u/Foxyagent

WARNING - CONTAINS PROMO

Just a heads up for anyone who is struggling with self assessment or MTD. We have partnered with landlordaccounts.co.uk for our clients to get free MTD for the first year if they sign up to have their self-assessment for 25/26 done. The cost for the self assessment starts at £350 for a single property self-assessment with PAYE income. All four MTD submissions will be done free of charge on the basis of information provided. This includes software.

Just email admin@landlordaccounts.co.uk and mention that we referred you and they will honour the offer.

The deadline for the first submission was today and many have missed it. If you have don't panic. There is no financial penalty and if you get on track then the late submission will clear from your account.

The build-to-rent (BTR) sector saw one of the sharpest falls in the number of new starts on site during the last quarter amid viability challenges and political uncertainty around potential rent freezes and property tax.

A survey of investors on behalf of RE:UK before Housing Secretary Angela Rayner confirmed that rent controls were off the table found that 100% of respondents would have reduced BTR investment and avoided mayoral areas if rent controls had been introduced.

Seems that the constant populist policy lite flying is predictably back firing.

Self-employed mortgage applicants are 42% more likely than employed borrowers to be rejected by every lender, while also having around a third fewer lending options, according to Mortgage Broker Tools

The analysis found that self-employed applicants, including limited company directors and contractors, had an average of 12 eligible lenders available to them, compared with 19 for employed borrowers.

Self-employed applicants accounted for around 12% of all mortgage applications processed through MBT’s platform.

The disparity extended beyond lender choice. Almost one in five self-employed applicants were unable to find a single eligible lender, compared with around one in eight employed borrowers. Overall, self-employed applicants were around 42% more likely to be rejected by every lender on the panel.

With the recent tax hikes on this sector is the overall intent of the country to discourage self-employment and push more people into working for big companies instead?

The changes to the enforcement regime haven’t had a lot of headlines. But they are actually potentially as impactful as the RRA. Especially if you don’t have a great compliance set up. Cat 1 hazards like damp aren’t as rare as people think and these fines can hit hard if you don’t have evidence you acted reasonably

It seems that the revolving door is now just part of the norm in the UK. It’s not great for business or landlords. Interesting take on why that matters more than the individuals

I only read this today but this council is actively encouraging tenants to request rent repayment orders with public funds. They have secured £1.3m in RROs to date!

I think it’s a bit of a signal - they really want landlords out.

I saw this and it’s really worth any overseas landlords reading. The potential cost is staggering. Should serve as a wake up call to us all. The maths has changed

It seems that London in particular had a big swing to the Greens. But I do wonder if that actually makes any difference in reality, ideologically they are pretty much the same as labour but being nowhere near power can promise crazier things they can’t even remotely deliver.

Anyone have a different view or worried?

There was a case last week which is an important reminder to landlords who use agents. You still need to verify they have done their work.

A landlord was left culpable after a letting agent, that they instructed on a full management term, failed to protect their tenant’s deposit into a government backed scheme.

The landlord assumed that the letting agent had dealt with the deposit correctly and served the tenant with the prescribed information. This omission meant that the unaware landlord was open to penalties and other costs.

We’ve seen this so many times with deposit disputes but people haven’t clocked that it will apply to tenant and council disputes under renters rights.

Do people think that if it’s a he said / she said with a tenant that they’ll win? Because the tribunal and council are just going to side with the tenant in my view.

What are people seeing and what proof are they keeping that makes them feel confident?

Im not going to lie I found it karmic as fuck! I just wish all politicians would get evicted by landlords selling up so they could feel the pain they are making tenants pay.

I see so much about conversions to HMOs but kind of write it off a bit as the current finfluencer fad. I’m curious if anyone has taken the step and what their experience was?

My own view has always been that with the regs and the turnover of tenants that although I can see the returns are better it seemed like it was just getting paid for all the extra work. But having not done it that’s not a fully informed opinion to be fair.