I have a rental property in England, and there is a tree at the back of the garden. The neighbours have been badgering my tenant about it, and one of the neighbours has even turned up twice to my letting agents. My tenant says she loves the tree.

The complaints are coming from the neighbours on the left, right and directly behind the house. The tree is not taller than the house.

I am not keen on having the tree chopped down. I have no objection to the neighbours cutting back branches that overhang their boundaries, as the law permits, provided it is done properly. I don't know if there is a TPO (they can claim there is n't).

I think their main complaint is about the leaves and overhang and having to clean them up. I find this a bit crazy. Trees provide shade and help cool the built-up environment, and we have already been through four heatwaves since May. The area is bit of a concrete jungle.

The neighbours have apparently obtained a quote from someone to do work on the tree, but I have not been told who is this person is (and it may be an professional or some random person). The quote is £630 (which the neighbours want to divide in 4).

My concern is that if all 3 neighbours cut the tree back heavily from their respective sides, what effect could that have on the tree? Could it become unbalanced or be seriously damaged? Is there a risk the tree falling back on the house during high winds? Could the tree die?

I have also noticed that a lot of local trees are already shedding their leaves, presumably because of the prolonged hot and dry weather.

I just feel as though the three neighbours are going to gang up on me over this tree.

Which is the best brand of air portage air conditioner? I know most out of stock, but want to review for next year.

I have got used to his heat wave, however partner complains about heat.

This was posted on :
https://www.reddit.com/r/UKPersonalFinance/comments/1vom8w9/early_20s_attempted_to_build_a_business_for_past/

People just assume that wealth is made easily. While people campaign for a wealth tax, no one talks about compensating the losers when people risk their own money and lose it. This person has lost £40k.

A wealth tax does not distinguish between wealth that was made easily and wealth that took 30 years of work and risk to build. A celebrity might earn £5 million from a brand endorsement and have that money sitting as cash in the bank. That is not the same as someone who has spent 30 years building a business, risking their own money, with most of their money still tied up in that business. They can't go out and spend that money. Also, does n't factor, that someone may be 60 years old, but the time they build up something substantial.

No one seems to talk enough about the wealth of large corporations either, including lobby governments for favourable tax and regulations.

Saw this post on r/smallbusinessuk

Want to sell my bakery. Worried that I won't get much for it.
https://www.reddit.com/r/smallbusinessuk/comments/1vj2ftc/want_to_sell_my_bakery_worried_that_i_wont_get/

I get frustrated with Gary's supporters who seem to think that making money and becoming wealthy is easy.

This chap bought a bakery business, took a risk and poured more money into it. You can read about the day-to-day struggles involved in running and owning a business. He also created jobs for his staff.

People who are employees get a guaranteed wage. They don't always see that somebody else is taking the financial risk behind the scenes. The boss and owner is making no money.

On paper, this guy might have "wealth", but he could be making very little actual income from the business.

Even if someone owned a business worth £11 million, that doesn't necessarily mean they have million in cash in the bank. They could have £11 million tied up in the business while making very little profit. Profits are never guaranteed.

I just wish Gary's wealth tax supportors would understand these points.

And if, after spending decades building something, he eventually passes some of that wealth on to the next generation, at least they can start with more capital and have an easier starting point. Instead this country has a 40% wealth inheritance tax, which destroys money and keeps people down (the ones who want to start a business).

For most ordinary people, substantial wealth isn't built in one generation.

Some of the US tech billionaires managed it very quickly, but many of them also had venture-capital backing, in other words, other people's money.

If you're starting with very little capital and no outside financial backing, building substantial wealth can take much longer.

The UK is lagging behind, because people don't see the mechanics of the economy.

Gary is stilling in his waterfront flat, behind his laptop. He can't see it.

EDIT: This business is not worth £11million. This bakery was bought at £85k. My point was what if there was another business worth £11million, stuck in the same rut, with no profits.

https://www.reddit.com/r/tesco/comments/1vevmb4/how_is_this_fair/

We had retail shop on a high street (900sq ft) in a small town of 25,000. The tenant left because the business was not getting enough footfall.

Situation: Around 35% of the shops in the town are now empty.

Back in the 2000s, there was a much wider variety of businesses, including menswear shops, children’s clothing shops, banks, jewellers, bingo, antique, kitchen re-fit, car parts..... Many shops have a board which say "to let" or "for sale". Most of these businesses have now disappeared.
Online shopping has had a big impact.

The town is now mainly left with a few essential such food shops, optician, coffee shop, bakery, tattoo studios, hairdressers and chemist. However, the population is only around 25,000, so there is not enough demand for several businesses offering the same thing. For example, if there is already one chemist, there may not be enough demand for a second one.

I am trying to find out whether there are any new types of businesses moving onto high streets? Is anything actually helping to bring town centres back to life?

People do not visit the town centre as much because so many shops have closed. It has become a bit of a depressing situation.

I suspect, people go to the bigger neighbouring town which is 25 minutes away and has more shops.

What type of business could realistically work there?

I help a family club, which is a non-profit charity, with its membership database. The database was originally designed using Access 2003 and contains members’ names, addresses, mobile numbers, email addresses and other membership details.

We also collect information such as members’ professions, as they may be able to help the club as volunteers.

The MS Access database currently has forms for entering household and member details. Some outputs, can generate an up-to-date email list for email campaigns and produce address labels for posting flyers and other information to members.

Would it be possible to use AI to help redesign or modernise this old Access database? It also contains forms and VBA code.

Some of the features we would like to add include:

An audit trail or user log. For example, if Volunteer X changes a member’s telephone number, the database should record who made the change, what was changed and when.

A record of who updated a person’s details, for example if a member has died.

An option to pause postal or email communications if post or emails are returned as undeliverable.

People who want to become members to complete a paper application form. However, can this form say be scanned in PDF and uploaded into Access.

There are a lot of non-IT people. So needs to be easy. I was thinking of keeping the master database online say on One-Drive. Where one admin person would have read-write privilege and others say only have a read-only access copy. I don't know how to implement this.

The membership structure also needs some thought. The database needs to include adults and children within the same household. As the club organises kids events. A child may later become a youth (separate groups). Eventually an adult member to form a separate household. The design therefore needs to handle these changes without creating duplicate records or losing the person’s membership history.

I was slightly surprised that Claude said it could not generate a blank Access database or directly update the existing design. Is AI currently the right tool for this type of project?

Which AI tool help design the tables, relationships, forms, queries and VBA code, even if someone still needs to implement the changes in Access?

I prefer to stick to Microsoft, as it has been around and hopefully don't end up with obsoleted technology.

I have an existing tenant who has always paid her rent on time and has never missed a payment. She has been an excellent tenant. Although previously, I had to ask for rents for 4 months rent in advance.

She now needs a larger property because her son is getting older and requires more space.

She is employed part time and is also involved in some business. I do not believe she would ask to move to a larger property unless she was confident that she could afford it. However, when she was looking for bigger places at other agents, she could not pass the standard rent-to-income affordability checks used by other letting agencies. My property came up, so I put it to her.

Her current rent has always been paid without any problems, and I know her personally to be reliable. The difficulty is that the larger property is more expensive and has recently been refurbished, so the increase in rent is fairly substantial.

She is unable to use the father of her son as a guarantor.

Are there any rent-guarantee or guarantor schemes that could help in this situation?

The RRA and limit in deposit has made things more complicated.

Criminal gangs are targeting the rental market to take over properties and use them to run their operations. Panorama reporter Hazel Martin speaks to flat owners who paid reputable agencies to do tenancy checks but still ended up handing over their keys to criminals using fake IDs and references. One flat was turned into a drugs factory, another became a brothel, and a third was sublet and ransacked. Even when there appears to be clear evidence of criminal behaviour, gangs are escaping prosecution, and landlords say it can take months to repossess their properties.

I have a friend who is doing a part-time course. She went to class and used the same Windows PC as before. For some reason, her personal Hotmail emails appeared in the Outlook app and she was already logged in. Apparently, emails belonging to other students were also visible, they too were logged in.

The teacher tried several things to log her out of Outlook, including clearing the cache, but nothing worked.

She phoned me for help. I logged into her Hotmail account and tried to sign her out remotely, but the college PC was not listed among her devices. Only her home computers appeared. We changed her password as a precaution and also set up two-step verification. However, even after changing the password. Even after rebooting the college PC, Outlook still appeared to log her in automatically.

The teacher spent about an hour trying to sort it out, and we also used ChatGPT for suggestions, but nothing worked. In the end, they put tape around the computer and placed an “Out of Order” notice on it so nobody would use it until the college IT department could investigate.

I am not sure how she ended up signed into the Outlook app in the first place. I told her not to use Microsoft Edge on that computer in case it automatically signs her into other Microsoft apps. Could that be what happened?

I think it is scary, that it is impossible to do a global logout of every device.

There was no obvious sign-out option, and even the teacher could not remove her account from Outlook. Is this not a serious security flaw, especially on a shared college computer?

Flat rented to a single older tenant a few years ago. They asked for the garden to be cleared at move in time, which was done. We did not promise anything further, but now claiming paving was promised!

Over the years, he has never maintained the garden. The neighbour and tenant complains about the overgrowth.

The tenant is on benefits and says they have health issues and cannot do gardening.

The rent is now around £300 per month below market rate (about £3,600 per year). Their rent is just below LHA levels.

If someone cannot do any labour, does that mean they receive extra money e.g. PIP?

Unhappy, forked £400 again this year to clear the garden. The tenant keeps asking me to pay it. Every time, this comes up, it is meant to be a one-off, on the promise, they maintain it. The tenant's son did offer to the help last year, but their parent, but this has not happened.

It is frustrating because other tenants would love a home with a garden, but this tenant accepted the property and does not maintain it.

In 2023, the tenant complained to the council about other issues without informing the letting agent, although issues were resolved quickly. Council were happy.

We just replaced the boiler, a couple of years ago and tenant still claims the property is cold, it has double glazing.

Overall, it feels frustrating and like the situation is being taken advantage of.

https://x.com/i/status/2052048965923709336

“If a landlord does decide to sell their home, that home won’t be bulldozed to the ground”

Some landlords may leave if they can’t meet Renters’ Rights Act protections, and that’s not a disaster.

Hear our Head of Campaigns, u/nyejones92 on u/TimesRadio

Go Debate

Right now, my life is organised on paper notebooks, highlighters, to-do lists, checkboxes, and paper diaries. I do use Google Calendar, but only for occasional major events. I’ve never transitioned to a fully digital system.

I’ve read about the reMarkable (though I haven’t tried it), but it seems limiting, for example, I’m not sure I could easily copy text or images from an email on my PC onto an notetaking device.

Also, if I am doing research on say the internet, it is nice if I can copy text on to my note taking decide and then make hand written notes.

I’ve also tried Samsung tablets and phones with a stylus. While they work, I didn’t feel like I could fully transition to them. I do like that I can take photos with the Samsung phone and then add handwritten notes using the stylus. However, on the Samsung phone, I think the limitations are both the apps and the feeling of writing on glass. May be I need better PC integration.

At this point, I’m not sure if a product exists that really fits my needs?

1. Some letting agents charge their commission in advance, so on a 12 month tenancy, they take their fees upfront. With periodic, what fees will they take? Monthly?
2. Also, with tenancies changing can be broken ayntime, who pays for the tenant referencing if someone leaves after 3 months?