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Philip Drake
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Recent Activity
Perhaps all articles quoting statistics should provide the source of those statistics. Much like cosmetics adverts. The UK housing market is too diverse to use averages over a small select population, that may be polled with an article in mind, and then extrapolate to represent the whole of the UK.
From:
Philip Drake
23 September 2022 08:54 AM
If Councils promote tenants remaining in let accommodation until a court order has been obtained and eviction enacted, then the council should pay the landlord’s legal fees, disbursements, rent arrears, refurbishment costs and lost rent whilst refurbishing.
From:
Philip Drake
05 August 2022 08:01 AM
I think there is some merit, when the landlord has initiated the tenant move through a TRUE tenant no fault request, in the landlord making a contribution towards the tenants moving costs. However a landlord should not be expected to pay for removal costs from, say, London to Sydney. Maybe a contribution equivalent to packing up the van. When the landlord is: selling the property with vacant possession; wishing to move in to use as their/their family’s home;etc, then Landlord pays for van loading. If it’s a tenant exit, under the guise of a S21 or not, due to: not paying rent, antisocial behaviour etc then the move out is really initiated by the tenant’s behaviour and so all their removal costs should be borne by the tenant.
From:
Philip Drake
05 August 2022 07:55 AM
Law makers and voters also see these claims and their perceptions lead to clamp downs on the sectors. Thus impacting on other realistic participants in the sector. Could this have been a contributing factor for the Section 24 tax change?
From:
Philip Drake
12 July 2022 13:22 PM
Government should be made aware that the regulatory and increased landlord taxes ultimately are passed on to the tenant. Responsible landlords have compassion for good tenants and so tend not to increase rents. The consequence is that these landlords cannot afford to absorb the increase costs any longer and have to sell. As compassionate, responsible landlords leave the private rental sector, the private rental sector becomes less compassionate and responsible. It’s simple cause and effect and probably the opposite of what government and Shelter wish for.
From:
Philip Drake
13 June 2022 08:03 AM
The letting agent I use sets the rent at the market rent in the area for the quality of my property. Prospective tenants in the market view the property and some make applications. The letting agent based on limited unverified tenant provided data eg employed; salary; job title; amount in savings etc formulates a list of suitable applicants. I review the list and ask for a bit more data eg is the employer local. I then compare the risks of each tenant eg affordability; probable length of tenure. I choose the best of the bunch. If a prospective tenant offers 12 months rent upfront or higher rent then these are red flags to me. There’s no bidding. Once tenanted the rent stays the same for several years. Tenants generally pay on time, leave in their own good time and properties are left in decent condition with normal wear and tear expected. Only had to evict a very small number of tenants due to: antisocial behaviour (shouting abuse, late night parties etc; non payment of rent). I think it would be useful for these alleged happenings, reported in the media, to be sense checked before being published so that small numbers of denationalised isolated incidents are not propagated as being industry trends.
From:
Philip Drake
14 April 2022 08:57 AM
I wonder how many private rental sector landlords (PRS) complained to the council about their (PRS) tenants?
From:
Philip Drake
16 January 2022 22:55 PM
Irrespective of whether COP26 is effective, there is going to be money available to address energy waste. We cannot rely on EPCs for the reasons given above. I’m suggesting that utility bills may be a better source of the energy usage data.
From:
Philip Drake
06 November 2021 19:51 PM
The above energy consumption review could also tease out other high energy usage buildings or very very low usage buildings (nudge, nudge) which could point to other illegal usages.
From:
Philip Drake
06 November 2021 16:44 PM
Couldn’t gas and electricity energy bills be used: Energy Consumed per Square Metre per person =(Gas + Electric)KWH/Building Area/Occupants Clearly Oil and LPG would need the equivalent. Then apply a grant to the properties with the highest Energy Consumption irrespective of being owner occupied or tenanted. The energy consumer’s new electric/gas bill receives, say 20%, of the savings obtained. The other 80% of the savings obtained goes towards topping up the grant fund to be applied to the subsequent energy improvements in other properties. That way the biggest inroads into the COP26 issue is obtained soonest and it’s a rolling program until the money runs out. However the biggest cost savings occur at the outset. Add to this the beneficial effect on the health of the occupiers would also reduce the funding need of the NHS.
From:
Philip Drake
06 November 2021 16:38 PM
The software needed will be for a non-trivial cost. Much like the Digital VAT software. From free (manually) to at least £40 per quarter.
From:
Philip Drake
27 September 2021 16:42 PM
OK I’ll stop😀. DPS costs nothing though. Why use the Insurance method?
From:
Philip Drake
22 September 2021 12:47 PM
Surely rent tends to increase over time, therefore the deposits should tend to increase over time. However usually long term tenants do not have their deposits increased, if/when the rents increase. So this chasing of illusive excess deposit, will cause landlords on rent increases, to request deposits to increase. So tenants generally will lose out.
From:
Philip Drake
21 September 2021 22:56 PM
Could the time between deposits be funded by all tenants contributing about 1 extra day or week of rent to a DPS, say, roll up fund. This roll up fund is drawn from to cover the gap and then is paid back when the old deposit is released. Advantages: . it spreads and dilutes, across all tenants, the pain of finding 5 weeks of new deposit whilst the old deposit is being considered for refund . Self financing by tenants for tenants . Is refunded when the tenant becomes a homeowner or dies. . Shortfalls in the fund caused by tenants not receiving the full refund of the old deposit will need to be chased by the DPS etc.
From:
Philip Drake
21 September 2021 22:47 PM
The recent change to tax relief was to remove the tax relief on residential lettings (section 24). Relatively speaking there has been no recent change to holiday letting tax relief. The resolution, to this government initiated issue, would be to revert back, at least in part, the section 24 change. All pigs ready to fly. This will help to reverse the migration from residential to holiday letting. Reducing holiday letting tax relief will see landlords moving their investments to a kinder vehicle, thus reducing the number of properties available to holiday let and increasing the holiday letting fees. The exited holiday let properties could be bought by foreign investors or by local residents, but the valuations will probably be higher than many of the local residential property due to the higher specification required, but may be needed to reconfigured to match normal residential occupation. It’s not easy to predict whether or not or how house prices in the area will change.
From:
Philip Drake
09 August 2021 08:12 AM
It would be useful to be able to consistently define ‘a rogue landlord’ and ‘a rogue tenant’. Without such definitions it will be difficult to define what needs to be collected into either database. Eg A rogue landlord is compliant with housing standards, but abuses the intimate privacy of the tenant. A good landlord is perfect in every way but doesn’t issue the ‘How to Rent Booklet latest version’ and has simply made a minor oversight. A good tenant misses a couple of rent payments due to being made redundant, but still makes every endeavour to find work and is remorseful for missing the payments. A rogue tenant would be someone who drives an exotic car, has exotic holidays but has a cannabis farm, removes the GCH copper pipes and hot water cylinder, radiators, kitchen appliances etc to sell and moves on to the next property. Rinse and repeat. So how is the data to be captured to reflect the above scenarios. It is very easy to record the wrong version of the ‘How to rent booklet’ or the couple of missed rent payments. How do you collect the data about the landlord abusing the tenant and the cannabis farmer?
From:
Philip Drake
16 July 2021 22:37 PM
The S21s issue could be reduced, if Councils simply paid the rent direct to landlords. If a tenant cannot afford to pay the rent, landlord takes tenant to court, the eviction happens and the council finds housing sometimes via a more expensive B&B. By the council simply paying the rent then all of the above upheaval, angst of all parties, judicial process costs are avoided. The tenant remains where they are so little upheaval to their lives; the landlord is paid the rent and can pay their mortgage; extra judicial process costs are avoided. Seems like a win-win in the majority of cases. There will be a minority of really bad tenants and possibly some rogue landlords left in a bad place, but these can go down the current route. When the tenant leaves, in due course, perhaps when a council house has been located, then the council funds the refurb back to the original condition. Social housing is the responsibility of the council. We all pay taxes to fund the social care. Currently landlords are paying their taxes and also having to fund the mortgage payments, the judicial process fees and the refurbishment costs as well. The councils are trying to avoid their social housing duties, and costs, by delaying the eviction until due process has been performed. However this action leads to increased costs due to the judicial process costs and eventual unnecessary emergency housing costs. Additionally the landlord has a void whilst the refurbishment takes place and a new tenant found, which puts the landlord under further financial hardship. So the silo approach by the council means that the local council social housing cost is reduced, but the central government costs go up by more. So overall the current approach to the issue seems to be wasting public money, causing social distress and general unrest.
From:
Philip Drake
15 April 2021 06:33 AM
I wonder how Section 24 will impact his strategy. I’m surprised that he has opted for BTL. Would a holiday let have been a better choice?
From:
Philip Drake
14 April 2021 10:30 AM
As new materials and build/renovation techniques develop, perhaps the digital EPCs need to be connected to the new developments, so that the EPC is kept up to date, automatically, with the ways to improve its rating. So when the EPC is “printed or downloaded” then the most up to date improvement options, their cost and implementation order based on property disturbance, benefit/cost can be listed in priority order. Where property disturbance is the schedule of works order eg do the wall/floor insulation before laying the new carpets.
From:
Philip Drake
08 April 2021 10:03 AM
Perhaps the C/D/E band aspirations should be changed to be targets based on the fundamental attributes of the originally built property. eg Victorian 2 bed terrace can only be expected to achieve, say a D band, any further money spent would be uneconomic to pursue. Whereas a 2000 build 2 bed terrace should be expected to reach for eg band B.
From:
Philip Drake
08 April 2021 09:53 AM
At some point either exemptions need to apply or the property needs to be rebuilt, with better materials. Perhaps the government could help there too.
From:
Philip Drake
08 April 2021 09:46 AM
It’s laudable to vigorously address the climate change issue, however LLs need help as they cannot afford to apply the changes needed. So if the government need to achieve their target then they need to put some grant money in. The grant money needs to be applied in the highest benefit/cost priority order.
From:
Philip Drake
08 April 2021 09:42 AM
The government has the target to reduce emissions. The occupiers and landlords/owners will go along with the morality of it, but do not want to pay for it. The occupier would gain financially due to lower utility bills. Could the occupier pay the same utility costs, but have a rebate of 20% of the utility bill saving. The other 80% saving would go to the government to pay for the improvements. This would continue until the cost of the improvement was completely paid for. Subsequently the occupier would pay the lower utility bills (ie with 100% of the savings). The government could use the EPC data to establish the properties where the highest energy or Carbon emissions savings could be created for the lowest cost. Then have local companies perform the improvements. Overall this has the greatest positive impact on the climate change issue for the lowest cost to the government. The occupier receives some of the savings and eventually receives all of the savings. The landlords/owners are financially neutral. The property quality is improved for the whole of the UK, starting with the properties that urgently need the improvements and have the biggest positive impact on the climate change issue.
From:
Philip Drake
31 March 2021 23:04 PM
Who is liable if subsequent tenants or their young children have strong allergic reactions or go blind due to faecal organisms?
From:
Philip Drake
20 March 2021 07:22 AM
I interpret that the Baroness is suggesting the government pays the landlord 80% of the arrears amount and hence write off 100% of the arrears. Ie HMG pays 80% and LLs absorb 20% of the arrears. Tenants become debt free. That’s not too bad. It’s better than the current situation. I think HMG should now recognise that UC housing payments being paid to the tenant to pass on to the landlord does not work as a means of allowing tenants to become more responsible. Instead HMG housing payments should go direct to the landlord. If the tenant is found to have obtained this benefit fraudulently, then the council needs to seek to recoup the benefit payments back from the tenant, ie not the landlord. The landlord is not culpable for tenant benefit fraud. Section 21s are the least cost/certain way for Landlords to regain possession of their property, usually due to the tenant building up enormous arrears or damaging the property or antisocial behaviour. Also they are sometimes requested by tenants as a last hope to get a council house. Rarely is a Section 21 issued for no reason. Perhaps breakdown of the relationship between landlords and tenants need to be referred, not to the courts, but in the first instance to an independent arbiter. This arbiter could have the power to force the local authority to either rehouse and/or pay arrears due. Landlords are not providing a charitable service, that is down to the local authority.
From:
Philip Drake
24 February 2021 15:52 PM
The incentive is not sufficient to overcome the inertia to take action. Perhaps the following could be considered: . the government pays for the equipment and installation costs . An interest free loan is placed against the property where it is installed . A charge is placed on the property, which is ignored for typical mortgage security . Monthly repayments towards the loan are made by the occupier at an amount which is 50% of the saving in energy costs achieved per month, collected by the electricity supplier.
From:
Philip Drake
08 February 2021 23:42 PM
Are landlords authorised to provide financial advice?
From:
Philip Drake
18 November 2020 12:27 PM
We’re Spartaci.
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Philip Drake
06 November 2020 13:33 PM
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