The Association of Residential Letting Agents (ARLA) says that landlords need incentives to drive improvements in the private rented sector as thousands of tenants were living in homes that are sub-standard and in need of modernisation. ARLA wants the government to introduce incentives such as tax relief, to encourage landlords to improve their properties, arguing
Housing associations are to stop building mixed estates of privately owned and social rented homes because of the credit crunch, leading to fears of a return to ‘council ghettos’ says The Times. Bob Kerslake, head of Homes and Community Agency (HCA) said that during the past 20 years housing developments had a mix of 30
Commenting in the Evening Standard, Shelter chief executive Adam Sampson warns that homes in London costing less than £100,000 could soon be a thing of the past. An increasingly detached underclass are the real victims of our dysfunctional housing market argues the author Mark Braund in today’s Guardian. Making affordable housing a central part of
Private tenants are routinely being ‘conned’ by letting agents imposing unjustified fees for providing a poor or nonexistent service, a report from the Citizens Advice said today. It said that it was dealing with 6,000 tenants’ complaints a year regarding letting agents, and that the behaviour of some is ‘out of control’. The report has
New research from the Business Development Research Consultants has found that private landlords are increasingly renting to housing benefit claimants even though they are concerned about the upkeep of the property and payments. The proportion of private landlords in Britain letting to benefits claimants more than doubled, increasing from 9 per cent in the last
A fully licensed national register for private rented sector landlords would cost the English government £2.5 billion. Local authorities who would be in charge of implementing the scheme would face start up costs of around £50,000 each, an assessment report has found.
There has been a ‘steep rise’ in the number of tenants evicted after landlords have defaulted on their mortgage, Shelter warned. Ministers have to ‘act quickly to give tenants far, far longer’ as some tenants can get just a few days’ notice to leave their homes. Around three million homes in England and Wales are
Speaking at the Labour party conference yesterday housing minister Caroline Flint admitted that the government’s target of building three million new homes may never be reached, but said government would encourage the development of the private rented sector as part of a range of measures to kickstart the housing market. She said that the professional
The number of people moving house has fallen to its lowest level since the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors’ survey began in 1978. RICS said the squeeze on mortgage availability continued to dampen the market, while the ‘confused messages’ over a stamp duty holiday had also hit confidence. There were just 14.4 completed sales per
Conservative housing spokesperson Grant Shapps warned that up to 10,000 tenants in privately rented homes could face eviction this year because their landlords miss mortgage payments. He is calling on the government to introduce new protection for tenants, including having the government introduce an extended notice period of 5 to 7 weeks for repossession hearings;