by John Raftery | Jun 23, 2015 | Government Landlord Law, Landlords, Tenants
The pilot scheme for the govenment’s policy for landlords and agents to check the immigration status of tenants is to reach a landmark next month. The 6 month pilot programme in the West Midlands is due to be assessed in July and following this the scheme will...
by John Raftery | Jun 23, 2015 | Government Landlord Law, Landlords, Tenants
The government has announced that it expects 10th October 2015 to be the date that landlords will be required to fit smoke and carbon monoxide (CO) alarms on every floor of their property. Failure to do this could result in a £5000 civil penalty. The measure is...
by John Raftery | Mar 16, 2015 | Uncategorised
That’s the conclusion arrived at by Professor Paul Piff, a social psychologist in California. In a quite amusing video he explains what happens when a game of monopoly is rigged to favour one player over the other. He gives them more money to start with...
by John Raftery | Mar 13, 2015 | Investments
As a property investor I’m always looking for a good deal. But buying residential property can often be stressful – not for the first time this week I’ve been gazumped trying to buy a repossession from a bank (NRAM if you must know – ok, well,...
by John Raftery | Mar 11, 2015 | Landlords
With an expected absence of any detail, the Communities and Local Government Minister, Penny Mordaunt announced yesterday at the LGA Fire Conference the intention of the government to enforce PRS landlords to install smoke alarms and carbon monoxide detectors in their...
by John Raftery | Mar 11, 2015 | Evictions, Landlords, Tenants
Most experienced landlords will have had bad experiences with tenants’ pets damaging their properties or causing a nuisance with neighbours at some point in the past. I had a tenant in my early landlord years that had another mouth to feed virtually every time I...
by John Raftery | Mar 10, 2015 | Housing Market
I watched yesterday’s Panorama programme about the housing crisis in this country. The truth is that it is more of a crisis in some parts of the country than in others. Close to where I live now you can find a 3 bedroom terrace house in the centre of a village and...
by John Raftery | Feb 25, 2015 | Landlords, Tenants
Whether it’s the Labour Party with their ludicrous talk of rent controls and a National Landlord Register or the recent Green Party leader, Natalie Bennett, making a complete fool of herself on the radio when trying, and failing miserably, to explain how...
by John Raftery | Jan 29, 2015 | Tenants
It’s never a bad idea to give some guidance to tenants on what their responsibilities are. It’s all too easy for tenants to not read their tenancy agreement so give them a separate document outlining these responsibilities otherwise they might assume that...
by John Raftery | Dec 4, 2014 | Rent Collection
I was recently introduced to a black-eyed landlord who proudly revealed that he had got in to a fight with one of his tenants. This came about as a result of him implementing his policy of asking for late rent just once and then ‘popping them one’...
