The importance of paperwork….any paperwork

Increasingly I am seeing more and more tenants come to me with letters, not notices, from their landlord claiming there are thousands owed in unpaid rents.

The tenants, of course are adamant that they have paid in full and on time, but the landlord, when asked are unable to produce a full statement of account from the commencement of the tenancy to date.

The main problem is landlords and tenants fail to keep the arrangement business-like and fall fowl of agreeing to accept/pay rent by cash, not getting a receipt or a landlord may agree to let a tenant off one month due to repairs or such like, but fails to clarify this in writing then years down the line cant recall the agreement.

From the moment a tenancy starts and you receive the first month rent and deposit, you should start to keep track of these funds, even if it is nothing more than an excel spreadsheet.

If it can be avoided, don’t accept cash but if you do always always issue a receipt and note down that it was received in cash.

I recently had a case where a landlord had claimed over £8k was owed in unpaid rent from the date the tenant moved in in 2007, there was no record of the rent due/paid and after a strongly worded email the landlord finally sent me a hand written rental account, however after spending hours trawling through the tenants bank statements I managed to account for nearly £5k of these alleged unpaid months.

As the tenants was unable to prove the remaining £3k the landlord proceeded to court, and as I’m sure you can all predict, the judge didn’t even entertain the case as the landlord could not provide proof the rent had not been paid.

The moral of this story is, make sure you always keep accurate records no matter how simple, because it could mean the difference between winning and losing in court.

When is a Section 21 not a Section 21........ when it doesnt say it is

Over the last few weeks i have seen a startling increase in the number of tenants coming to me with notices given to them by their landlord which are actually invalid and Ihave had the task of writing to all of these landlords to tell them they will now have to serve another 2 months notice.

The problem is, these landlord seem to think all they need to do is write their tenant a short letter asking them to leave in 2 months time......WRONG

if your tenant is on an Assured Shorthold tenancy then you need to serve the correct notice which in the absence of a breach of tenancy will be a section 21 notice.

The reason these notices are invalid is because nowhere in them does it state that possession is required under section 21 of the Housing Act 1988.

The section number and Act are important because if you need to apply to the court for possession the judge will know which grounds, why and what procedure should have been followed in order for the judge to make an order of possession or in some cases to not grant an order at all.

So in these cases I have written to the landlord explaining the error and advising that if they  still wish the tenant to leave, then they will need to serve a valid section 21 notice giving 2 clear months notice to vacate from the date the notice is given, to help further I also include a template Section 21 notice so they can see what it needs to contain.

I admit that my letters have not always met with the gratitude I would have expected and on several occasions I have received rather abusive phone calls from these landlords

Serving a section 21 is basic landlord admin and should not be proving such a problem, I can understand that landlords may wish to keep outgoings low but cutting out the agent, but in these cases it may actually end up costing a landlord much more, if their tenant allows them to go to court only for the possession claim to be thrown out and the landlord is left to pay the court fee, which I am sure would be much higher than the cost of an agent or membership to one of the many Landlord associations around the country that will have a template Section 21 notice ready for you to just fill in the blanks.

So come on Landlords, get your finger out and do your research and PLEASE serve your notices correctly

I refer to an article by Paul Shamplina which revealed over 62% of landlord notices are incorrect.

http://www.property118.com/landlord-action-study-landlords-notices/66672/

Dear letting agents & Landlords.... Please know your tenants rights

Dear letting agents & landlords,

I would just like to mention that just because you own/manage a property, does not give you carte blanch to behave in anyway YOU feel fit

 When a tenant signs an assured shorthold tenancy, this means that you have given them, in law exclusive possession, clearly not many of you know what exactly this means....

It means that the tenant can exclude ANYONE including YOU!!!

This means that you must give the tenant notice if you wish to enter the property, if they say no, then no means no!  It doesnt mean turn up anyway and let yourself in, it doesnt mean enter the property when the tenant is out, it doesnt mean come to the property and weed the garden

And letting agents, you cannot put clauses in your tenancy agreement saying you can conduct viewings in the last month of the tenancy, you have no legal right to do this and you are
1) in breach of the tenancy agreement 2) you have committed an offence by inserting an unfair clause in the agreement that is adverse to the law of entering a property and 3) if you do not have the tenants permission to enter the property and you do, you are commiting a crime and the tenants have every right to call the police.

So please be very careful when and how you enter your tenants property.

I am currently dealing with a huge increase of these exact issues and i am coming down very hard on letting agents and landlords.

Know your rights and more importantly know your tenants rights!!

Housing Crisis.......not just a lack of good landlords

As a tenant and a housing adviser it is also good to hear a landlords' side to the "Housing Crisis" and apparently there isn’t one, the real issue is just lazy moany tenants who should be grateful that landlords even exists…. Really?

Is this the reality or am I missing something?........

Both from my daily work and personal experience I know exactly how hard it is to rent a property let alone the unachievable thought of owning my own place.

1st you have to find a property, by this I mean somewhere that is in a half decent area that is on a semi ok level of repair and cleanliness. 2nd if going through an agent you have to find £500+ just to be referenced, although in my case, I paid my fees, was never referenced and told by the agent its up to them if they reference tenants, they don’t have to reference them all, but still charge all applicant the same……interesting 3rd after being (or not being) referenced 9 times out of 10 the agents round here will tell you that you failed referencing for no apparent reason, keep your money and you are back to square 1 If you are lucky enough to get to step 4, then you have to find 6 weeks worth of rent for deposit, 1st months rent and the cost of moving, this is a hell of a lot to find when over 50% of your monthly wage goes on rent alone.

Most tenant stay in a undesirable property just because its all they can afford. Then comes the issue when the landlord puts the rent up, £25-£50 per month may not sound a lot but when you are already pulling your belt in as much as you can to make ends meet this small increase really cant be afforded. So you say you cant make this extra payment and ‘Poof’ appears a section 21 notice… So back you go to step 1 and now with the added pressure of only having two months to do it in.

Most landlords don’t understand how difficult it really is for tenants, they see us as an endless supply of income, I often come across the attitude, “well if you don’t want it 10 others out there will” but will they really??

Rents are higher than the average wage yet landlord insist on charging the highest rents possible and then point the finger at tenants for getting into arrears. Landlords have got it too easy… they can serve notice to have you out of their property with no reason at all, and with no regard for how it will impact on that tenant.

Landlord kick up a fuss when a maintenance issue is reported and immediately blame the tenant for breaking whatever it is I agree that in some cases the eviction process does need to be fast-tracked for people who are constant non-payers of rent.

I don’t agree with S21s being given out like sweets whenever the landlord has the hump. Longer tenancies of 3-5 years and regulated rents will help keep people in homes, there is a huge lack of good standard private rental property out there and even more of a lack of professional landlords.

Superstrike, Strikes again!

Just when we thought it was safe to serve a Section 21, Superstrikes raises its ugly head again, this time in the form of Gardner v McCusker, Birmingham County Court. As we all know the ins and outs of Superstrike Ltd v Rodrigues [2013] I wont bore you all with this, however the bones of this new case simply clarify what we were all wondering. Gardner v McCusker the judge found in favour of the tenant for the following reasons The landlord granted a Fixed Term Tenancy for 6 months, deposit was protected and Prescribed inform was attempted to be given to the tenant. On the Fixed term becoming Periodic, the deposit was seen to be re-received, but was not re-protected and new PI was not issues. Upon receipt of the deposit the obligations under s.213 arose; those obligations included a requirement to serve the prescribed information A section 21 notice was served by the landlord on the tenant. The result of this was that the s.21 notice was invalid and the landlord was liable to pay damages. The court ordered the deposit to be returned to the tenant and damages of 2 times the value of the deposit to be paid (so £1,800 in all). The claimants were to pay the costs of the claim and counterclaim (to be set-off against some rent-arrears and outstanding costs orders from other – earlier – proceedings). Source: http://nearlylegal.co.uk/blog/2014/05/the-tenant-superstrikes-back/

Deposits, Damage, Dilapidations and Delusional Deductions.....

Even after all these years I am still surprised when a see a tenant whose landlord is claiming Delusional Deductions from a deposit. I am even more flabbergasted by the number of private landlords who don’t feel the need to protect said Deposits at all. I still see numbers of section 21 notices served, but soon find out the deposits are not protected and so have to break the bad news to the landlord that he isn’t getting his property back any time soon. More and more landlords are not having inventories done at the start of tenancies then trying to claim for extremely high figured damages that they can’t prove Repairs, or should I say a lack of them seems to be a trend on the increase too with less landlords willing to put their hand in their pocket to pay for obligated maintenance. Just this week I am dealing with a tenant who reported a boiler not working over 3 weeks ago, so far 1 engineer has attended, condemned the boiler and tenant has been without heating and hot water since, with the landlord stating that he isn’t too worried about replacing it now the weather has got warmer!?! Recently I saw a tenant who had been texted by his landlord to tell him that as his mortgage had gone up the landlord would be putting the rent up as per the next rent payment due, but a whopping £200pm. The tenant was 3 months into a 12 month fixed term (no BreakClause) and landlord has told tenant that if he refused then he would wait until tenant left for work and would change the locks. I appreciate this is only a snap shot of what I see and it is also not a true reflection of all landlords, after all, every walk of life has its bad apples, but I do feel that it is a worrying increase of blatantly flouting the law that is there to protect both parties. Will regulating the industry really help stop this type of practice, or will it be that all good landlords will stand up and be counted (and registered) and all not so good stand back a carry on regardless until the law catches up with them. There is now an increasing trend in lifestyle referencing for tenants which I think is a good idea, but where can tenants go to see how a landlord has previously treated his or her tenants? Most tenancy work well with both parties doing what is expected of them, but there are still the problems of landlords and tenants who don’t.

Generation Rent – Have the Germans Got it Right?

As we all still try and work out how much better off we will be from the recent budget we can be forgiven for thinking that the housing market has come off fairly well, but are first time buyers being pushed further and further away from the first rung of the property ladder. For most people, the only alternative to living with parents is to rent, and with the average age of a first time buyer now 42, an increase of 5 years from January 2011, living with mum & dad may have its drawbacks. With increased talk of a change to the eviciton process making it easier for landlords to evict is in contrast to the call for longer standard tenancies. Are we heading towards a generation that is destined to be renters and witnessing the end of a largely British culture of homeownership, the one main goal that our parents worked hard to achieve in their 20s and 30s. Reports show that homeownership is slumping towards its lowest levels since the mid-1980s, Team that with unaffordable house prices even with the Help to Buy scheme, a continuing shortage of housing stock is still the realisation for most, it seems we are set to see an entire generation unable to purchase their own home as their forefathers did. A rise in living standards since the end of the First World War, when only 23% of property was owner-occupied, saw the gradual upwards trend accelerates in the mid-1970′s. This, however is in stark contrast to the now Housing Minister pledged only that the new coalition Government would do everything it could to help would-be buyers. In 2011, Mr Shapps first speech as a minister was certainly rousing. “These people are not asking for a hand-out; they just want a chance”, he declared. ‘The age of aspiration is back!’ On the contrary, the age of aspiration never stopped. However, with an estimated 1.5 million families with children in rented accommodation, it is unlikely that would-be first time buyers will ever see their aspirations realised. Reports have shown that tenant demand reached new heights earlier this year, with over 81,000 new tenants registering with agents – a 67% increase since the start of the year. On average, properties are being rented out within 12.7 days of being placed on the market – seven days quicker than the start of the year. However, the reports also showed that available properties fell by as much as 6.9%, giving an average 5.8 tenant competing for each property. In spite of the “Englishmans home is his castle” attitude we are trying desperately to hold onto, our European cousins are not so concerned with the whole buying a property stigma that seems to be a driving force for many Britons. In contrast, renting in countries such as Germany is regarded as the norm with most people signing a 7 or 10 year tenancy agreement taking away the headache of unforeseen maintenance such as a new boiler or insurance claim following a flood with it. However, renting is not necessarily the cheapest option for many Germans, for instance in thriving cities like Hamburg, Cologne and Munich, tenants can typically see half their wages spent on rent alone. And the prospect of paying a landlord well into old age appeals to Germans no more than it does to the Brits. The attitude of young Germans is where the similarity towards renting ends. There is not the same sense of urgency and necessity to own their own home and this contrast in attitude reflects the dramatic difference in the housing markets. Over the past 10 years UK residential property prices have nearly doubled, while in Germany they have risen a mere 2%-3%. So what is Germany’s secret to keeping prices affordable, and why don’t more Germans aspire to be home owners? Primarily, the most prominent difference is an abundant supply of good quality rental accommodation. German housing associations and municipal authorities hold about 12% of stock, private housing companies 10%, and property funds about 1%; the rest is held by private investors. Secondly, the Germans watch their pennies. Rigorous lending requirements make sure there isn’t a surplus of housing finance readily available. Germany’s tax system does not exactly favour property owners either. The Property Transfer tax (Grunderwerbsteuer) is approx 5% in many states. There is no doubt that Germany offers its tenants a better deal than here in the UK; renting is much more transparent, with rental values rigorously policed to ensure no one pays over the odds, there is even a website where tenants can check their rent is fair using the rental index [Mietspiegel]. And if the tenant does find they are paying too much, the tenants’ association will step in and get the rent reduced to the ideal value. Rents are tightly controlled and cannot normally be increased by more than 20% nominally over three years. Unlimited contracts are standard and tenants, if given notice, can demand continuation. Property is normally freshly decorated in white before tenants move in, and must be repainted when they leave. Although it does appear that the grass is definitely a shade or two greener in Germany, it is not as fertile as you might have first thought, a deposit in Germany to rent a property is equal to 3 months’ rent. The fact is that wherever you are, you don’t want to be paying rent into your retirement. Although Germany is better value than the UK, buying property is still out of the reach of most. The grim reality of today’s property markets – whether it is Leipzig or London – is that most young people cannot get on the property ladder without parental help or inheriting.

Are we soon to be living in a Dickens novel?

The Guardian, recently reported on a Kent landlord who has issued eviction notices to his all his tenants currently in receipt of Housing Benefit.

The landlord has built up a property empire of over 1000 properties throughout Ashford but has become exasperated with the amount of arrears his tenants on welfare have built up.

I am not a landlord myself, but I can sympathise, landlords like this couple clearly run their properties as a business and the aim of all business is to make profit, if he is not receiving his rent and in addition paying out for court costs for evictions I can see his point, in wanting to swap his current situation for one of employed tenants with a steady monthly income.

And this landlord is not alone, increasingly I see tenants who most times through no fault of their own find themselves claiming housing benefit, but are unable to find anywhere to live because more and more private landlords are choosing employed tenants over tenants on welfare.

I’m sure some people out there may be screaming ‘DISCRIMINATION’ ‘HUMAN RIGHTS’  and yes they have a point, but, the main issue here is not the tenants themselves, it is the funds.

Local Housing Allowance (LHA) was capped, which meant anyone under 35yrs old could only get enough housing benefit to rent a room in a shared house.

And the LHA for someone over 35 renting a 1 bedroom property falls below the average private rental cost.

I found myself in exactly this position in 2012, after working all my life since the age of 15, I was made redundant in Dec 2012, I had minimal savings and rent and bills to pay.

I had to jump through hoops at the council office just to get housing benefit, which was then delayed in being paid to me for 10 weeks because of a ‘backlog’

During this 10 week period my rent was due and went unpaid, may landlord, not a happy bunny, but luckily because I had previously always paid early, allowed me the time while my payment was processed.

Once it came through all was well, except my 4 weekly payment was less than the rent I owed monthly, so I had to top up my rent from the money I received for Job Seekers allowance.

Not ideal as this had a knock on effect to the rest of my out goings, I was lucky in some respects that it was just me, no partner, no kids to feed, but I can see how people can find themselves in piles of debt being on benefits.

But where does this leave the tenants who are on housing benefit?

In short – HOMELESS

Local councils have a catch 22 policy, they will not house tenants who are in rent arrears, yet 9 times out of 10 it is the councils error in payments that have caused the arrears in the first place.

Councils will also not downsize a tenant who is in arrears, so a tenant who can’t afford to keep a 3 bed property and is building up arrears, will not be moved with their debt, to a smaller property with a lesser rent to help them pay off the arrears and manage their rent, because they are in arrears.

Something needs to change with the way benefits are paid, as soon, otherwise we will soon see hundreds of families living on the streets because there is literally nowhere for them to live.

The UK will again look like a scene from a Dickens novel with the poor begging in doorways, urchin children running around the streets with dirty faces, while the rich live in their warm houses.

A frightening but very real vision.