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Jo Westlake

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I bought one in 2015 with tenants and it was one of the easiest transactions I've had in the last 10 years. It was very specific circumstances though. The property was next door to another house I own and I knew the tenants. Their landlord had given them notice, they couldn't find anywhere suitable and they were aware rents were a fair bit higher than they had been paying. They knew the choice was pay a lot more to live somewhere inconvenient or pay a bit more to stay in the home they had lived in for 6 years. The previous landlord discounted the sale price a bit as he wasn't having to pay an estate agent and wouldn't have any lost rent during the sales period. So it worked well for all parties. I bought a house for slightly less than it would normally be with good tenants and rent from day one, the other landlord finished up with slightly more than selling it with vacant possession as he had rental income until completion and the tenants kept their home, didn't have any moving costs and a smaller rent increase than if they had moved.

From: Jo Westlake 26 May 2022 10:25 AM

Do these people not know how long selling a property can take? Or how many sales collapse because someone further along the chain has a problem?

From: Jo Westlake 26 May 2022 08:01 AM

Two main reasons for Section 21 evictions appearing to be a bit higher than usual right now are the backlog caused by the eviction ban during the pandemic and the uncertainty over what the EPC requirements will be. Many landlords with properties that can't reach EPC C at a sensible cost are selling up now while Section 21 is available to them. The government need to make a decision regarding EPCs ASAP so we can all plan our next move. It would be interesting to know how many landlords have been negatively impacted by the rent payment holiday during the pandemic. How many had to ask for mortgage payment holidays and has it affected their ability to get a decent product switch or remortgage? How much has it influenced the eviction numbers now?

From: Jo Westlake 25 May 2022 07:15 AM

What people think they may theoretically like and what they are willing and able to pay for aren't necessarily the same thing.

From: Jo Westlake 25 May 2022 06:50 AM

Precisely. When taper relief was removed our retirement plan effectively disappeared.

From: Jo Westlake 24 May 2022 23:32 PM

If someone had bought a house for around £65000 back in the early 1990s and it's now worth £500000 by the time selling costs have been factored in they would be looking at a CGT bill of around £114000. So they would pocket about £375000 if they sold. They almost certainly have other assets such as the house they live in, investments, maybe other BTLs. If they then got hit by a bus it's fair to say 40% of the £375000 would go in IHT as there hasn't been time to give it away or spend it, so that's another £150000 to the government in IHT on top of the £114000 in CGT they had recently received.

From: Jo Westlake 24 May 2022 18:46 PM

Chris - while CGT, SDLT and IHT are all so high landlords tend to hold on to the properties they have for longer than they want or should. Some have thrown in the towel and decided to quit but most can't stomach the tax take. When I started out around 25 years ago I used to buy run down wrecks, renovate them, rent them out for 2 or 3 years then sell them usually to FTBs. Now the extra SDLT has stopped that being viable. £10K goes a long way towards a new kitchen and central heating. If we have owned stuff for 20 years or so the CGT can easily be around £100K in the South. If we sell and then inadvertantly get run over by a bus shortly after the government will get both CGT and IHT on the same asset. Also if we didn't have to pay such eyewatering CGT and SDLT we would be more likely to buy more properties to rent out and increase the rental supply. If I sold just one of my mid size properties right now it would provide sufficient deposit to buy 3 or 4 more houses. Either new build or renovation project. Either way increasing the supply of habitable housing.

From: Jo Westlake 24 May 2022 10:38 AM

The government need to stop inventing complicated divisive policies in the property market. Every policy they come up with has unintended consequences. Go back to the old days where all buyers and sellers are treated the same. Section 24 has made far more landlords higher rate tax payers than would be the case if rental profits were determined in the same way as for every other business. Therefore 28% CGT is completely extortionate. Most other assets can be sold in smaller lumps to best utilize CGT allowances. Selling quarter of a house is tricky. We have already paid huge amounts of SDLT, income tax and VAT throughout our period of ownership. Reducing CGT and reintroducing taper relief could be easily justified and would massively boost the number of houses for sale if it was applied universally to the sale of all BTLs regardless of buyer status. The extra 3% SDLT on all BTLs costing more than £40000 has incentivised us to buy more bottom end properties that would traditionally be FTB territory. Especially in the South. Buying one HMO for £500K would give a SDLT bill of £30K. Buying 2 small houses for £250K each gives a SDLT bill of £20K. Help to Buy pushed FTBs to buy much bigger new builds as their first home, which is going to have some very painful consequences when they need to remortgage if interest rates keep rising. It doesn't matter what CGT cuts are proposed if they are conditional on the status of the buyer. How many of us would be willing to play the hunt the proceedable FTB game? Property transactions are a serious matter. We need to know the tax implications before we embark on them.

From: Jo Westlake 24 May 2022 07:49 AM

Over the many years I've been a landlord I've found both of the Council's I operate in to be very good with landlords. Now the NRLA accreditation scheme is so awful we need a better alternative.

From: Jo Westlake 23 May 2022 09:03 AM

A Section 21 notice doesn't automatically mean someone will be evicted or even that the landlord really wants them to leave. It can just be a warning shot or wake up call. In situations where a tenant has an affordability issue or a patchy payment history a Section 21 notice can be a very powerful piece of paper that gives a tenant the ability to get other creditors to back off and give them the breathing space to get their finances under control. It can give them the motivation to stop burying their head in the sand and go and see Citizens Advice or the Housing advice team at the local Council. They will be given help with budgeting, dealing with other creditors and any additional discretionary funding to get them back on track. Or they will be told their current housing is inappropriate and they need to downsize. The landlord is merely taking the first step on a three step journey which he can choose not to continue on if circumstances change. Very few landlords evict good tenants.

From: Jo Westlake 23 May 2022 08:56 AM

A landlord shouldn't pay to compensate a tenant who has breached the tenancy agreement. In reality landlords lose a huge amount when tenants breach, either in court fees or repair costs or lost rent. Why should a tenant who has behaved impeccably suddenly be faced with having to pay moving costs purely because their landlord has had a change of mind? How many professional landlords ever evict good tenants?

From: Jo Westlake 20 May 2022 09:21 AM

So Help to Buy and the Stamp Duty holiday have made it harder for FTBs. Who couldn't have predicted that?

From: Jo Westlake 20 May 2022 09:11 AM

Especially in the student market how many of us did much shorter or cheaper tenancies for the current academic year because if Covid uncertainty? These tenancies will be skewing the data. The last academic year that should be used for rental comparison purposes is 2018 - 2019. Rents that include utilities are also skewing data. How much of that rent is rent and how much is utilities? This time last year I had electric deals at 12.5p per kWh (now 28.4p) and 9.5p daily standing charge (now 52p). He's right that LHA needs to be unfrozen. It was set far too low in the first place and must have included social housing rents to get the 30th percentile figure as low as it was. A few weeks ago in this 500 square mile LHA area there were a total of 6 rental properties available on Rightmove for LHA level rent. Here the choice is pretty much pay £200 a month more than LHA and live close to work or pay £50 more than LHA and either be unemployed or spend a fortune in petrol or bus fares to get to work.

From: Jo Westlake 20 May 2022 09:05 AM

Many years ago someone proposed a Deed of Assurance which with minimal modification strikes me as exactly what would work for all parties now. Something like if a tenant fully complies with the terms of the tenancy (pays the rent on time, doesn't behave in an anti social manner, etc) then should the landlord want to evict the tenant they would have to pay compensation of something like one or two months rent. It would certainly clarify just how rare no fault evictions really are if it was coupled with improvements to Section 8. It would incentivise tenants to prioritize paying their rent on time which would probably mean fewer landlords would want to sell up in the first place.

From: Jo Westlake 20 May 2022 08:33 AM

There used to be similar schemes in this area and they seemed to work well from the landlords perspective. Not necessarily so good from a neighbours perspective. Back in the 1990s I lived next door to a 4 bedroom house that was leased to the council. For the first 5 or 6 years it was fine. Then they put a huge family of known troublemakers in and it was horrendous. Police round every couple of days, swearing, intimidation, etc. I actually moved house to get away from them. The only real flaw in these schemes is that people forget the human aspect. Tenants are people not just revenue streams or cases. They become part of the community they live in. If the wrong person is put in the wrong street it can cause huge harm. Councils and police know who the trouble makers are. There should be some duty if care towards the wider community when housing them. I sometimes let a couple of my properties via council schemes and so far haven't had any issues or fees. The most recent one was where the council matched the property to prospective tenants, prepared a full budgeting report, provided a deposit bond, paid the first months rent and made sure the tenants UC claim was up and running. I interviewed the tenant and could decide if I wanted them or not. Two years on he says he feels very settled, the neighbours are happy and it all seems to be going pretty well.

From: Jo Westlake 19 May 2022 09:27 AM

Is it that landlords choose not to buy insurance or that insurers choose not to insure some properties? I'm in the process of getting insurance for several properties. Ideally buildings, contents (for HMOs) and landlord emergency insurance. The current building insurer has merged with someone else and now has an impossible website and uncompetitive renewal prices. The current emergency insurer has pulled out of the BTL market completely. I thought I'd found the solution with one company and had got to the fourth property, which is a second floor leasehold flat. They said to be able to buy emergency insurance I would need to take out a landlords fixtures and fittings policy. However, they then wouldn't insure it because of the flooding risk! It's a second floor flat in a seaside town that hasn't had any recent flooding and has spent millions on flood defences over the last decade.

From: Jo Westlake 19 May 2022 08:43 AM

If holiday lets and long term lets both had the same tax treatment how many landlords would bother with the hassle of holiday lets?

From: Jo Westlake 19 May 2022 08:11 AM

The measure that would help people the most would be to mandate that all energy companies must produce an up to date statement of account every month. The ones that went bust nearly all did it but the remaining companies generally don't. I got dumped on British Gas and Eon last September. In that 8 month period British Gas has managed to produce one bill per property and Eon haven't done any yet. I put in meter readings every month and pay by direct debit but have no idea what the account balances are. They're showing massive credit balances but I kept getting messages telling me to increase my direct debit. EDF also bill very infrequently. The one that is really impressive is Octopus. They update the account information every time a meter reading is submitted. I don't really approve of smart meters but have given in and got them on 2 electric accounts. They are both SMET2 but the differences between them is huge. The one on the Eon account has a better countertop display but no information on my online account log in. The Octopus one has huge amounts of information on my online account. Lots of graphs for daily, weekly, etc and the ability to see 30 minute usage. It's a bit nerdy but really does give the ability to analyse usage patterns.

From: Jo Westlake 17 May 2022 07:49 AM

The price cap has been a disaster and caused multiple companies to go bust. Consumers used to have the ability to shop around and sign up for the deal that best suited them. It may have been the cheapest, greenest, best customer service, etc. Or they could just do nothing. Then the nanny state stepped in and decided people who couldn't be bothered to engage and look for the best deal needed protecting from their own inertia. The government has no control over world market prices and forcing companies to sell at a price that was below cost was obviously going to cause casualties. Let's hope the government have learnt that lesson and don't try it with rent controls.

From: Jo Westlake 17 May 2022 07:13 AM

Whether now is a good time to buy depends on so many factors. Can you find anything you want to buy? Is it to live in or let? Will a lender lend to YOU? Will a valuer agree with the price you have offered? How long can you fix the mortgage rate for? Are you likely to want to sell in the next 10 years? Does the idea of negative equity worry you? One thing for sure is that if prices drop lending criteria will get far, far more difficult and lenders will want higher deposits. If interest rates keep on rising it would have been far cheaper to buy now on a 5, 7 or 10 year fix than wait for house prices to drop and get your mortgage when rates are higher.

From: Jo Westlake 16 May 2022 09:53 AM

The biggest help any of these Local Authority schemes could come up with is to employ an experienced building surveyor as an EPC assessor to reassess properties that fail to get the required rating (whether that's E or C). It would be far more cost effective for them to pay one person's wages than shell out money on poorly targeted grants or extra emergency housing to accommodate all the people who will need to be evicted if landlords slavishly follow the recommendations on the EPCs. Anyone can currently qualify as an EPC assessor after a 2 day online course with absolutely no building related experience. The EPC software is firstly totally dependent on the input data and secondly churns out the most expensive, impractical list of recommended improvements. One of my ex council flats was originally assessed in January 2011 and deemed to be E48. It was reassessed this year and found to be D67. I hadn't done anything to it in that time. The difference was purely down to the fact the first assessor hadn't spotted the cavity wall insulation. The list of improvements on the current EPC is 1. Solid floor insulation cost £4000 to £6000 2. Add additional 80mm jacket to hot water cylinder £15 to £30 (shame it would only add 1 point when I need 2 points to get to a C) 3. Gas condensing boiler £3000 to £7000. The EPC assessor actually emailed and said ignore all that, just replace the old night storage heater with a new Dimplex Quantum with smart controls for about £1300. Why is the EPC report recommending incredibly expensive, highly intrusive unnecessary work when there is a far cheaper alternative that can be installed in less than a day with minimal disruption to the tenant?

From: Jo Westlake 16 May 2022 09:35 AM

I've got an EV and solar panels. It's early days so I'm still assessing the realities of it. The charger we bought cost nearly £1000 even after the £350 discount but it does allow us to choose whether to just use surplus solar electric for the car or import from the grid. My concern with having car chargers in rental properties is that most tenants don't understand electric bills. How many would say the property is really expensive to run because they've forgotten to take out the cost of the electric the car is using? I don't know how much information the cheapest chargers give. Mine tells me how much electric the car has used, how much solar the hot water has used, how much the house has used, how much imported and how much exported. If a tenant who paid their own electric bill wanted to pay to have one installed by a professional installer I would be happy to let them do so. I don't have any concerns about the electrical supplies to any of my properties. Right now none of my tenants have EVs so it's not something I've encountered yet.

From: Jo Westlake 14 May 2022 19:08 PM

How many of those homes are damp and cold because the tenant doesn't understand the importance of ventilation and can't afford adequate heating? If people try drying washing indoors without heating or ventilation their walls will be covered in mould. There is usually nothing defective or unsafe about the property, just the direct actions of the occupants. There needs to be a public information program regarding the importance of ventilation especially now utility costs have got so high. The government need to ensure minimum wage and Universal Credit are sufficient for people to be able to afford rent, food and heating. It's no good laying the blame on landlords if it is government actions that are directly causing the problem. LHA is woefully under market rent as it has been frozen at a figure that was unrealistically low 2 years ago. Tenants are having to use money that should be for other living costs to pay the rent shortfall. They can't then find extra money for extra utility costs.

From: Jo Westlake 12 May 2022 06:47 AM

Until we see exactly what the new eviction procedures and timeframes are it's a bit early for anyone to claim victory.

From: Jo Westlake 11 May 2022 08:47 AM

James - These are mainly substantially built houses that people have happily lived in for 100 years or more. They are located in the heart of communities, close to all amenities. They aren't some kind of shanty slum dwellings. EPC assessments are churned out for about £55 a go by people who in some cases have no experience of construction and have just done a 2 day online course to become qualified as an assessor. Their lack of accuracy is staggering. The algorithm is flawed and unduly penalises modern electric heating or solid fuel. Assessors refuse to acknowledge that insulation exists if paperwork doesn't specify exactly what product was used. A lot of work was done before EPCs were invented so doesn't have paperwork.

From: Jo Westlake 04 May 2022 14:25 PM

It's a widespread problem. Insulation is mainly hidden (apart from loft insulation). Building control certificates may mention the job has been done to the standard in whichever year but doesn't mention exactly what type or thickness of insulation was used. Contractors invoices often don't specify the exact thickness of insulation. Even if you buy the insulation yourself and have receipts stating exactly what it is the assessor will say he can't be certain it was used at that address. Photos of it being installed are sometimes accepted if there is a view from the window in the photo or if it's a flat roof of neighbouring properties and there is a tape measure held against the insulation. Even then the assessor will often put 'assumed none' as he isn't 100% convinced it's sufficient proof to satisfy an audit. We don't even have the option of drilling a core sample without ruining the integrity of the insulation. So tens or hundreds of thousands of houses are insulated but don't have EPCs that reflect it.

From: Jo Westlake 04 May 2022 10:48 AM

EPCs are only very loosely connected to the cost of heating a property. Far more of it is related to the occupiers engagement with and understanding of whatever system they have. EPC scores vary wildly with assessors showing little consistency even on straightforward properties. Once mixed construction and mixed heating sources are present the EPC score is just a number with approximately no correlation to energy bills. How many of these properties with F and G EPCs are old stone houses with an open fireplace or woodburner in the lounge, an old night storage heater (which the EPC would class as the primary heat source) and timed electric heaters in the bedrooms? That mix gives a terrible EPC score but used properly could be cheaper than gas central heating to use (especially if someone has a supply of free or cheap wood). Why aren't gas and electric bills or meter readings used as part of the EPC assessment? How many of the 263000 rental properties with F and G EPCs already have insulation but because the assessor didn't know exactly what thickness just put 'assumed none'? How many of them are below average rent, which would help offset any extra energy costs? There was an awful lot of averaging and assumptions in her attack but no indication of the actual reality. A more interesting study would be into how properties with F and G EPCs rank in overall living costs. Combining rent, utility bills and transport costs. How much difference would there be in the cost of renting and living in an old house in a town centre close to work and shops compared to the same size new build on a new development on the edge of town with a district heating system?

From: Jo Westlake 04 May 2022 08:52 AM

These green mortgages are fine up to a point. The flaw is that the property has to have a good EPC rating at the point of purchase or full remortgage to a different lender. None of them seem to give the option of dropping down onto a lower rate once EPC improvements have been made.

From: Jo Westlake 03 May 2022 08:30 AM

The Right to Buy social housing is great for a very limited number of social tenants. The majority wouldn't be able to get a mortgage. Either their income or their age would make it impossible. Some wouldn't want the financial responsibility of property maintenance and some are in houses that are too small for the number of children they have. If the government really wanted to enable more people to be homeowners they would treat mortgage interest the same as rent for Housing Benefit purposes. Only the interest and only up to certain limits, so it couldn't be argued the tax payer was buying people's houses for them. It would give the banks more confidence to lend to a wider range of people. People would still need to repay the capital and maintain the house so there would be no incentive to just sit back on Benefit for a prolonged period. It would just provide enough of a safety net for both lender and home buyer.

From: Jo Westlake 03 May 2022 08:19 AM

Wouldn't the proposal mean that all tax payers were taking a hit INSTEAD of just landlords? If the arrears were cleared or didn't happen in the first place wouldn't that be a good thing? Maybe tax paying friends and family of non paying tenants would be saying a few harsh words to them? Maybe the activists have realised it's far cheaper for the tax payer to keep people in their long term homes rather than having to pay for hotel accomodation or emergency hostels. Some people are undoubtedly free riding low life's as you say but vast numbers of low income tenants are what used to be known as "Salt of the Earth". They're genuinely decent people working long hours for very low pay in jobs that no one else wants. Just one unforeseen emergency can completely derail their finances. The £20 UC uplift would make a huge difference, as would discretionary funding and restoring the LHA to at least the 30th percentile rent. As a tax payer I would far prefer my taxes were used to enable people to afford secure long term homes than the myriad of half baked ideas the government currently waste it on.

From: Jo Westlake 29 April 2022 10:57 AM

Demands 3, 4, 5 and 7 look perfectly reasonable. Demand 6 is a bit shaky. If someone can't provide a UK homeowning guarantor or fails a credit check there isn't really much of an alternative if we're not willing to take a massive risk. Demand 1 is highly problematic. We've all seen what happened to the gas and electric industries when they weren't allowed to charge the necessary amount to stay in business. Mortgage rates are rising, which means our Section 24 tax hit is also rising. Tradespeople and materials costs are rising, insurance, the costs of bringing properties up to EPC C are all factors beyond our control. Just because rents increase doesn't mean landlords are making more profit. Demand 2 (if I've read it right) goes some way on arrears based evictions. If two months arrears is an automatic, unchallengeable ground for eviction it will help a lot of people (both landlords, tenants and prospective tenants). If it makes UC or Housing Officers work in a more timely fashion it would prevent the need for thousands of evictions. However, a lot of evictions are for other reasons. Anti social behaviour being one of them. One bad tenant can cause fear and misery for the whole neighbourhood. Then there's the fact sometimes landlords just need the house back. Either to sell it, upgrade it or to protect their own mental health. A tenant may not actually be seriously breaching the tenancy agreement or upsetting the neighbours but they can be causing huge mental stress to the landlord with bizarre behaviour and demands.

From: Jo Westlake 29 April 2022 07:03 AM

Interesting points Jim. Evicting on a stated fault basis would probably show a more accurate picture of who is the good guy and who isn't. It may well do exactly as you say in regards to more help being available for rent arrears situations. We need to have confidence the system will work correctly and not be based on the whim of a non housing specialist judge. People only use Section 21 because Section 8 isn't reliable. Or maybe didn't used to be reliable but is possibly better now??? I can understand why most of us want the ability to be able to evict, even if we hope we never have to. I can understand why activists want blameless tenants to have a greater degree of security. I don't have a problem with compensating good tenants in the unlikely event of having to ask a good tenant to leave. As far as I can see most of us would be happy if there was a reliable, swift eviction route to remove bad tenants and possibly a slower route to remove good tenants should we want to sell, move into the property ourselves or the property needs extensive building works.

From: Jo Westlake 28 April 2022 21:46 PM

Andrew. It's kind of a balance. Changing a tenant isn't free. There's likely to be at least a couple of days void, maybe longer if the room needs redecorating or it's a quiet time of year. My longest staying HMO occupants are all really good tenants. The kind who look after the property, notify me appropriately of maintenance issues, pay their rent on time, engage with the process of finding new compatible housemates as rooms become vacant, etc. The kind of people who create a home and mini community rather than just view an HMO as somewhere to sleep. As people move on the rent for the new tenant is whatever seems appropriate compared with various property websites. So while I could certainly increase rents I'm not convinced it would increase my profit by a significant amount whereas it would undoubtedly increase my workload.

From: Jo Westlake 28 April 2022 10:15 AM

Likely to be, probably, average........ In reality tenants can be the people most protected from these cost of living hikes. None of my existing HMO tenants have had a rent increase since the day they moved in. Their rent includes council tax, gas, electric, water and broadband. Some of them have been in the houses for over 5 years and still pay exactly the same rent as 5 years ago.

From: Jo Westlake 28 April 2022 06:52 AM

A Section 21 notice is very different to a Section 21 eviction. The notice is the first step of a multi step process that the landlord can choose not to proceed with at any point. The notice may just be a warning shot and can be very effective in its own right with no need to go any further along the eviction path. In my many years as a landlord I've issued a total of 5 Section 21 notices, 4 of them to the same person. In his case mainly because of errors in his Housing Benefit or Universal Credit claims. Each time the notice gave him the impetus to engage with his situation for a few days and get his finances under better control. Having the Section 21 notice meant Benefit and Housing officials gave him proper attention and other creditors backed off for a while. At one point he owed me £1800. By the time he left of his own accord he had cleared the arrears totally. All credit to him. It was a long hard journey with multiple job losses and depression. The other Section 21 notice was to someone in an HMO who constantly forgot to lock the front door both when leaving to go to work in her day job or when coming home from a late night bar job. This caused huge stress and anxiety to the rest of the household but wouldn't be covered by Section 8. I had to be seen by the other tenants to do what I realistically could. Written requests to remember to lock the door had failed numerous times so the only option was a Section 21 notice.

From: Jo Westlake 27 April 2022 13:19 PM

Another interesting statistic would be how many Section 21 notices proceed to become Section 21 evictions. A Section 21 notice is only the first step towards an eviction and can actually be an incredibly helpful piece of paper for a tenant to have. If waved in front of other creditors it can give tenants sufficient breathing space to get their finances back on track. Creditors all know rent is a priority payment and no one wants to be trying to track down a homeless person for payment.

From: Jo Westlake 27 April 2022 10:04 AM

Shelter cites new figures from the charity’s YouGov poll reveal a quarter of all private renters have had three or more private rented homes in the last five years. What has the above statement got to do with Section 21? It doesn't say how many of them have done so from choice. It's very easy to make statistics imply whatever you want. Moving 3 times in 5 years would be perfectly normal at certain stages in someone's life. Between the ages of 16 and 21 I moved 3 times. Between the ages of 22 and 27 I moved 5 times. This was all from choice and changing circumstances. I've never been evicted. These days it's perfectly reasonable to assume someone will move into a PRS student house in their second year at university, then a different size student house for their final year at university, then move to a different city for their Masters, PhD or first job and move into an HMO, then meet a partner and rent a self contained flat, then upgrade into a house or better flat if the relationship goes well. All of it from choice and life's natural progression but it certainly can be spun to imply a lack of security if that's how Shelter choose to interpret the data.

From: Jo Westlake 27 April 2022 08:42 AM

Without Section 21 how are people going to qualify for Social Housing? Don't they have to be homeless through no fault of their own for the Local Authority to have a duty to help them? What happens if they decide to have multiple children after moving into an HMO? Does the landlord get fined for allowing overcrowding and breaching their licensing conditions?

From: Jo Westlake 27 April 2022 06:51 AM

The problem with selling is the CGT. I imagine a few of us have properties that we would quite like to sell but won't or can't with the current level of CGT. In some cases where landlords have remortgaged the mortgage plus early repayment penalty plus CGT plus selling costs are more than the house would sell for. In cases where the landlord hasn't remortgaged properties they bought pre 2005 they would often release more cash by remortgaging than they would retain by selling and paying CGT plus selling costs. They'd also still have the house and income. In the South CGT can easily be well over £75000 per property. In London much higher than that. Bearing in mind we have already paid SDLT, higher rate income tax on the rent we receive and VAT on a huge quantity of goods and services during our period of ownership charging a higher rate of CGT than for any other asset seems like pure greed.

From: Jo Westlake 26 April 2022 07:08 AM

I don't understand the obsession with heat pumps. Surely if they were any good developers would put them in new builds. If they're not good enough for properties built with the current required levels of insulation why on earth would anyone pay out vast amounts of money for something that clearly isn't going to be suitable for an older property. It would make far more sense to encourage greater use of solar panels and/or battery storage.

From: Jo Westlake 25 April 2022 15:28 PM

If anyone wanted to protect long term tenants and the jobs that come with the regular tourism industry there would be a requirement for all Airbnbs to have planning permission, licencing and pay proper tax. In the right place there is nothing wrong with Airbnb style letting but in the wrong place it's decimating communities and creating havoc for remaining residents.

From: Jo Westlake 25 April 2022 07:38 AM

I used an agent once a few years ago and hopefully won't need to repeat the experience any time soon. I don't know what the agent had said to the tenants but they were terrified to phone us when anything needed doing.

From: Jo Westlake 22 April 2022 09:00 AM

There certainly needs to be a full range of housing tenures. Home ownership and Social housing suits those who want to put down roots and are settled long term. The PRS is vital for people who aren't ready to settle or who need to be able to relocate quickly for career progression or who suddenly find life takes an unexpected turn such as divorce. It especially suits those who want to live in a location of their choosing or have a couple of spare bedrooms, not a property allocated by the Local Authority or Housing Association. The one area of housing that could really do with expansion is rental retirement housing for people in all income brackets. We have an aging population with complex housing needs. If the government, financial institutions and local authorities focused on retirement housing it would free up existing family size housing close to amenities. It would give peace of mind to people who were worried about how they will afford to live on a pension or how they will heat, clean or maintain a large house. Done right it would help prevent bed blocking in hospitals and provide better quality home help, when people reach the stage of needing it, to enable people to retain their independence for as long as possible. Retirement housing has the advantage of taking up less land, so can be built on smaller brownfield sites close to amenities. While many people don't want to buy a retirement apartment, due to the difficulty in selling it when the time comes, renting one is far more attractive as long as the tenancy is secure.

From: Jo Westlake 21 April 2022 07:32 AM

How are landlords supposed to know if a household has a gross income of less than £30000? Does it mean TOTAL gross income or gross EARNED income? The only time we ask about income is when referencing before a tenant moves in. After that unless we have a single tenant working for a company that is known to pay close to minimum wage it's almost impossible to guess a household gross income. A couple working full time in minimum wage jobs will exceed £30000 as will a family with a UC top up. A recently qualified graduate may well be on less than £25000 for a couple of years while a similar age tradesperson who has worked since leaving school is more likely to be on over £30000. If funding is going to be available let's at least make qualifying for it realistic.

From: Jo Westlake 20 April 2022 07:13 AM

Of course we want to know a bit about the applicants before arranging a viewing. We may have over 30 applicants, often before the property has been vacated by the existing tenant. It would be grossly unfair to the outgoing tenant to have days of completely unsuitable applicants nosing around their home. If applicants can only be bothered to say "Is it still available" without giving any information about themselves they go into the "to be replied to if I get round to it" catagory. Ideally someone will tell me what their household composition is - number of adults, number of children with ages and gender, pets. Occupation, age and why they think the property would be suitable for them. When they would be hoping to move in and if they are looking for something long-term or a defined period.

From: Jo Westlake 14 April 2022 08:54 AM

What planet are these activists on? If tenants report something we can fix ourselves we're usually there to fix it within 2 hours. If it's a plumbing or drainage issue British Gas send someone usually within 24 hours, if it's something else covered by the household emergency policy it is usually within 24 hours, if it's covered under the boiler warranty within 3 days or so is normal. If it's something we need to contract a tradesperson for it's as soon as one is available and materials can be obtained. What more do they think we can do?

From: Jo Westlake 14 April 2022 08:26 AM

That's a very good example of why we need clarity and why we need it now. The government need to understand people care far more about keeping their home than what its often wrong EPC rating is. If they decide properties have to be EPC C or above they need to explain what assistance they will provide for people who are made homeless through no fault of their own. Your landlord has been happy to provide you with a very long term home where you have felt secure enough to spend large amounts of your own money to customise it for your families needs. The fact the government think it's acceptable to put you through potentially years of worry and stress is abhorrent. As landlords we need to know what target we are going to have to work towards, in what timeframe and we need a list of how many points each improvement would make as a standalone job so we can make an informed decision about how to proceed. You don't need the stress and worry of what might happen in 2028. You certainly don't need the threat of having to move out so solid floor or internal wall insulation can be installed. Loft insulation, better heating controls and solar panels are far more tenant friendly improvements with virtually no disruption to daily life while being installed but for some inexplicable reason either aren't listed as recommendations or are at the very bottom of the list.

From: Jo Westlake 13 April 2022 18:06 PM

Reply to EverythingPRS. You're right if it's a pitched roof with a loft hatch. It's flat roofs or roofs with a shallow pitch and no loft hatch where the problem really arises. A flat roof normally used to be insulated as a cold roof whereby the original deck was taken off and insulation put between the joists. Then the deck and new roof felt put back on. It's impossible to see the insulation after the job is done. Nowadays flat roofs tend to be done as warm roofs where the original deck remains in situ and Celotex is put on top, then a new deck and roofing material. It looks much thicker than a cold roof construction but again the actual insulation is hidden. Even with a Building Control certificate saying it complies with the standards in the year it was done and photos of it being installed and receipts for the insulation assessors still won't acknowledge it exists.

From: Jo Westlake 13 April 2022 17:36 PM

We wouldn't even need to give false readings in a lot of cases. We'd just need to make sure we input what we know exists. How many of us have poor EPC ratings because assessors have failed to spot the cavity wall insulation or assume no roof insulation when we have photos proving 120mm of Celotex or have put the wrong model of night storage heater, etc? It would also give us access to how many points each improvement would give us instead of being told to evict our tenants so we can replace the floor or rip out kitchens and bathrooms to do internal insulation. Those 2 recommendations should be an absolute last resort not the first 2 recommendations listed.

From: Jo Westlake 13 April 2022 11:34 AM

Of course rooms rents are going up if bills are included. The current gas and electric costs are roughly £30 per person per month more than they were 12 months ago. Those figures are based on a 4 person shared house. There's another increase due in October and then there's talk of the price cap changing every 3 months so those upcoming increases also have to be guessed at and factored in.

From: Jo Westlake 13 April 2022 09:13 AM

Until we know what rumoured upcoming changes to the EPC algorithm will do to the EPC score we can't really do anything. Until the government have announced exactly what the requirement will be again we can't really do anything. By the time the government have made a decision there is unlikely to be sufficient tradespeople or materials to do the work in the unrealistic timeframe they will give us anyway.

From: Jo Westlake 13 April 2022 08:53 AM

The government have made the ability to evict extremely difficult, introduced massive penalties for renting to someone who doesn't have or ceases to have the Right to Rent, frozen the LHA at way below market rent and then wonders why, when we have a queue of people applying for a vacant property, we may actually prefer to let to someone we think may not result in us facing a big fine or affordability issues. How many times are unsafe or overcrowded conditions caused without the landlords knowledge? A tenant who lets their cousin and 4 children come and stay with them for example. Something a homeowner could do without hesitation but in a rental property would be classed as overcrowding. How many tenants deliberately overcrowd in the hope it will get them closer to getting Social housing? Local authorities already have a wide range of powers. What they don't have is a supply of housing to offer to people who would be made homeless. The vast majority of landlords are decent human beings who want long-term sustainable tenancies. We want tenants who look after their homes and appropriately report any maintenance issues.

From: Jo Westlake 13 April 2022 08:40 AM

Karen - you're right that the government has no idea of real costs. However, if your tenant is saying they're only getting £330 towards the rent they're being very selective in the information they're giving you. The LHA rate for a 2 bed in Monmouthshire is £500 a month. If the tenant is receiving £330 UC that's because they are working on a lowish income. The UC will only be a top up, not their entire income. The earnings disregard is quite generous so they will be on way more than an unemployed person. Plenty of people on UC choose to live in properties that cost more than LHA because they will be located closer to work so travel costs will be much lower. In this area the choice is to pay close to LHA rent and travel 25 miles to work or live close to work and pay £150 a month more than LHA for rent. Either way the overall cost is about the same.

From: Jo Westlake 12 April 2022 10:10 AM

Michael - why do you think financially shackling yourself to a band of housemates ensures better accomodation than having an individual tenancy agreement? I do both joint tenancies and individual tenancies in HMOs and on the whole find individual ones work better. Joint tenancies can be problematic when groups have formed just to fill the house. People with no compatibility signing a joint tenancy agreement with people they hardly know just so a few friends can rent a house that is too big for them. With individual tenancy agreements the newbie can be selected with compatibility in mind. Existing tenants can be part of the selection process. People can leave the household with no financial impact on the other housemates. Managing properties with individual tenancy agreements is far easier as communal areas can be entered without notice. HMOs with joint tenancy agreements require 24 hours notice to enter and even if you turn up at the request of one tenant another one will start screaming that you've illegally entered because they don't actually talk to eachother.

From: Jo Westlake 12 April 2022 09:34 AM

Generally some sensible questions. The only bit that jumped out at me was "they might not even be comfortable with the use of Blu Tack on their walls." Do any of us welcome Blu Tack? Universities fine people per blob. It either rips the paint off the wall or leaves a greasy residue that bleeds through subsequent coats of paint for years to come. To deal with it properly requires considerable effort. Cleaning the affected area with a solvent based cleaning product, painting with stain blocking paint and then several coats of room colour paint. Has anyone got a less labour intensive method?

From: Jo Westlake 12 April 2022 07:39 AM

Currently a great many tenants don't have regular rent increases. Several of mine are still paying the same amount as the day they moved in 4 or 5 years ago. I've only just increased rent on one property for the first time in the 10 years I've owned it. Demanding rent increases should be capped at wage inflation simply means that instead of probably no increase there will be a guaranteed inflation linked increase every year. The real winner will be HMRC as 40% of that extra rent (that we wouldn't normally have asked for) will go straight to them as extra tax.

From: Jo Westlake 12 April 2022 07:25 AM

As long as there is a swift eviction route for tenants who don't pay their rent, deliberately damage the property or cause distress to their neighbours I imagine most of us would be happy. Section 21 is a strange idea in the first place. Mainly used instead of Section 8 because it's certain rather than relying on a Judges interpretation of a case. Make Section 8 more certain and the use of Section 21 would be minimal, as it's slower. How many landlords routinely evict good tenants? Back in the day when letting agents could charge huge fees for everything on tenant changeover it may have been more common but those practices were legislated out several years ago. Self managing professional landlords have always wanted good tenants to stay for as long as possible. Being able to evict so we can sell is important but historically fairly infrequent among deliberate landlords. Accidental landlords may be a different matter as they didn't want to be landlords in the first place. Putting some kind of compensation in place, such as 2 months rent, to help cover moving costs would be fair if the eviction genuinely was through no fault of the tenant. I have never got as far as a court hearing to evict anyone but I have used Section 21 notices as a warning shot. Either for behaviour in an HMO that other housemates find upsetting (repeated failure to lock front door) or rent arrears. A really important aspect of Section 21 is the power it gives tenants to sort out their finances. Just because we serve the notice doesn't mean we have to carry on and proceed to a court hearing. Having a Section 21 notice means tenants have 2 months to improve the situation so we don't proceed. The presence of a Section 21 notice can get other creditors to back off and renegotiate payments as they know they are lower down the payment priority order. The last thing any creditor wants is a homeless client. I just don't understand the obsession with rent controls. Don't they understand that means almost guaranteed annual rent increases?

From: Jo Westlake 07 April 2022 10:19 AM

Estate agents training to be EPC assessors. Will their observational skills and attention to detail suddenly improve after doing a 2 day online course? If the standard of sales details is anything to go by this is a very bad idea. In the last few weeks I've viewed a property that was described as having a gas central heating system. It actually had an electric boiler. Another one didn't mention heating at all and had an 8 year old EPC with a D rating mentioning night storage heaters. It actually had a recently installed gas central heating system. My son is in the process of buying a house that was listed 4 months ago saying EPC coming soon. Turns out the estate agent still hasn't got round to it and it's now delaying the mortgage offer. Now EPCs are a serious matter the standard of training EPC assessors receive needs to be massively upgraded. The last thing any of us need is even more unskilled people churning out factually inaccurate EPCs that potentially devalue our properties by tens of thousands of pounds or require us to spend thousands on often completely impractical upgrades purely because the assessor can't spot stuff we already have..

From: Jo Westlake 06 April 2022 08:38 AM

Sarah Coles, personal finance analyst at business consultancy Hargreaves Lansdown should be aware rent and mortgage isn't the same thing. To imply they are comparable indicates a surprising lack of financial awareness. Someone with a mortgage also has to pay insurance, property maintenance, servicing and repairs. They have had to pay a significant sum upfront for deposit, legal fees and often SDLT. Someone who rents needs a maximum of 5 weeks rent as deposit, then simply pays a totally predictable monthly sum to live in the property. That figure includes insurance, maintenance, repairs, upgrades, wear and tear, safety checks, licensing scheme fees, etc. Tenants on low incomes or who experience an unexpected financial downturn get higher Universal Credit payments than homeowners as there is an entitlement to rent up to the LHA limit but no corresponding entitlement for mortgage interest or other housing costs for homeowners. As children get older tenants may be entitled to higher LHA top ups as children in rental properties have specified bedroom entitlements subject to age and gender. Children in owner occupier properties get what their parents can afford.

From: Jo Westlake 05 April 2022 07:24 AM

In HMOs the landlord is responsible although occasionally tenants shoose to do it. In self contained properties the tenant is usually responsible. The results will depend largely on what they were presented with in the first place.

From: Jo Westlake 04 April 2022 08:58 AM

Now he needs to try listening to at least a few thousand landlords.

From: Jo Westlake 04 April 2022 08:50 AM

I'm totally confused by this article. Why is it felt tenants are in any way more affected by rising utility bills than anyone else? Tenants have far greater access to discretionary benefits than homeowners do. Tenants living in accomodation with included bills are protected for longer than other people from fuel price increases as rent can only be increased at the end of the fixed term or once a year after that. As a landlord I'm having conversations with tenants. I know some of mine hate Direct Debits but I've explained they're paying in some cases £100 a year extra by not having one. Why does the government allow that to be legal? Some of my HMO tenants have already asked if there's going to be a rent increase. Right now I'm trying a multi pronged approach whereby I experiment with some energy saving products, don't even look at increasing rents until the autumn (or hopefully not at all) and they try to cut usage. So far I've changed some light fittings, swapped to a heat pump tumble drier in one of the HMOs and installed a device that sends surplus solar electric to the immersion tank in houses with solar panels. Next step is solar panels and battery storage for at least one more of the HMOs. The tenants in a couple of HMOs have set the heating a bit lower and are analysing which appliances use the most power (I finally gave in and had a smart meter) and if they can realistically do anything with their usage pattern to lower energy consumption.

From: Jo Westlake 04 April 2022 08:48 AM

Michael has a very good point. While LHA is woefully inadequate it's considerably more generous than the amount homeowners can claim. If a tenant is struggling to make ends meet they can apply for discretionary housing benefit in addition to the normal LHA. Alternatively they can downsize into a cheaper property or a more energy efficient one or one closer to work (assuming they can find one) and the costs to move are relatively small. There isn't really any assistance for struggling homeowners other than maybe foodbanks. If a homeowner needs to move they have to pay thousands of pounds in estate agent fees, solicitor fees, SDLT and possibly early repayment mortgage penalties. Selling takes months and there's always the risk the chain will collapse and the mortgage offer expire. If things get so bad eviction is on the cards a tenant seems to have far more time before the bailiffs are appointed. Mortgage lenders appear to have a more effective eviction process.

From: Jo Westlake 01 April 2022 15:36 PM

They're right that housing benefit needs to be made fit for purpose. A quick look at Rightmove shows there are currently about 6 properties available within LHA rent limits in this entire 500 square mile rent area. That's 2 one bedroom properties, 3 two bedroom and 1 three bedroom. Two of them have E rated EPCs, one is only available to someone who has worked for the same employer for more than 3 years. Only one is in the main city in the area. The others would all involve a costly commute to where most jobs are. LHA was supposed to cover the cheapest 30% of each size rental property. In this area it used to be the choice was either rent at LHA level 20+ miles from the main city or pay more rent and live closer to work. Now it seems to be pay more than LHA wherever you choose in the entire 500 square mile area. I'm not opposed to renting to people with a UC top up. Several of my tenants work in low paid jobs and receive UC. They all pay the rent themselves. My experience of direct payment from UC was stressful to say the least. Why are DWP incapable of paying as per the tenancy agreement? One month in advance on the date stated on the tenancy agreement. The idea of them paying in arrears, if they haven't sanctioned the claimant or stuffed up the claim, on a random date of their choosing is ridiculous. Giving us no way of contacting them is also ridiculous. If the idea of giving the rent element of UC to the claimant is to give them some half baked idea of dignity at least make sure the system works in real time not some fantasy land. Personally I think ensuring people can keep a roof over their heads would give them far more dignity than anything else.

From: Jo Westlake 01 April 2022 08:31 AM

Millions of people who receive UC already work full time. Often as essential workers. It's unfortunate the government decided to call all benefits Universal Credit. Lumping the hard working low paid in with the serially unemployed or cash in hand brigade is just plain wrong.

From: Jo Westlake 31 March 2022 09:12 AM

I'm more shocked that the LHA actually covers the rent for 44% of private renters. In the majority of cases these are likely to be long term tenants who look after their homes and pay the rent on time. People the landlord doesn't want to lose. I currently have 6 properties at or below LHA rates. That's only while the current tenants are in situ though. I'm fully aware those properties are between £100 and £500 a month below market rent. When they eventually become vacant they will be re let at whatever the going rate is at the time.

From: Jo Westlake 31 March 2022 09:02 AM

We can explain and discuss the importance of ventilation and how damaging mould is to both their health and our buildings. Then they see an article about draught proofing their home to save a couple of quid on the gas bill and every word we have said is instantly forgotten. Trickle vents shut, extractor fans disabled, ventilation grills blocked, wet washing hung all over the house and then the phone calls and texts about damp problems and the house being defective.

From: Jo Westlake 30 March 2022 11:08 AM

Currently a great many tenancies go on for years without a rent increase. Rent controls simply mean guaranteed rent rises on an annual basis don't they? It says Scotland already has limited rent increases to once in 12 months, with a landlord required to give three months’ notice in advance of the increase; it also enabled tenants to challenge rent increases via adjudication by a Rent Officer. I thought all of us could only increase rents once a year for existing tenants. Giving 3 months notice instead of one month's notice isn't difficult. I have no idea what current Rent Officers are like but back in the day when Housing Benefit was determined by Rent Officers things worked far better than they do now. “For private tenants seeking rent adjudication, we will change the legislation to only allow adjudications that either decrease or maintain it at the level proposed by the landlord.” Doesn't that just mean the Rent Officers can't suggest a higher rent than the one proposed by the landlord? So if the landlord proposes an increase that is in line with inflation or local housing market prices the Rent Officer is likely to agree. If the proposal is for a £10 increase the Rent Officer can't say £30 would be more realistic. So without rent controls millions of tenants don't have regular rent increases. (One of mine has had one increase in 10 years, another has had one in 6 years, several are still paying the same as the day they moved in 4 or 5 years ago). Rent controls will ensure the vast majority of tenants have annual rent increases at a minimum of the inflation rate. If Trade Unions want to interfere in housing matters they should be lobbying for the LHA to be set at a realistic level not campaigning for annual rent increases.

From: Jo Westlake 30 March 2022 10:51 AM

Simon - I'm not saying a council retirement flat (which often aren't on council estates) would be a dream destination but for a great many people it is a very good option. We own the former matron's house on a council retirement development. It's a lovely development of 16 bungalows, communal gardens, close to shops, doctors, dentists, on a bus route, etc in one of the most expensive postcodes in the city. It's a proper community with people sat outside their bungalows chatting to eachother or tending to their window boxes and hanging baskets. Obviously council estates vary around the country and some of them are far better than others. Clearly wealth gives more options but personally I think the worst option of all is to be a poor homeowner without the physical or financial ability to maintain your home.

From: Jo Westlake 29 March 2022 13:25 PM

Renting in later life strikes me as very sensible. Being able to easily and relatively cheaply try out a new area or new style of housing after children leave home. There's no SDLT, estate agents commission or conveyancing fees with renting. As you get older there are lots of private sector retirement developments where renting is possible. Retirement council housing never had the Right to Buy and Councils seem to be building lots of retirement flats so there is a reasonable chance of getting one. Not having to worry about building maintenance or being ripped off by people pretending to be tradesmen seems like a nice idea. People who haven't made any provision for retirement will be poor wherever they live. Surely it's better to be in an over 55s council flat so whatever benefit top up fully covers the rent. Being a poor owner occupier worrying about how to pay for roof repairs would be horrendous. For people with savings or better pensions renting gives so much flexibility and potentially better quality of life. The ability to easily move into a purpose built development should mobility or health problems problems occur is worth a lot. A homeowner would take months to sell their home and be able to move whereas a tenant can spot an ideal property and commit to it instantly knowing they only have to give a months notice on their current home.

From: Jo Westlake 29 March 2022 12:16 PM

Gordon - Green mortgages are a little bit cheaper. The lenders will lend on the property regardless of EPC score but at a slightly lower rate if it's A, B or C rated.

From: Jo Westlake 28 March 2022 10:47 AM

A single tenant would be unlikely to rent the average property. They would rent a one bedroom flat or a room in a shared house. The people renting the average property would be far more likely to be a couple or family so would have 2 incomes and possibly a UC top up. The thing all these studies constantly overlook is that working homeowners get no help with housing costs while tenants have the LHA element of UC. This is often thousands of pounds a year for working tenants that simply isn't available to working homeowners. Rent isn't just the equivalent of a mortgage. It also includes insurance, boiler servicing and property maintenance.

From: Jo Westlake 28 March 2022 10:02 AM

It's an OK idea. Until estate agents engage with EPCs there are flaws. I viewed a flat recently with an 8 year old EPC. It was a D. The property details didn't mention anything about heating. The EPC register mentioned night storage heaters. When I got there there was a gas central heating system that had been installed 5 years ago. So clearly it should be a C. It would be better if there was the ability to switch to the lower rate as soon as the EPC had been improved. Definitely needs to be available on product switch at end of term. Incentivising us to improve properties has got to be better than just incentivising us to buy a restricted range of well insulated properties in the first place. Landlords are in a far better position to carry out improvements than owner occupiers as we can have work done while properties are unoccupied. Trying to live in a building site with children isn't much fun.

From: Jo Westlake 28 March 2022 09:49 AM

33% of mine are D or E. It would be reasonably easy to get a C on two of them. Dimplex Quantum in one and solar panels on the other. One is impossible to get above a D. It's a ground floor leasehold flat so I'm only allowed to do what the freeholder will give consent for and no option of solar. The others will be pot luck on the day with the assessor. I have photos of lots of roof insulation being installed but whether the assessor accepts it exists isn't guaranteed. There's also no guarantee a property that is currently C rated will still be C rated next time it's assessed. A couple of mine were 5 points lower on the most recent assessment.

From: Jo Westlake 28 March 2022 09:28 AM

These activist people seem to have invented a problem that simply doesn't exist for the vast majority of tenancies. As Emily says we already have periodic tenancies and as Michael says they walk any time they want. Apart from students all of my tenancies start as 6 month ASTs and then become Statutory Periodic. Some of my tenants have been in more than 10 years. Even in HMOs some have been over 5 years. When they want to leave I ask them what date they really mean (not necessarily the date the tenancy agreement specifies). Then advertise the property to best accommodate their actual moving out date. They're only liable for the rent until the new tenant moves in or the end of their notice period or a date in-between that allows time for redecorating. So this often saves them a couple of weeks rent and minimises voids. Student housing is let for an academic year. If someone doesn't fit the household dynamic I will assist them with finding a replacement and assigning their bit of the tenancy. I always offer existing groups the opportunity of renewing for the following year, either as the same complete group or with some changes. One house rolled on for 6 years in this way before it was fully vacated. Occasionally upon graduation a student tenant will move into one of my other HMOs. One of my ex students has been with me for about 8 years now. The danger of having no minimum tenancy period is that we all assume new tenants are only going to stay a week and increase the rent accordingly. We've already seen how that plays out with the rise of holiday lets and AirBnB. In effect my tenants already have what the activists are campaigning for. The only difference is I have the right to evict them should I choose to. No good landlord is going to evict a good tenant unless their personal circumstances give them no alternative. What we will do is not increase our portfolios and sell off properties as they become vacant if we don't have the ability to evict. It needs to be a workable system that is fair to both parties. As Tricia says we're the PRS not Social Housing.

From: Jo Westlake 23 March 2022 09:00 AM

The main problem seems to be there are landlords who have chosen to be landlords and who view their job as providing homes for people to rent for as long as they want to rent them for. We wouldn't dream of evicting a good tenant unless we were required by law to do so (potentially EPC requirements). Then there are landlords who became landlords accidentally or after a wine fueled dinner party conversation. Maybe they couldn't sell a property and decided to rent it out until the market picked up, maybe they inherited a property, maybe their friends told them it was a get rich quick scheme? The responsibility of property rental is somewhat greater than investing in the stock market. These are the people who will evict good tenants with no concern about the expense and inconvenience it will cause. Good tenants and good landlords need eachother so whatever the government does needs to be beneficial to both parties. Personally I would like to see Section 8 beefed up and fast tracked. In exchange I would be perfectly happy with a requirement to pay compensation of up to 3 months rent in the unlikely event I ever needed to evict a tenant who had fulfilled their side of the tenancy agreement. Bad tenants out pronto, good tenants and professional landlords made to feel more secure.

From: Jo Westlake 21 March 2022 10:18 AM

There may be CGT. Even if you give it away I'm pretty sure you need to get a professional valuation and CGT is charged according to what it's worth not at what you receive. If it's mortgage free there wouldn't be any SDLT.

From: Jo Westlake 15 March 2022 12:05 PM

I really dislike the following statement: "It makes no sense to tax the supply of new homes supplied by landlords investing in new build or bringing empty homes back into use.” If we buy new builds we are accused of preventing FTBs from getting a foot on the ladder as HTB was only offered on new builds. There aren't that many empty homes and only a percentage of landlords want to get involved in renovation projects. It goes on to say: "As this study indicates, removing the tax will actually generate more revenue, not less." While that is undoubtedly the case we can only buy if there are available houses to buy. Builders are building at a slow enough rate to keep the price of new builds sky high and very few second hand properties are being listed. In this area most of the houses listed on Rightmove and Zoopla as being available are actually Sale Agreed. A couple of weeks ago I phoned various agents about 8 different houses. Only 3 were still available. I phoned about an ex show house listed on Friday and was told they'd had over 100 enquiries for it. It wasn't cheap, it was on one of the worse plots on the development and it didn't even have a garage. So while removing the SDLT surcharge would undoubtedly encourage some of us to buy it's not quite that simple. We need available stock to buy. We need to know what is happening with EPC requirements. We need certainty that we can quickly evict tenants who don't pay their rent, cause malicious damage to the property or distress to their neighbours. We also need a better exit route regarding CGT. How many of us are holding on to properties that no longer really fit our business model because the current levels of CGT and SDLT mean it would be insane to sell them?

From: Jo Westlake 15 March 2022 07:41 AM

Section 24 is one of the reasons landlords are switching to holiday lets. The other is the proposed removal of Section 21. Without the ability to make a profit and evict problematic tenants in a timely fashion the risk of being a traditional landlord is far greater than it should be.

From: Jo Westlake 14 March 2022 12:41 PM

Everyone is facing a reduction in living standards. If anything tenants are more protected from some of the cost increases faced by homeowners. Rents can only be increased at the end of the fixed term or annually. Rent includes property insurance and maintenance. Homeowners and landlords are having to pay more for tradesmen and materials immediately. Some tenants in shared houses have bills included so are protected from the current utility price rises for considerably longer than anyone else is. The last 2 years have been unprecedented. We often froze rents, re let at a lower than normal rent or had longer voids during the pandemic. The reported rent increases are partially off a lower than should have been base or because the properties have been improved during the voids.

From: Jo Westlake 14 March 2022 08:14 AM

While I think points 2, 3 and 4 make a lot of sense points 1 and 5 could both be highly problematic or just plain vindictive. The properties used for holiday lets are often older properties close to the sea. While they may have wonderful views or proximity to the beach they often have very low EPCs and would be unable to be let as long term homes. They are often quirky or charming, which is lovely for a few days but not very easy to live with full time. Charging full Council Tax seems fair and administratively easy. If the houses are empty for most of the year they aren't using any services. Charging less is unnecessary, charging more is greedy and administratively complex. The use of these properties will vary hugely from year to year depending on fashion, weather, travel restrictions, the owners personal circumstances, etc. Varying levels of Council Tax based on the number of days of occupancy would be a complication Councils don't need. Point 5 may work for housing association rental properties but would cause problems for anyone else. If discounts were locked in for future buyers the properties simply wouldn't be properly maintained or improved. Tradesmen and builders merchants aren't going to give a discount just because someone lives in a house with a compulsory discount clause attached to it. We already have Section 106 to ensure some properties can only be sold to local people. A lot of leasehold flats have clauses in the lease that state the properties can't be used as holiday lets. Creating clauses and covenants based on current issues that apply to a property for as long as the property is standing should be avoided. Looking at some of the Land Registry titles from the 1980s would clearly show the difficulties. They are hugely out of date already and causing unforeseen issues. Property usage needs to be able to evolve as societies needs evolve. If restrictions are considered desirable they should be for a fixed term not the entire life of the building.

From: Jo Westlake 14 March 2022 07:54 AM

A lot of people in full time work receive UC top ups. Apparently it's possible to be a higher rate tax payer and still have a small UC entitlement now the earnings taper has been adjusted.

From: Jo Westlake 11 March 2022 09:44 AM

You're correct that landlords should have every right to decide who they let to. None of us want the people you describe. However, a lot of UC recipients work in essential industries. Things we all rely on such as supermarkets, deliveries or health care. It's not their fault the government set minimum wage too low. While a few may be as you describe the vast majority will be thoroughly decent people who will be excellent tenants. I currently let to 3 families in receipt of UC and all of them take great pride in their homes. Maybe I've been lucky? Maybe you've been unlucky?

From: Jo Westlake 11 March 2022 08:43 AM

With the LHA set so far below market rent how exactly are UC recipients supposed to clear financial referencing? We want long term sustainable tenancies. We don't want to condemn people to living in poverty. We can use a benefit calculator and see how much each component of a household needs in UC terms. In this area most 2 bedroom properties are well over £200 a month more than the LHA. That means people would need to use part of the UC amount meant to cover their personal or child costs to pay part of the rent. Or they could possibly work more but we know the DWP have first dibs on any extra money they legally earn, reducing the UC top up by 55p for every extra £1 of take-home pay. So to get the extra £200 a month for the rent they would need to earn about an extra £700 gross. If we have vacant properties at anywhere close to LHA rent we are inundated with applicants. These will be a mixture of people with a UC entitlement and people who are fully self financing. We can only let the property to one applicant. Every applicant will think they should be the chosen one and it's not fair if someone else gets it.

From: Jo Westlake 11 March 2022 08:18 AM

The conversion of historically long term homes to holiday lets is a tiny part of the shortage of affordable rental accommodation. On a national scale only a small percentage of properties lend themselves to the tourism market. Instead of penalising a few thousand property owners how about treating all landlords fairly so we can confidently invest in more long term homes? It would make a far more meaningful impact if Generation Rent campaigned for decent and consistent treatment of traditional landlords. 1. Reinstate taper relief so we have the ability to hold properties long term without the risk of a massive tax bill purely because of inflation. Death shouldn't be our only viable exit strategy. We have already paid huge amounts of income tax, VAT and SDLT throughout our period of ownership of the property. Punitive CGT is just counterproductive greed. 2. Abolish Section 24 so our mortgage interest costs are tax deductible at the conventional point in our tax returns (not as a partial tax credit applied after younger landlords have lost their Child Benefit). 3. Remove the extra 3% SDLT on property that is for the long term rental market or refund it after five years of that property being let on ASTs. 4. Make all improvements relating to energy efficiency fully tax deductible in the tax year the work is done. 5. Introduce far quicker eviction for those who fail to pay their rent, maliciously damage the property or cause distress to their neighbours. 6. Ensure that the Local Housing Allowance is updated annually 7. Ensure landlords can contact a designated case worker regarding UC tenants by telephone and email. 8. Ensure landlords aren't charged Council Tax for short void periods between long term tenancies If landlords were treated in a similar way to just about every other business there would be a plentiful supply of rental properties at a range of prices and standards. Every time a new tax or disincentive is introduced the supply of rental properties reduces and rents increase.

From: Jo Westlake 09 March 2022 08:24 AM

There are many landlords with perfect credit histories and substantial deposits who struggle to meet lending criteria. How about the mortgage industry sorts out a few decent products for those applicants before inflicting financially inept landlords on some perfectly good tenants?

From: Jo Westlake 01 March 2022 11:47 AM

Education, education, education! Until someone finds a way to convince tenants that ventilation and communication is the solution there will be mould problems. In their pursuit to save money tenants shut trickle vents, refuse to use extractor fans and never open windows. They don't understand that simply breathing, cooking and bathing produces many litres of moisture every day. If that moisture can't escape it condenses on the walls and forms mould. It doesn't matter how much we ask them to use extractors or how many condensation control leaflets we provide them with they will see an article somewhere about draft proofing or turning off every appliance and instantly forget about the importance of ventilation. The other issue is failure to report small maintenance issues. Good landlords would far rather know about any repairs that are required before the property suffers damage. Minor water ingress or leaks can lead to dry rot requiring tens of thousands of pounds of repairs. Media reports of people being evicted for mentioning repairs have caused many completely avoidable problems for good landlords. We want our houses to be in the best possible condition and certainly won't evict tenants for helping us to keep them that way. We are far more annoyed when tenants eventually tell about something and then mention they noticed it over a year ago. Even when we pay for plumbing and drainage policies tenants are reluctant to notify us about leaks.

From: Jo Westlake 26 February 2022 11:58 AM

I'm fairly neutral on the whole MTD idea. I can't quite see the point of it for landlords but if a straightforward landlord focused version of software is available I'd probably be fine with using it. The problem I have is knowing where to start. What am I supposed to be looking for? Does a suitable program currently exist or are landlord focused ones still being developed? I would want to be able to see exactly what it did and how to use it before signing up to it. We seem to be bombarded with various versions of landlord computer based services supposedly designed to do everything for us. Then it turns out they don't do everything but have a big overlap with something else that does the missing bit. So it feels like a lot of duplication. Finding something that is right for our particular business seems to be the hard bit and is incredibly time consuming. What I'm not OK with is committing to paying a monthly fee, spending hours setting it up and then discovering it doesn't really work for my rental business. Whoever designs these things needs to remember a lot of landlords tend to be a bit older. We left school before computer studies was a subject. Our computer skills are largely self taught and some of us rely on Google and YouTube to teach us how to do things. So keep it relevant and provide clear instructions that cater for people with limited computer skills. And remember we are landlords not accountants.

From: Jo Westlake 21 February 2022 09:44 AM

So Councils that kept accurate records received just over 5 complaints each a week. How many of those complaints were found to have any real foundation and how many were deemed to be caused by the tenants lifestyle? How many were mold related due to tenants failing to heat or ventilate the property? How many were due to minor maintenance issues not being reported to the landlords in a timely fashion and then escalating? How many were damages caused by the tenant and not reported to the landlord? How many were caused by the tenant inviting extra people to move in and overcrowd the property? I'm sure there are some horrendous properties out there but do those tenants tend to report them to the Councils?

From: Jo Westlake 14 February 2022 10:22 AM

In order to be seen not to discriminate on racial grounds people often discriminate against the indigenous population. You only have to look at some employment decisions to see the problems with diversity box ticking. The Home Office online checking service is brilliant. Make it the way we check 100% of applicants from all countries including the UK.

From: Jo Westlake 14 February 2022 09:29 AM

Shouldn't standard of living and disposable income be a key part of leveling up? Money goes much, much further outside London. Someone on £25000 in the North will have a far higher standard of living than someone on £50000 in London.

From: Jo Westlake 12 February 2022 12:37 PM

I love the Right to Rent share code system. If that could be the standard system for all tenants of all nationalities (including British) we would eliminate so many potential pitfalls.

From: Jo Westlake 11 February 2022 21:50 PM

The biggest help to tenants would be to stop dreaming up more and more poorly thought through legislation that rarely gets enforced and stop over taxing good landlords. We provide homes for millions of people who don't qualify for social housing and don't want or can't afford to buy (yet). Very few of us evict good tenants who pay their rent and look after their homes. We need the government to have long term policies that don't get changed every couple of years. We only react to whatever the government throw at us.

From: Jo Westlake 10 February 2022 09:33 AM

Until the changes to the EPC regarding the way electric heating is scored (heat pumps, LOT 20, etc) are finalised none of us have a clue what we need to do. While I may be willing to improve roof insulation, install better heating controls (if the tenant is keen) and possibly solar panels (where appropriate) I am not enthusiastic about evicting tenants to do solid floor or internal wall insulation. Any type of wall insulation isn't a one size fits all solution. Internal reduces living space, cavity isn't always possible or appropriate for the weather conditions, external often can't be done if the wall adjoins someone else's land. If lenders want to send the right message they could try offering attractive product switch mortgages for existing customers with C or above EPCs. There needs to be far more clarity about exemptions where circumstances are beyond the landlords control. Leasehold properties where owner occupier leaseholders or the freeholders refuse to allow insulation work or Local Authorities refuse permission for external insulation, double glazing or solar panels for properties that are listed or in conservation areas. There also needs to be far more debate about the overall package tenants experience, not just the EPC score. Is the rent above or below LHA level? How often and by how much has the rent been increased since the tenant moved in? Is the property located close to all amenities or is a car or extensive use of public transport essential?

From: Jo Westlake 09 February 2022 12:00 PM

I currently include gas, electric, water, broadband and Council Tax in all of my HMOs. I have never increased rents for existing HMO tenants as long as they keep the same room. Some of my tenants have been asking if there will be rent increases due to the increased utility costs and one group have very sweetly said they would be willing to pay towards the utility price rises if I was struggling as they don't want to have to move house. Right now I'm adopting a wait and see approach for existing tenants but making sure they are aware how much the rent is for similar newly available rooms. In several cases my current tenants are paying around £50 a month less than the current market rent for their rooms would be. So in terms of what happens with the Council Tax rebate (which in my HMOs amounts to between 48p and 72p per person per week) not increasing the rent for the time being more than absorbs that. The £200 is a loan anyway. I should be OK with the above until next autumn but may need a change of policy if the October price cap is massive. Student houses are a different matter as we are working 18 months in advance. My crystal ball simply isn't that good. From September I'm only including gas in 2 of my student houses that are let on a joint tenancy agreement. Most student houses in this area haven't got any bills included. My reasoning is that I hate to think of tenants being cold, the house is less likely to get mouldy if it is properly heated and they might even open windows occasionally, if they try to use less water they automatically use less gas, broadband companies are a nightmare for me to deal with as they will only speak to the bill payer not the person who is experiencing the problem, electric is where the usage can be most unpredictable. I've seen too many fan heaters (because they can't be bothered to walk downstairs and boost the central heating), too many part loads of washing, the tumble drier used for just a couple of items, too many table or floor standing lamps with old fashion bulbs left on all day, etc. The thing that would be most useful at the moment would be for our credit balances from the previous utility providers to be refunded. I had some back quite quickly but haven't had the balances from PFP, Neon Reef or Green.

From: Jo Westlake 09 February 2022 08:40 AM

Interesting. So for less than £1000 and about a week of our time we could all get qualified as EPC assessors and play with the computer program to see exactly what the most cost effective way would be to get a C rating without having to evict our tenants. All these recommendations to insulate solid floors are a non starter but assessors don't seem to understand that. However tedious an idea that is it may save us from making some very expensive mistakes. If existing assessors won't give us a full list of options and the impact they would have perhaps we should train to do the job ourselves.

From: Jo Westlake 08 February 2022 11:35 AM

I'm a bit unclear how both the Council Tax rebate and £200 loan will work in practice for HMOs. If it's working tenants and Council Tax and utilities are included in the rent am I right in thinking both CT rebate and loan go to the landlord and may go a very small way to offset the additional utility costs we have been paying since loads of utility companies went bust last autumn, never mind the massive hike we are about to experience in April? The £200 loan won't happen until October (more than a year after our utility costs soared). We then have to repay the £200 loan at £40 a year added to our electric bill for the next 5 years? How is it going to work for student houses which are Council Tax exempt? How does the loan work when students pay their own utility bills? Is the loan to the bill payer or attached to the house? Will future occupiers of the house have to repay a loan they didn't benefit from? Why is the loan attached to the electric bill when people seem to be more concerned about heating? What happens if the landlord includes gas but not electric?

From: Jo Westlake 08 February 2022 07:41 AM

Realistically no landlord knows what EPC score their property would get if it was assessed tomorrow. They only know what it got last time it was assessed. The inconsistencies in the assessment process mean scores can be wildly different in either direction even if no work has been done between assessments. I had one property go from F25 to G14. Another from D57 to E47 and another from E48 to D67. How can we have any confidence in the system when 2 different assessors can be so far apart in their data inputting? The scoring is supposed to be changing again shortly so heat pumps don't lower the score as much as they currently do.

From: Jo Westlake 07 February 2022 08:18 AM

There's already tons of legislation. A great many landlords are already licensed and on HMO registers. Local Authorities are pretty aware of both the good properties and the bad ones. The compliant landlords and the ones who aren't. They have multiple enforcement options available many of which are self financing or even profit making due to the potential fines. So what improvement for tenants is yet another layer of registration going to make? If the current range of quite far reaching legislation isn't being used why would something else be any more likely to have a beneficial impact? Of course people should have safe homes but how have some homes become unsafe? Is it the actions of the tenant or lack of maintenance from the landlord? Has the tenant notified the landlord of any defects? Will the tenant allow access for tradespeople to carry out repairs and maintenance? Have the tenants moved extra people into the house that the landlord is unaware of? How many tenants aren't even aware of occupancy and overcrowding laws? Do tenants still think that if they abuse a property enough the Council will condemn it and give them a brand new Council House? Perhaps Local Authorities should clearly spell out what happens if someone becomes homeless (either intentionally due to their own behaviour or unintentionally). Where are they housed, for how long and at what cost, both to themselves and the tax payer. One thing that's certain is that good, long-term landlords are already selling up and more people will become homeless. Do the government really want to accelerate that process?

From: Jo Westlake 01 February 2022 09:45 AM

EPC assessors need to put far more thought into the list of recommendations they issue to improve our EPCs. The EPC states the improvements listed are cumulative. They assume the improvements have been installed in the order listed. That is a major problem when they put the most expensive, disruptive, impractical, least effective recommendations at the top of the list. One of my houses is a 2 bed terraced house in a flood zone about 300 meters from the sea. The kitchen is very narrow and has 3 external walls, one of which forms the neighbours garden wall, another adjoins a footpath. The recommendations are: 1 - internal or external wall insulation. It would have to be internal for at least 2 of the walls, which would make the kitchen too narrow to use. Estimated cost £4000 to £14000. Adds 5 points. Presumably that cost doesn't include the cost of the new kitchen and bathroom that would be required to fit the reduced space. The tenant would need to move out for the work to be done. 2 - floor insulation (suspended floor). In a flood zone is that really sensible? Costs £800 to £1200. Only adds 1 point. 3 - solar water heating. Costs £4000 to £6000. Adds 1 point 4 - solar photovoltaic panels. Costs £3500 to £5500. Adds 10 points. In a tenanted property with a South facing roof the solar photovoltaic panels seem like the way to go. Why isn't it the number one recommendation?

From: Jo Westlake 26 January 2022 07:18 AM

Michael, HMOs come in many different types and standards aimed at various different tenant profiles. Some will be let as a whole house to a group of friends in which case they may well be responsible for the utility bills. Others will be let on individual room tenancies. You could have prepayment meters all over the place and expect the tenants to pay for their own individual usage. You'd still have to pay for the communal areas though as landlord if the tenants each have individual tenancy agreements. I prefer to offer all inclusive rents so the houses are properly heated. My student HMOs are mainly on joint tenancy agreements, my professional ones are all individual tenancies. I aim for like minded tenants and encourage existing ones to be very much part of the selection process for newbies. As a result they tend to spend a lot of time in the communal lounge or kitchen together. Other landlords may go for the more traditional bedsit type HMOs where tenants rarely see or speak to eachother. Each to his own and there's pros and cons with each model. I agree that it's bizarre about the connected tenants being exempt from HMO regulations. How are we supposed to know if someone is really connected or not?

From: Jo Westlake 20 January 2022 11:09 AM

I guess it partly depends on what's included in the rent. If it's an HMO with bills included the rises will have to be substantial. We can only increase rents once a year for existing tenants and have no idea how much the utility bills will be over the next 12 months. Historically I've very rarely increased rents for existing tenants. Mainly they're in HMOs or student houses so people used to stay 2 or 3 years and I'd just increase the rent when they vacated. Now they're staying much longer I may need to revise that policy especially if the utility market doesn't settle down. For self contained units it also depends on when the last rent increase was. I'm just increasing one for the first time in 9 years. It's still £30 lower than the LHA rate and £100 less than anything on Rightmove. Had I simply increased the rent by £10 a month every year the tenant would have paid an extra £4300 over the last 9 years and the rent would be closer to LHA level. I don't imagine the tenant will see it quite that way though.

From: Jo Westlake 20 January 2022 09:53 AM

Theoretically it would be great if there was a sensible way in which tenants could buy their rental homes. It would allow people to have children at a biologically more advantageous stage in life, rent a suitable house, put down roots in the community and buy their home when promotions and pay rises allow. However, with the current tax situation for landlords it isn't going to happen. We would have to pay 28% CGT on the house we sold to them and then the extra 3% SDLT on top of the already eyewatering SDLT if we bought another house to replace the one we sold. Also there may be an early redemption penalty on the mortgage. If we are long-term landlords why would we want to lose a good rental property? There's lots of potential benefits for tenants to be able to buy their rental such as saving the cost of moving, saving the cost of potentially multiple surveys on properties that fail to complete, saving on the cost of getting new furniture to fit a new house, etc. There doesn't seem to be any incentive for the landlord to sell unless they were planning to scale down as a landlord. If the tax treatment was more favourable it's certainly something I would seriously consider. I already buy specific houses for specific tenants (who are unlikely to ever qualify for a mortgage) as long-term homes.

From: Jo Westlake 20 January 2022 08:11 AM

If landlord leaseholders are excluded could the work be carried out at all? Isn't it a similar situation to why landlord leaseholders can't have cavity wall or external insulation to meet EPC targets if the owner occupier leaseholders in the same building don't also agree to have it and pay their share? Surely the building has to be treated as a whole so all forms of ownership or occupation should be treated equally. What would happen in the case of someone who owns a percentage of their leasehold flat under a shared ownership scheme? Would that flat be included as part of its owner lives there or excluded because part of its owner is a landlord? If landlords are excluded the government is penalising tenants. If the landlord is bankrupted the tenant is homeless. If the landlord manages to pay for the work they are likely to increase the rent by as much as the market will stand so the tenant either faces a reduced standard of living or has the expense and inconvenience of moving somewhere cheaper.

From: Jo Westlake 19 January 2022 07:00 AM

If Section 21 is abolished how are landlords going to be able to evict their tenants so they can do the solid floor and internal wall insulation so many EPC assessors insist we need? If they can't evict them to do the work to bring the EPC up to the required standard how are they going to evict them when it becomes illegal to let a property with an insufficient EPC score?

From: Jo Westlake 18 January 2022 08:03 AM

Are rent controls really beneficial for tenants? Don't they just mean a guaranteed rent increase every year? How many of us tend to leave existing tenants on the same rent for considerably longer than a year? I have tenants who haven't had a rent increase in over 5 years. One of my properties is over £200 a month less than it would be if I had had inflation linked rent increases every year. Is this just a way of the government raking in even more tax? Convince tenants rent controls are beneficial to them so we Increase rents every year in line with the controls and then we pay more tax. Cunning but I can't see how it's good for tenants.

From: Jo Westlake 18 January 2022 07:53 AM

The first issue to address is the unequal treatment of standard BTL and holiday lets. Standard BTL is providing long term homes for people who for various reasons aren't ready or able to buy a suitable property and medium term homes for seasonal or temporary workers or students. Why are standard BTL tax rates so punitive when we are providing a basic necessity? Support for standard BTL landlords during the pandemic was pretty much non existent and the eviction ban drove countless landlords to sell or switch to holiday lets at the earliest opportunity. Holiday lets, which are a luxury not a necessity, are given far better tax treatment, could claim financial support during the pandemic and don't have any eviction issues. The whole situation has been created by a lack of joined up thinking at government level. The holiday industry is vital to certain parts of the country but in my opinion would largely be better in the hands of professional holiday companies or hotels with proper planning permission, safety standards and employment rights. Workers in the tourism industry are historically low paid and need access to affordable rental accommodation. That lack of accommodation caused considerable staffing difficulties for many tourism businesses last summer. It isn't simply a question of looking at the number of people on a housing list and the number of holiday lets in an area. What size is the housing compared to the housing need of the people on the list? Is it suitable for year round occupation? Is it located anywhere near schools, jobs or public transport? Is it's EPC good enough? Is Universal Credit going to be part of the equation? Is the LHA in any way realistic? Is the housing list up to date or even vaguely accurate? Some people could have died, left the area or bought a house and still be on the list.

From: Jo Westlake 17 January 2022 07:42 AM

Precisely. We need a full list of what can be done to improve an EPC rating, not just 3 or 4 things that are often not possible due to leasehold or conservation area restrictions. If an EPC makes an assumption such as the roof is uninsulated we need the list of improvements to include insulating the roof and how many extra points it will give us. Instead they all seem to recommend insulating the floor which is hugely expensive, can only realistically be done if we evict the tenants and only adds 1 or 2 points to the EPC score. Replacing an old night storage heater with a Dimplex Quantum improves the score but I have no idea by how many points. Replacing a gas boiler with a heat pump loses a load of points but again I have no idea how many. Putting solar panels on the roof improves the score usually by between 7 and 10 points regardless of if they are actually orientated correctly. Putting a thicker jacket on a hot water cylinder costs about £20 and adds 1 or 2 points. Some measures are hugely disruptive and could only be done to an unoccupied property, others such as solar panel installation or replacing an old night storage heater cause virtually no inconvenience to tenants. There needs to be recognition that a landlord may decide to carry out a different range of work to an owner occupier due to the level of disruption so the recommendations need to reflect that. Or even better don't recommend anything and just give us a full list to choose from.

From: Jo Westlake 12 January 2022 22:26 PM

Housing is only one form of energy usage. Transport is also a major use of energy. Older houses tend to be located close to city centres, village centres, schools, workplaces and other amenities so people living in older houses often need to use far less transport. Whichever way you look at it life costs. People have choices regarding how to spend their money. Some will prefer to live in a new house on a new build estate with low gas and electric bills but need to drive everywhere because the house is miles from shops or work. Others will prefer to live in an older house closer to amenities and maybe not need to own a car. The energy bills may be a bit higher but how much are they saving in transport costs? Which scenario is really more energy efficient?

From: Jo Westlake 12 January 2022 07:15 AM

An EPC score is total pot luck. Properties can gain or lose points for no apparent reason. One of mine was F25 in November 2018 when an estate agent listed it, then G14 in January 2020 when I got my regular assessor to advise how best to improve it. Nothing had changed in that time. It still had no insulation, single glazing, no heating, etc. Another one was E48 in January 2011 when an estate agent listed it, then D67 in January 2022. Very little has changed. It still has the same ancient night storage heater. The first assessor failed to spot the cavity wall insulation but that's about the only difference. Even though replacing the storage heater would bring it up to a C rating it isn't on the list of recommendations, whereas a gas central heating system at 5 times the cost is. The other recommendation was solid floor installation which could only be done if I evicted the tenant. Another one was D57 in December 2008, then E47 in December 2015 even though the roof had been insulated between those dates. So with such discrepancies in the assessment process and incomplete lists of recommendations how are we supposed to know what to do? Should we just have multiple assessments done until we get one we like? At the very least assessors need to give us a full list of improvements we could make and how many points each would gain. Some can only be done when the property is vacant, others don't inconvenience a tenant. We need the full range of options

From: Jo Westlake 11 January 2022 08:20 AM

Scottish Lad Roof insulation, not loft insulation. Lofts are easy to assess accurately as long as there is a loft hatch. Roofs are a whole different matter. Either flat roofs or top floor rooms with sloping ceilings. The insulation is completely sandwiched between plasterboard and roof covering with no access to it whatsoever. In the case of houses with large areas of flat roof if the choice was solid floor insulation or putting 120mm of Celotex and some EPDM on top of the existing roof to get the required score I think the roof would be the preferred option for most people. EPC assessors don't list both options, they only suggest ripping up the floor. As you say insulation can cause mould problems especially if breather membranes, vapour barriers and ventilation aren't correctly built in.

From: Jo Westlake 20 December 2021 09:48 AM

How many properties have an EPC below C because of assumptions used in the EPC assessments? How often are those assumptions wrong? Roof and subfloor insulation are two of the main problems with assumptions. It often exists but there is no documentary evidence to say exactly how much so the EPC assessor has to assume none. Even a Building Control certificate only says it complies with the standards in whatever year and won't be accepted as proof insulation exists even though the BC certificate wouldn't have been issued if it didn't. The general condition of the property or proof of energy consumption should at least allow a 'PROBABLY EXISTS' score. How many properties have had the improvements listed on the original EPC done and haven't reached the expected score because of changes to the algorithm and the fear assessors have of being audited and being found to have been too generous in their assumptions? If it has been assumed something exists on an EPC it should be illegal to change that assumption on future EPCs without absolute proof that the original assumption was wrong. Properties get bought and sold and paperwork gets lost. There has never been a 'PROOF HAS BEEN PROVIDED' option regarding the existence of insulation. The original EPCs used a balance of probability approach. New EPCs demand absolute proof. Taking core samples to prove the existence of insulation would compromise the integrity of the insulation and vapour barrier so isn't a desirable option. All forms of electric heating score really poorly. What was the point of Lot 20 if it isn't recognised in the EPC assessment? If good heating controls and programmers boost the score for properties heated with gas central heating why isn't the same true for similar electric heating controls? EPCs suggest a very limited number of improvements to increase the EPC score. We need a full list of potential improvements and how much they will improve the score by. Some work can be easily done with tenants in situ, such as roof insulation, water cylinder jackets, solar panels or double glazing. Other work such as solid floor insulation or internal wall insulation can only be done to empty properties so would involve evicting the tenant. Some of the suggested work couldn't be done to leasehold, listed or conservation area properties. If it is assumed the roof is uninsulated why isn't roof insulation suggested as a possible improvement? Solid floor insulation is the first thing listed on several of my EPCs but only raises the score by one or two points and would require me to evict the tenants. Solar panels cost about the same and increase the score by between 7 and 10 points. A jacket for the hot water cylinder also raises the score by between 1 and 7 points (depending which EPC report I look at) and costs less than £20. Same with low energy light bulbs. So give us a full list of options and allow us to pick the most realistic ones for our properties. Be very cautious about recommendations that require us to evict our tenants.

From: Jo Westlake 20 December 2021 09:01 AM

To illustrate how ridiculous the EPC scores are I have the following 2 houses. My home is a detached house, built in 2004 with solar panels and an EPC rating of B90 occupied by me and my husband. One of my rental properties is a detached house, built in 1951 with a flat roof and an EPC rating of D63 occupied by 3 young professionals. Bills are included in the rent. I found gas and electric bills for both properties from 6 years ago, took the readings and averaged the consumption of both houses for the 6 year period. That allows for tenant changes and different usage, etc so should be more indicative than a shorter time frame. My house averages 2930KW electric and 14300KW gas per year. The rental averages 2567KW electric and 11175KW gas per year. The EPC on the older rental property is so bad because the assessor assumed the flat roof is uninsulated. Apparently it doesn't matter that in reality it uses far less gas and electric than a property with a much better EPC score.

From: Jo Westlake 17 December 2021 21:30 PM

I don't think buying an extra piece of furniture and a few cushions can really be classed as decorating the landlords property.

From: Jo Westlake 14 December 2021 09:43 AM

Why are houses deemed to be unsafe or fail the standards for a decent home? Were they safe and complied with whatever the standards were when the tenant moved in? Is this problem partly due to the government moving the goalposts mid tenancy? Are some of the issues due to how the tenant chooses to live? For example overcrowding because the tenant hopes the Council will provide social housing if they have another baby. Or mould due to condensation because they refuse to heat or ventilate the property properly. Can these homes be brought up to today's required standards without evicting the tenant? How does carrying out substantial improvement works with a tenant in situ sit with the tenancy agreement condition of allowing quiet enjoyment of the property? If the tenant is evicted through no fault of their own doesn't the Local Authority have a duty to house them? Has the LA got access to safe, compliant housing in which to rehouse these people?

From: Jo Westlake 14 December 2021 09:33 AM

There may also be the rogue ones who terrorise their neighbourhood with anti social behaviour. I don't imagine many of their neighbours would support a winter eviction ban. As you say good tenants are at very little risk of being evicted.

From: Jo Westlake 13 December 2021 08:10 AM

When a deposit is protected I was under the impression the deposit company emails the tenant to tell them it has been protected. There is a way of tenants checking with the deposit companies to see if their deposit is still protected throughout their tenancy. When the landlord notifies the deposit company the tenancy is going into a Statutory Periodic the deposit company emails both landlord and tenant to tell them. In this era of paperless admin and lowering our carbon footprint is driving all over the place with bits of paper to sign, which are only duplicating all those emails really a good idea? I do it but it does seem incredibly environmentally unsound.

From: Jo Westlake 13 December 2021 08:02 AM

Over the last 10 years I have bought 4 properties for people who either were homeless or who had had a Section 21 served and were soon to become homeless. In one case I bought the 4 bedroom house they were already living in. For the others I bought one or two bed flats or houses close to where they work. Those 3 properties are all at or below Housing Benefit level rent. I'm very proud of the fact these people now have long term secure housing in locations they want to live in. I had hoped to do more of that type of letting but the eviction ban has put a stop to it. Although I have never needed to evict anyone it used to be nice to know I could. On rentals at that price point the margins are too small to be able to risk an eviction taking over a year.

From: Jo Westlake 09 December 2021 09:29 AM

It would be nice if Paragon also offered a product switch rate that reflects the green credentials of some of the properties already on their books. Some of us have been with Paragon for several years and already have houses with A, B or C EPCs. Others will be upgrading their properties to at least a C. A product switch rate that recognises that would go a long way towards proving their commitment to energy efficient housing.

From: Jo Westlake 08 December 2021 06:58 AM

In my experience even when we carry out the recommended improvements the EPC score doesn't improve. The algorithm for EPCs has been changed at some point and assessors are inconsistent with how they input data. With no work being carried out between EPCs one of my properties dropped 11 points. After replacing a roof and insulating it to 2014 standards another house dropped 10 points (because the Building Control certificate didn't specifically say what thickness of Celotex was used the assessor assumed no insulation). Another one had all the recommendations carried out which should have increased the score by 5 points. The score remained the same so it must have lost points elsewhere. Another one was supposed to be C if I replaced the boiler and although I've done exactly as recommended it is still D. Another one increased from E48 to D65. I had replaced the hot water cylinder but the main reason was because the first assessor hadn't spotted the cavity wall insulation. How can we have any confidence whatsoever in EPCs when there is no consistency in the assessment process? If we make the recommended improvements and still don't get the expected score what then? The recommendations are often insane anyway. The EPC will state it's assumed there's no roof insulation so the recommendation is to insulate the solid floor???? No mention of doing anything about the roof or how many points that would give. We are often powerless to carry out the recommendations if the property is leasehold, listed or in a conservation area. We need a complete list of how many points every single improvement would make to the score (not just the 4 or 5 things they currently list). Maybe a complete list of everything including those things we already get full marks for so we don't replace things unnecessarily. So if it is assumed the roof is uninsulated how many points would a new insulated roof give us, would new heating controls give us any extra or do we already have the maximum score, etc.l

From: Jo Westlake 04 December 2021 18:20 PM

I think we need a bit longer to see how things really look. September was hectic but that's not unusual. The rest of 2021 was patchy. At the start of the year it was really hard to let rooms. Rooms that normally go within a few days were empty for 2 or 3 months. The summer trundled along in an unspectacular fashion. September was insane. Very high number of enquiries but a very large number of them didn't seem to have read the advert. The last room I let was about 3 weeks ago and the level of enquiries didn't seem to be much different to normal.

From: Jo Westlake 02 December 2021 09:51 AM

Just think how much tax the government would rake in if they brought back taper relief or lowered CGT to something sensible like 5%. Firstly some CGT on all the sales that would actually happen instead of a notional 28% that most of us decide not to pay because we keep our houses instead of selling them. Then all the SDLT on all the extra property purchasing that a boosted supply would generate. Then VAT on all the estate agent and conveyancing fees. Then extra income tax and National Insurance on all the extra jobs created for tradespeople due to people wanting to make alterations to the houses they have just bought. Then even more extra income tax and NI on the extra jobs created to supply materials for these alterations.

From: Jo Westlake 02 December 2021 09:30 AM

We need a full menu of how many points each improvement will give us so we can work out what is possible or desirable. Some work is pretty much impossible in a tenanted property. Solid floor insulation or internal wall insulation would be a nightmare. Other work has approximately no inconvenience factor for tenants, such as solar photovoltaic panels or modern heating controls. The current way just a few measures are listed takes no account of what is legally possible. Leasehold properties can only have certain works done if the freeholder permits it. Listed or conservation area buildings can't have anything out of character.

From: Jo Westlake 02 December 2021 05:20 AM

It doesn't say why those people are homeless or about to be made homeless. My guess is that it's largely due to half baked government policies rather than the more traditional reasons. Landlords being prohibited from renting out properties that score F or G on the EPC would be one reason. The ludicrously low UC paid to single unemployed adults is another. No financial support for landlords during the pandemic while encouraging tenants to demand rent payment holidays. Far too many people excluded from furlough payments or any other financial support while the government had prohibited them from working. These were government failings. Collectively they have made being a landlord feel very precarious. Very few landlords evict good tenants unless they absolutely have to. Even landlords who have never evicted a tenant have found the total inability to be able to evict to be hugely stressful and has certainly stopped me from expanding my portfolio. I'm only one landlord but over the last 10 years I have bought 4 properties specifically for people who were homeless or had had Section 21 notices served on them because previous landlords wanted to sell. In one case I bought the house they were already living in. For the others I bought properties within walking distance to their work that could be viable at LHA level rent. Unfortunately 2 of those properties only score D on the EPC so it may be that at least one of those tenants will become homeless again purely because of a half baked government policy. I truly hope not.

From: Jo Westlake 30 November 2021 10:02 AM

Robert - Thank you for saying so. Doug - You're welcome to help yourself to any bits you want.

From: Jo Westlake 29 November 2021 15:56 PM

I'm not sure we need stimulus as such but we certainly need clarity, consistency and an end to the constantly moving goal posts. We need a fast effective way to evict tenants who breach their tenancy agreements. Anti social behaviour or persistent non payment of rent should entitle landlords to a rapid recovery of their property. As a long term landlord I have never needed to evict a tenant and hope I never will but the recent ban on evictions has been extremely concerning and has prevented me from buying any more rental properties. I would be perfectly happy to compensate a tenant who has fully adhered to their side of the tenancy agreement if I ever had to evict one purely because I decided I wanted to sell the property. The EPC situation needs sorting. The lack of consistency in the assessments is a major concern. Just because a property currently has a C rating doesn't mean it still will next time it is assessed. Two of my properties dropped 10 points from one assessment to the next. How is that even possible? Work is being recommended in EPCs that we have no legal right to carry out especially in leasehold, listed or conservation area properties. In recent years mortgage rates for portfolio landlords have become much higher than for inexperienced landlords. How is that in any way beneficial for tenants or lenders? A portfolio landlord is more likely to be aware of and comply with housing law and far less likely to suddenly decide being a landlord wasn't quite as easy as they thought and sell up thereby making their tenants homeless. If a landlord has one property and the tenant doesn't pay the lender has a problem. If a portfolio landlord has a tenant who doesn't pay they can usually cover the mortgage on that property from elsewhere in their portfolio. It makes no sense that we are being treated as high risk. Or is it just blatant profiteering by the lenders? The fact it is done on the number of mortgages not the overall level of borrowing or portfolio LTV makes no sense. We need a retirement exit route. A great many of us bought 20 years ago when taper relief existed with the intention of selling up when we wanted to retire. BTL was an alternative to a conventional pension without the benefit of tax relief. The abolition of taper relief has left us with a problem. If we sell we pay astronomical amounts of CGT, the remaining money goes into our estate and if we die too soon (before we have spent it or given it away) gets hit with IHT as well. If we don't sell we never get to retire. We have already paid huge amounts of SDLT when we buy, VAT on just about everything and income tax on our profit. As that profit is classed as unearned income we have been prevented from paying it into a pension and enjoying the tax relief people working in just about every other industry receive. A return of taper relief on the rate of CGT would probably be the best stimulus the industry could have while also providing long term stability for tenants. It would encourage younger landlords to buy and hold long term and allow older landlords to sell before infirmity or dementia kicks in thus creating huge amounts of SDLT and VAT on all the sales and transaction costs. Obviously we could have bought as a limited company and minimised the CGT issue but how many of us knew 20 years ago how the BTL thing was going to pan out? Most of us struggled to buy our first property, then managed to get a second one and then it snowballed. Every time we come up with a strategy the goal posts get moved.

From: Jo Westlake 29 November 2021 10:25 AM

No one actually knows how many properties are really in any EPC band. The EPC register only shows a report done on a specific day at some point in the last 10 years by an assessor who may or may not have been in any way competent. It is entirely possible that a different assessor would have come up with a score at least 10 points different. Three of my properties have had this situation. With no work being carried out between assessments one changed from F25 to G14. Another from D57 to E47 and another from E48 to D63. These discrepancies can only be because one or both assessor didn't do their job properly. Until there is consistency in the standard of assessment EPCs have very little credibility. While some landlords may be unwilling to make improvements other are more than happy to. Without consistency in the EPC scores or a full menu of improvements to choose from we're working completely blind. Also we are highly unlikely to pay for a new EPC until we absolutely have to so a great many properties showing as D or E will have already had sufficient improvements to put them at least one band higher.

From: Jo Westlake 25 November 2021 17:15 PM

All I can say is Bulb customers should consider themselves very, very fortunate. The rest of us have large credit balances still being held by other failed suppliers, have been dumped onto companies we wouldn't have chosen, had our tariff nearly doubled, have the new suppliers starting to demand payments and now find that as tax payers we are paying out to support Bulb customers enjoy a seamless transition to whatever the future energy market looks like. I include utilities for 8 HMOs and had supplies with PFP, Green, Avro, Symbio and Neon Reef. Not only have I got substantial credit balances on the accounts that were still live when the companies failed I also have credit balances and late payment fines on 4 accounts I shut several months ago. Plus an up front 3 month deposit that PFP were supposed to refund 6 months ago and for some reason never showed on my account, plus about £150 worth of referral bonus that Neon Reef never paid. So again I say lucky, lucky Bulb customers.

From: Jo Westlake 23 November 2021 07:21 AM

Until the EPC assessments are consistent landlords have no way of knowing what's best to do to improve their properties. Now most properties are on their second EPC the inconsistencies are very apparent. The first EPCs over 10 years ago made a list of recommendations to improve the EPC score. In a great many cases even if all those improvements have been carried out the EPC will still be several points lower than promised. Too many assumptions have been made. The original EPCs tended to assume insulation existed if the heating bills and general condition of the property indicated it probably did. The more recent assessments tend to assume it doesn't exist unless there is documentary or photographic evidence of it's existence. As much of it was installed several years before EPCs were invented by companies that no longer exist how are we supposed to provide the required evidence? Cutting inspection holes may be an option in some buildings but in others would be problematic especially if there is a suspicion asbestos may be present. It could also damage the performance of the insulation or the roof. The list of recommendations is often incomplete and totally bizarre. Several of mine recommend solid floor installation at a cost of £4000 to £6000 to increase the EPC by 1 point. They eventually get to solar photovoltaics at a cost of about £5000 which would increase the EPC by about 10 points. None of them suggest more loft insulation (even if they've said it only has 75mm) or installing a warm roof (when they've assumed the existing flat roof is uninsulated). We need a full menu of all options with exactly how many points each option is worth. Some of the recommended improvements can only be done if we evict our tenants, others cause minimal inconvenience such as a new roof or solar panels. We also need it to be illegal for assessors to change previously made assumptions without absolute proof that those assumptions were wrong. It shouldn't be down to us to spend thousands of pounds and potentially damage our properties to prove exactly how many millimetres of roof insulation exists just because the assessors have changed their minds.

From: Jo Westlake 22 November 2021 08:30 AM

Will money we have already spent on improving our EPCs be counted as part of the £10000 or will we have to spend another £10000 on top? For example I bought a flat last year with EPC G14 and have had double glazing, under floor insulation in part of it, low energy lighting and a Quantum night storage heater installed which has brought it up to a low D.

From: Jo Westlake 11 November 2021 13:58 PM

The goalposts keep moving. There is no consistency with EPC scores or the ability of assessors. The assessment algorithm has been changed hugely over the years. Even if you carry out all the recommendations on your original EPC it may not improve the score. One of mine was C73 in March 2011 when I bought it with potential to be C78 if it had low energy light bulbs, better heating controls and a new boiler. It now has all those things and the new EPC is still C73. Another one was D57 in December 2008 with potential to be C70 if I had cavity wall insulation, upgraded heating controls and a new boiler. In 2015 it was reassessed when I applied for subsidised cavity wall insulation and found to be E47. To get to C71 it's saying I need cavity wall insulation (done), floor insulation, new boiler (done), solar water heating and solar photovoltaic panels. Never mind the fact the roof is too small, overshadowed and oriented the wrong way for solar to be viable. It isn't suggesting far more practical measures such as upgraded heating controls or better dormer roof insulation even though it has assumed no roof or loft insulation whatsoever. It may be coincidence in my case but it seems to depend on who the assessor is linked to as to what improvements are recommended. Those who come via solar panel or subsidised insulation companies seem to recommend floor insulation and solar panels as the route to an improved EPC while more independent assessors seem to recommend replacing the boiler (unless it's only a couple of years old) or installing one if it's all electric. If gas boilers are going to be phased out the EPC needs to change on how it rates different types of electric heating. Why was Lot 20 brought in if the EPCs don't recognise it? There is a huge difference in a two bar electric fire with an on/ off switch and a modern electric heater with a timer, thermostat, 7 day programmer and app controls. Now this has become so important we need a full list of improvements to pick from and their impact on our EPC score. We need to be able to easily and freely contest the discrepancies between EPCs. We need a full explanation of why an EPC score has been downgraded including how many points each issue has dropped. Why in my first example after carrying out 5 points worth of improvements had my EPC not risen? What had caused it to lose 5 points elsewhere? Instead of assumptions regarding insulation we need alternatives such as how much the heating bills are. In an HMO where the landlord pays the bills and the tenants control the heating programmer it would be pretty safe to assume the roof is insulated if the bills aren't sky high.

From: Jo Westlake 10 November 2021 09:35 AM

The requirement of absolute proof needs to be changed. On the original EPCs around 13 years ago assessors tended to go with likely assumptions especially for roof insulation. Now because they are terrified of being audited they insist on unreasonable levels of proof. For example two of my houses have flat roofs. The original EPCs assumed they had some insulation. The most recent EPCs assume no insulation. One of them was replaced by the Council sometime in the 1980s so we have no idea how much insulation was put in then. We had the felt replaced in 2004 with EPDM and 25mm of Celotex was added on top of the old roof then. No idea why it was only 25mm but it was what the roofer recommended. I have vague memories of him taking up a small piece of the roof deck and checking what was under it but nothing was put in writing. The other one has 120mm of Celotex on it. I have photos of it being installed and a Building Control certificate saying it conforms to the required standards in 2014. Because BC didn't mention the thickness of Celotex, the invoice doesn't mention the thickness and the roofer wasn't holding a tape measure when he took the photos the EPC assumes the roof is uninsulated. Same problem with underfloor insulation and internal wall insulation. It often exists but we don't have written or photographic evidence of exactly how much or which products were used. Now EPC scores are so crucial should we be looking at suing assessors when they make incorrect assumptions? Previously it was just annoying, now their errors could cost us a fortune.

From: Jo Westlake 05 November 2021 08:11 AM

Until there is consistency in the EPC assessments it's all meaningless. I bought a renovation project a couple of years ago with an EPC of F25. I got my regular assessor to come round to advise on how best to improve the EPC and he started by carrying out his own assessment which came out to be G14. How is it even possible for the result to be so different? One of my HMOs was assessed in 2008 and deemed to be D57. The recommendations said if I installed cavity wall insulation, better heating controls and a new boiler it would be C70. I applied for subsidised cavity wall insulation in 2015. To get the subsidy they started by doing a new EPC which came out at E47. Again how is it possible for two assessors to disagree so much?The recommendations said to get to C71 I would need cavity wall insulation, insulation for the solid ground floor, a new boiler, solar water heating and solar photovoltaic panels. I have no idea how that property scores right now as it seems to be a complete waste of money paying for such inconsistent flawed assessments. To do the floor insulation would probably mean evicting or temporarily rehousing 6 tenants. I had it assessed for solar and was told the roof was too small, over shadowed and oriented the wrong way. It is still on the register as E47. However, since 2008 it has had cavity wall insulation, a new roof with up to date levels of insulation, a new boiler and new heating controls. Around the country there must be tens of thousands of properties that have had loads of improvements since the last EPC assessment was carried out but haven't had a new assessment done yet. Who is going to shell out another £50+ for a bit of paper saying they have done enough of the recommendations on their EPC when there is a risk a new assessment will knock a few more points off the score and recommend even more outlandish work is carried out?

From: Jo Westlake 04 November 2021 09:05 AM

If the EPC assessments were in any way accurate rather than being full of assumptions I would agree with the above comments. However, the reality is that assumptions are made and change from one EPC to the next. An ex Council House we own has a flat roof which the Council replaced at some point before my husband bought it. The EPC 10 years ago assumed it was insulated. The one this year assumes it's uninsulated. We don't know which assumption is correct and the Council don't seem to know either. If the roof is uninsulated the house is D. If it's insulated it's C. A thermal imaging drone should resolve that specific situation.

From: Jo Westlake 23 October 2021 12:46 PM

If EPCs were consistent and credible it would help. Ten years ago it was assumed the flat roof on one of my houses was insulated. This year it's assumed it isn't. I don't know for sure how much insulation is in it and it would be very invasion to find out. Another EPC said the cavity walls were uninsulated even though the drill holes were clearly visible. Another one was a renovation project with an EPC of F25. My regular assessor came round to advise on how best to improve it and started by carrying out his own assessment. He made it G14. How is such a big difference even possible?

From: Jo Westlake 22 October 2021 20:21 PM

The danger of this idea is that low income families with low paid dead end jobs (commonly known as essential workers) and UC top ups would work as little as possible or stop working to ensure that they were deemed to be poor enough to qualify for social housing. Once in their social housing they would do sufficiently little to ensure they stayed poor enough to retain the house. A better idea would be for social rents to be at least LHA level. The security of tenure alone means it's probably worth more than that and on new builds should be midway between LHA and market rent as the utility bills will be lower. Then social housing providers could afford to buy or build more housing. It wouldn't matter what someone's earnings were. There wouldn't be a disincentive to take promotions or apply for better jobs. People earning decent money shouldn't get subsidised rent but equally they shouldn't face eviction just because they work hard. The retirement market is a different ballgame and there is a desperate need for subsidised retirement social housing. That alone would free up significant amounts of family size social housing.

From: Jo Westlake 19 October 2021 11:51 AM

For new build properties I can see that heat pumps or district heating schemes at least theoretically make sense. For older properties the cost of retro fitting and upgrading floor and wall insulation sufficiently is huge. In leasehold properties it will often be impossible as the freeholder won't give consent. If the insulation has to be upgraded anyway wouldn't a combination of modern night storage heaters and highly controllable Lot 20 electric heaters plus a well insulated hot water cylinder make more sense as a retro fit for small to medium size properties? The installation costs would be a fraction of the cost of a heat pump installation. Used properly the running costs wouldn't be much higher than a gas system if all costs of a gas system are factored in (standing charge, gas boiler servicing and repairs, boiler replacement every 12 years). The historic problems with night storage heaters have largely been resolved. Originally people installed too many in the wrong rooms in uninsulated houses with massive single glazed windows. A Quantum night storage heater in the lounge and possibly one in the hallway plus timed thermostatically controlled heaters in other rooms and large low wattage towel radiators in the bathroom and kitchen would be a reasonable set up. I have similar set ups in 3 of my properties and as long as the night storage heaters are used properly the other heaters only come on for a few minutes now and then.

From: Jo Westlake 19 October 2021 11:20 AM

Using a credit card gives Section 75 protection against faulty goods or workmanship. It may also give loyalty points or cashback.

From: Jo Westlake 13 October 2021 11:19 AM

How are landlords supposed to know how much their tenants earn? We might know how much they earned before they moved in if we referenced them but that's likely to be distant history.

From: Jo Westlake 28 September 2021 10:46 AM

Arrears should have massively reduced. The LHA level was increased so it actually came close to fully covering some rents. Low paid essential workers worked as many hours as they wanted throughout the pandemic and in some cases had pay rises or bonuses to reflect their efforts. Anyone furloughed could both receive their furlough pay and go and get another job in a supermarket, warehouse, etc so be on double pay. Everything was shut so there were limited opportunities to waste money.

From: Jo Westlake 14 September 2021 09:59 AM

There is very little correlation between EPC ratings and energy bills. It's far more down to the willingness of the tenants to engage with understanding the heating controls and the importance of ventilation. A property I have with an EPC of E with a night storage heater in the hallway, an old gas fire in the lounge and electric (timed and thermostatic) heaters in bedrooms and bathrooms has far lower bills than some of my EPC B rated properties. That's purely because the tenants understand how best to use the various different heat sources to best effect.

From: Jo Westlake 03 September 2021 18:14 PM

The main things tenants are interested in are location and how much the rent is. Living in a house that is close to work, family and chosen leisure activities will do far more for their carbon footprint than a few extra points on an EPC. Learning how to use their heating programmer and the importance of ventilation would save them a noticeable amount of money.

From: Jo Westlake 02 September 2021 10:48 AM

It's hard enough to find properties where the rent can be sufficient to satisfy the lenders mortgage stress testing requirements. We often have to put in 40% or 50% deposits to make the numbers work for the lender.

From: Jo Westlake 02 September 2021 08:39 AM

Homeowners who install EPC friendly stuff in their own homes have a financial cost and suffer some inconvenience while the work is being done. How can it be done in tenanted properties with no installation inconvenience?

From: Jo Westlake 17 August 2021 13:34 PM

The EPC assessors are a huge problem. I bought a renovation property last year that had had an EPC so it could be sold. That assessor scored it as F24. My regular assessor came round to advise on how best to get it to an acceptable standard and started by doing an assessment. He made it G14. How is it even possible for that great a difference?

From: Jo Westlake 16 August 2021 21:14 PM

I'm always surprised by the tariffs tenants choose. Very few seem to change supplier or switch to a new deal when the original one runs out. Some refuse to use direct debits and often end up paying about £300 more than they could. The few who do change supplier often go with one they have used previously regardless of how much they charge.

From: Jo Westlake 28 June 2021 20:18 PM

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