay a different rate of corporation tax. Also, it's tricky getting your money out of companies and dividends are taxed hard too. As for large build to rent operators moving in, they are cherry-pickers, that's all. Their numbers are small and they charged premium rents. They don't serve the mass market, and like housing associations and council housing departments, they definitely don't operate HMOs. Why do you think HMOs are a purely PRS phenomenon, albeit being rapidly killed off? They are simply too much hassle for HAs and so on. Single people seeking budget houseshares and shared bills administered by the landlord don't meet their model of urban professionals in expensive flats or family housing.

From: Tony A 14 September 2023 03:28 AM

Lots of noble sentiments but the "social responsibility" line parrots the vocabulary of Shelter and its many outriders, which is generally a preliminary step before demanding lower rents, perpetual forbearance of tenants' property destruction and antisocial behaviour, and landlords basically seen as a zero profit-making branch of Social Services. This is what councils and housing associations have promoted for years, with their lifetime tenancies and social programs and pretence that they don't make profits, just fluffy "surpluses", but it all rests on massive decades-long subsidies and featherbedding by taxpayers. If councils and HAs had to pay the actual market costs of development, construction and debt interest, as well as maintenance and property/tenant management, they'd soon wake up to the real uncertain world as experienced by private landlords. I'm concerned this organisation wants to use social housing vocabulary and the "educate ignorant landlords" schtick as cover for its promotion of build-to-rent development and the "professionalisation" of the PRS (code for "squeeze out small amateur landlords").

From: Tony A 31 August 2023 02:06 AM

I am sorry, Martin Gibbons, but you are being really insulting and patronising. Fitting underfloor and external wall insulation, locating and finding technical solutions to cold bridges, ensuring that there are as few air leaks as possible to new-build standards (every tightening too), then retrofitting a ventilation and heat recovery system, an air source heat pump and ultimately solar panels and a battery to power it, to a solid wall Victorian house built for coal fires and designed to "breathe" to reduce condensation and allow said fires to "draw" is neither simple nor easy nor cheap. EPCs are an utterly pathetic measure and given you pass yourself off as someone knowledgeable I'm amazed you defend them - they don't even measure heat losses or carbon costs, just cost to run at the time of assessment. A SAPr is the only way to do the measure effectively and even then, so much relies on the quality of the surveyor to find the weak spots in an already-built structure. SAP for new-builds are a doddle in comparison. I've been quoted £25,000 just to do the EWI on my detached 1907 E-grade house in Reading, after 3 months of trying to find a builder with any experience, at a time when my returns have dropped from 3.3% to negative because of interest rate rises. The rest I listed above will probably be another £40-50K. Most solid-wall houses are going to cost tens of thousands to get to EPC grade C, which is why most landlords are selling up these properties and getting out. Patronising and insulting them as ignorant, miserly or simply cowardly compared to your green machismo is completely unhelpful.

From: Tony A 23 July 2023 15:01 PM

Of course the Landlords Register will not be matched by a Tenants Register, with their addresses, NI number, CCJ records etc on record. Rogue tenants get away with things time and again, debt recovery from guilty CCJs is almost impossible, deposits are utterly inadequate compared with the damage they do, and now the RRB is virtually designed to destroy small landlords. HMOs are going to become like AirBnBs or hotels, because a tenant can sign a tenancy, then give two months notice the next day, and bring in an evil-smelling totally untrained "pet" at will too. I am totally unsurprised that small landlords are forcing up rents, kicking out their worst tenants, and selling up. Under the RRB life is going to become simply impossible and far, far too risky unless you have deep pockets and a large portfolio.

From: Tony A 19 July 2023 14:51 PM

Come on Sandra, you can do better than this cheap line of argument! Have you ever tried being a property developer or built a house? What's so evil about them making a profit? Our economy would collapse without profits to invest back in the business, to grow and employ more people, to reward people for risking an investment, or for the Government to tax. Your own employer probably has to make a profit or "surplus" to survive. If a little old lady sells her house of 50 years to a "rogue" and makes a gigantic fortune of untaxed capital gains in the process, is that evil profit and are you equally as judgemental about her?

From: Tony A 19 July 2023 14:41 PM

OK, so we can't advertise "no DSS and no self-employed", but of course as soon as they declare their source of income, each landlord will have to decide for themselves the likelihood of the tenant sustaining the tenancy. It's not going to make a blind bit of difference to most landlords' decisions. Has anyone ever tried enforcing a homeowner guarantee? In my experience, not worth the paper it's written on. Ditto trying to get a CCJ enforced: the ex-tenant disappears, or declares themselves "self-employed" to avoid an attachment of earnings order, or decalres themselves bankrupt. It's so, so easy for tenants to avoid paying their debts, and just a total waste of time for the landlord, except the CCJ might help warn off future landlords . Answer: CCJs should be deducted from the debtor's annual NIC and income tax allowances, so the HMRC collects the debt over time from debtors and reimburses the landlord, for a small fee of course.

From: Tony A 14 July 2020 12:46 PM

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