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Vanessa Warwick

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my expertise in the industry

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It's unfortunate that the emotionally charged word "hiked" is used here. The emotional rhetoric is not helpful when discussing the issue of rent rises imho. Most landlords, as evidenced above, don't put up rents for good tenants, or just put rents up a little bit each year. In my case, I generally put rents up when a new tenancy starts. Government policies that slim landlord margins are responsible for rent increases anyway - landlords can only operate at market rents, they cannot over-egg them as so many media like to suggest. In any business, when the costs rise and/or margins slim, the cost of the service has to increase in line with that. It's simple economics which the government seems to struggle to understand!

From: Vanessa Warwick 31 October 2023 09:16 AM

Yes Michael, I know all about the history of iHowz, being a member, and also working with them on a number of projects including video production and when they re-branded. My comment was regards to numbers. The NRLA has around 100K members, but iHowz membership is much smaller - that was all my comment was related to - the membership numbers. I think iHowz do a good job, and I fully support all their campaigns. We regularly catch up with them on Property Tribes TV. You can find numerous interviews with iHowz on the Property Tribes youtube channel. :)

From: Vanessa Warwick 27 October 2023 19:24 PM

The NRLA are the biggest landlord association by membership by far and have a strong communications policy. There are smaller landlord associations like iHowz and also regional landlord associations, but they do not appear to have such a coherent communications strategy.

From: Vanessa Warwick 27 October 2023 11:52 AM

I was there and Gove said that they would not be repealing Section 24, but they were looking at other measures to help landlords on the taxation front. Unsurprisingly, he failed to give any details. Gove, like any politician, was very skilled at answering questions without actually giving an answer, and also pandering to the audience. It was a masterful display!

From: Vanessa Warwick 27 October 2023 11:49 AM

For those who are interested, you can view my interview with Ben Beadle of the NRLA, unpacking Gove's comments at the Conference on PropertyTribes website.

From: Vanessa Warwick 27 October 2023 11:47 AM

I was actually at the Conference and Ben pressed Michael Gove as hard as anyone could imho. The NRLA is not an advertising partner of Property Tribes, so get your facts straight before casting aspersions please. We support their work and encourage landlords to join, but that is the extent of the relationship.

From: Vanessa Warwick 27 October 2023 11:44 AM

Phil Spencer hosted a debate on this topic on his MoveiQ youtube channel with Timothy Douglas from PropertyMark and myself. Search on "Landlords Selling up in 2023 | UK Renting".

From: Vanessa Warwick 15 May 2023 12:19 PM

The word "social" really should be in the headline as this story reflects badly on private sector landlords. What about family, friends, and neighbours not having any concerns for this poor gentleman? What about post not being collected? There must be so many indicators that something is wrong - yet no one cared enough to do anything about it. This is a very sad story about society today on many levels.

From: Vanessa Warwick 15 May 2023 12:15 PM

This is a great outcome for responsible landlords! Bravo to all the legal bods involved. Rent to Rent is causing significant consumer lossess and the Rent to Renter can just walk away if the agreement fails. I have heard many instances of deposits not being protected and being kept by the Rent to Renter at the end of the tenancy, tenants being charged a fee for “taking” the room, and, most commonly, the Rent to Renter holding on to the rent and not passing it on to the landlord and then disappearing. I’ve also heard of a bizarre business model where the Rent to Renter sources a suitable property and charges an “investor” a fee for the deal, and also gets the investor to refurb the property in return for a share of the R2R margin. This is very dangerous to the investor as they are paying for to refurb a property they do not own and start out in a negative cash flow position that they may never regain. There are also Rent to Renter deal sourcers who take fees for non-existent deals and then disappear. A lot of these Rent to Renters appear to emanate from property “get rich quick” training courses where they are sold a dream of not needing any money to get involved in property, which, as we all know, is a complete fallacy. These property trainers are turning out hundreds of Rent to Renters every month who do not have the finanical position to offer “guaranteed rent”, and who are not experienced enough to run a compliant tenancy, thereby putting landlords and tenants at risk. Most of them are just naive people who bite off more than they can chew, but some of them see the easy money and get a taste for defrauding landlords and tenants. I know of one Rent to Rent deal sourcer who has £17K of unsatisfied CCJs in both his personal name and administratively delinquent company name and has caused about £30K of investor losses that I am aware of, but he’s just started a new company and is carrying on un-checked. The property trainers make millions from selling Rent to Rent courses, which enables them to use legal threats and action to shut down public interest commentary, one of the only things that currently creates awareness of the risks of illegitmate Rent to Rent arrangements. We have one case being discussed on Property Tribes where the landord’s name was put on the ASTs for the sub-let, but the Rent to Renter wants to use the landlord’s name for court documents for rent arrears! A legitimate R2R arrangement is a management contract, not AST’s and, as the Rent to Renter guaranteed the rent, they are responsible for rental arrears and evictions, not the landlord. If Rent to Rent is regulated, which seems to be on the cards, then this will have a knock-on impact to the property training sector, as they won’t be able to market it to vulnerable and naive people. As many of you know, I have been fighting for regulation of the wealth creation industry for many years and am now being sued for my trouble. If you want to support the work I do, please consider donating to my CrowdJustice fund which you can find on CrowdJustice by searching the name Samuel Leeds.

From: Vanessa Warwick 02 March 2023 12:17 PM

It's really quite irreponsible and inappropriate to provide this kind of information on how landlords can get more rental income WITHOUT mentioning the downsides to renting out on a room by room basis. This has a number of implications including being a breach of mortgage conditions (assuming the landlords has one), a breach of insurance T & Cs, potentially a breach of the lease if it is an apartment, and not to mention potentially creating an HMO that will require safety and compiance upgrades and possibly licensing. No mention of this being a "bills included" strategy even though the media is filled with stories of soaring energy costs! Unfortunately, this article just plays into the narrative of the "get rich quick" property gurus who encourage inexperienced people to undertake Rent to Rent arrangements by letting a whole dwelling and then sub-letting the rooms for a greater profit. It all sounds great in theory and the theoretical numbers looks great on paper - but reality is altogether different and many people - landlords, tenants, and Rent to Renters lose money in these kind of arrangements imho. Anything that looks too good to be true in property generally turns out to be. Caveat emptor as always.

From: Vanessa Warwick 06 January 2023 13:15 PM

To be accurate, it's only bad news for landlords who have mortgages on standard variable rates. I would imagine the vast majority of landlords have fixed rates, and many have no mortgages at all, so this will not concern them. I have a mid-sized BTL portfolio, and I only have 3 mortgages on SVRs. I'm currently re-mortgaging those to 5 year fixed rates. This rise will only hurt landlords who do not take action to get away from SVRs.

From: Vanessa Warwick 04 August 2022 12:22 PM

Some of you may be aware, that, for my stance of calling out false claims, I am now being sued in the High Court by a well-known property trainer who was subject of a BBC undercover investigation in 2020. I have asked the public to assist with my legal bills by starting a CrowdJustice funding page. Unfortunately, I cannot post links but if you write to me at vanessawarwick (at) icloud (dot) com , I will send you the link so that you can make a donation. Thank you to anyone who can support me in my legal fight.

From: Vanessa Warwick 12 July 2022 07:52 AM

Thank you to the company who undertook this research. It's so vital to highlight the unregulated nature of property training and the "advice" that property trainers give. It can often lead to the person being in a worse financial situation than when they started out in the training. I am particularly concerned when property trainers claim that you need little or no money to get involved in property investment. It's extremely misleading. Property is an expensive asset to purchase, maintain, and also keep compliant for a tenant's safety. If you use "control" strategies like Rent to Rent and Lease Options - much of the same applies. Let's work the numbers. You purchase a course for £12K and you end up getting a Rent to Rent property that delivers £300.00 per month net cash flow. At that rate, it would take you over 3 years just to get your £12K back and be in the same financial position that you started out! Many property trainers make huge claims about their wealth and success, and the kind of returns that can be made from their property strategies, which often cannot be verified. Even the most basic due diligence - like putting their name into google - would help people find their way to resources that would help them decide if the trainer was legitimate. The trouble is that these social media platforms are generally frequented by young, vulnerable, and naive people who don't know how to do due diligence and also take everything at face value - many being desperate to improve their lot in life. They do not stand a chance against the seductive, alluring, and sophisticated marketing techniques used by these trainers. Every week I am contacted by distraught people who realise they've been "had" and are in a worse financial position than before they met the trainer. As the sector is unregulated, there are very few routes of redress to get your money back. If you must pay for training, put it on a credit card, as you are then protected by Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act and may be able to get a refund via your bank. If you are a victim of a property trainer, feel free to get in touch with me. I will always do what I can to assist. But, as with everything in life, prevention is better than cure. Don't fall for promises of easy riches in property with little or no money. You'll be buying what amounts to be a ticket to see a Unicorn.

From: Vanessa Warwick 12 July 2022 07:46 AM

This article fails to address some important points concerning this activity: 1. If you have a BTL mortgage on your property, it would be a breach of T & C's to undertake short term lettings. 2. If your property is leasehold, it is likely that this activity will be a breach of the T & C's of your lease and other leaseholders will complain about strangers coming and going and may report this to the freeholder. 3. If you have standard single occupancy BTL insurance, then this would be voided by this activity. Letting out to "guests" as opposed to tenants comes with a whole new set of compliance issues and anyone contemplating this would be advised to understand these, along with the risks and pitfalls. Whilst the headline rates look attractive, digging down into the granular detail is always advised.

From: Vanessa Warwick 08 March 2019 11:40 AM

For clarification, Chris Cooper and Steve Bolton, who started the Tenant Tax campaign, are nothing whatsoever to do with this new landlord association.

From: Vanessa Warwick 10 October 2018 13:03 PM

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