Help Families By Making Tenancies and Tenancy Agreements Longer

The typical assured shorthold tenancy is for 6 months. Yet many tenants - especially those with families- would rightly like longer agreements where they may have more security.
Lots of landlords would also be happy to give longer agreements to their good tenants because they don’t want the added workload and cost that comes with constantly changing tenants.
The wider community too would, no doubt, like to see good tenants staying for longer, thus giving some permanence to local communities.
So, perhaps the law should be reviewed.
I suggest making a 2 year tenancy a natural tenancy default option -with landlords free to choose shorter tenancies if they wished.
However, to be fair to landlords, longer tenancies must come with better safeguards enabling landlords to evict troublesome tenants far more easily and quickly than is the case today.
To find out more about tenancy agreements and the ideal tenancy length ask me. I’m David Lawrenson from property seminar company Letting Focus. I’m the author of “Successful Property Letting – How to Make Money in Buy to Let” the UK’s top selling buy to let book.
I’m a property investment advisor , I contribute to newspapers and a host of property websites, write a property investment blog and run a buy to let advice service
You can read more of my property expert blog and details of my networking, advice, property investment mentoring programme and property consulting at my website http://www.lettingfocus.com/
My next London property seminar is in November. Click here for details: Property Seminar Event
I am also speaking at the property investors show in London on 22nd September. I will also be a panellist at a debate in the afternoon at the show. Details here: http://www.propertyinvestor.co.uk/london/seminar.asp
What’s unique about lettingfocus.com is that we are unbiased and independent, because unlike most people in the buy to let and property “advice” business we are not linked to a property company, developer, agent or bridging loan financier and do not receive commissions from any of these sources.
If a property investment is lousy – We’ll tell you straight and we will tell you all about buy to let and property investment - the good and the bad and we won’t make silly promises that you’ll become a millionaire overnight.
Copyright: David Lawrenson 2007. This blog is updated at least twice a week
To read archived blogs select a date from the list at the right. To read recent ones, just page down.

More Debt Laden Home Owners Will Sell Their Homes at Below Market Value and Rent them back from a Landlord.

There is a huge growth in people selling their homes at well below market value to landlords and then renting them back and an industry has grown up where investors buy properties directly from “distressed sellers” in this way.
This is a real human interest story because where someone sells their own property and then rents back under a standard assured shorthold tenancy; the “seller turned renter” usually has no security of tenure. Also, the seller will usually have sold their property at a low price to give themselves cash and resolve their debt problems.
This explains why there is so much interest from investors, not least because they can acquire a property with “no money down” using what’s called a “closed bridging loan”
I expect the number of people offloading their homes in this way to grow in the coming months as home owners come off fixed rate deals taken out 18 -24 months ago and face remortgaging at higher interest rates.
The investors find the distressed sellers in a number of ways. One way is by leafleting. The message of these leaflets will be simple and along the lines of: “Do You Own Your Own Home? Do you need to Sell Quickly? Contact 0800 XXX XXX. Another way is by advertising on the internet - many of the 1.9 million sites that are returned when you key in “below market value property” are targeted at people who may be motivated sellers.
In recent years, many companies have been set up which use automated systems featuring call centres to field enquiries and filter out the genuine distressed sellers. They may then charge investors for each “lead” or an affiliate could “buy” the rights to all the leads that come onto his patch.
These leads cost the investor money but it means the person who is not a full time property investor - who has another job – can be “in the game” too.
It will usually be the investor’s job to negotiate with the seller and try to secure a deal to buy the property at a big discount from its market value. Once the deal is agreed the investor sets up a bridging loan for the discounted price and a mortgage for 100% (i.e. for the true value on the same day) – hence generating “instant equity”
The seller now becomes a tenant of the landlord, can stay in his own home and his neighbours are none the wiser as to his change of status. However, he will usually have no security of tenure beyond the initial 6 months term under the standard tenancy agreement.
Clearly there are a few moral issues with the whole process - a process which has been pretty much ignored by the national press.
Many investors I know who do this, say they turn down some deals if they believe the seller could do better by doing something else – say remortgaging, talking to their lender, getting citizens advice help or by selling the property.
However, the question is how many others are as altruistic.
To find out more about buying property below market value and the truth about no money down deals ask me. I’m David Lawrenson from property seminar company Letting Focus. I’m the author of “Successful Property Letting – How to Make Money in Buy to Let” the UK’s top selling buy to let book.
I’m a buy to let expert , I contribute to newspapers and a host of property websites, write a property investment blog and run a property investment advice service
You can read more of my property expert insights and details of my networking, advice, buy to let mentoring programme and property consulting at my website www.lettingfocus.com.
My next London property seminar is on 10th September. Click here for details: Property Seminar Event and I am also speaking at the property investors show in London on 22nd September. I will also be a panellist at a debate in the afternoon at the show. Details here: http://www.propertyinvestor.co.uk/london/seminar.asp
What’s unique about lettingfocus.com is that we are unbiased and independent, because unlike most people in the buy to let and property “advice” business we are not linked to a property company, developer, agent or bridging loan financier and do not receive commissions from any of these sources.
If a property investment is lousy – We’ll tell you straight and we will tell you all about buy to let and property investment - the good and the bad.
Copyright: David Lawrenson 2007. This blog is updated at least twice a week
To read archived blogs select a date from the list at the right. To read recent ones, just page down.

What Information Can You Ask Tenants For and What Rules on Data Protection Do You Need to Comply With

As the incidence of credit and ID fraud increases, so landlords have had to collect more and more information on tenants to ensure that they don’t get the tenant from hell.
Only by using a proper referencing system can they be sure that the person standing in front us who wants to rent a house, is really who they say they are and can afford to pay the rent with no hassles.
In my experience most tenant applicants understand this and are happy to provide the information we need to do our credit and reference checks.
In fact, I only had one potential tenant who objected to providing previous utility bills such as proof of past address. Needless to say, I didn’t let to her!
A thorough tenants’ referencing system will deter tenants with a history of not paying their rent and also potential ID fraudsters who will seek an easier, “greener” landlord elsewhere.
But there are laws about what landlords can and can’t do with the information we collect and landlords who abuse the data they hold on tenants can get themselves in trouble.
Fortunately the Information Commissioner (formerly the Data Protection Registrar) sets out some guidance for landlords that explains what landlords can and cannot do with tenant data.
The Information Commissioners says if you use an agent to find a tenant and they obtain references for you, you are entitled to see the references as long as your agent makes it clear to the tenant on the tenant application form or in writing that this will happen. If the agent says he can’t change his application form or get the tenants’ consent to this, I’d suggest you go to a more amenable agent.
If you do the referencing yourself, you should always tell tenants what you will do with the information they give you and what credit checks and searches of databases you will do – the key thing is to be clear about how you will use information and not to use information for any purpose that is unreasonable.
Which third parties can you give information to?
Suppose you let out a shared house to say two or more tenants in which each tenant is “jointly and severally” liable to pay the whole rent – i.e. they do not each have individual agreements.
In this case, if one doesn’t pay, you can seek to recover the balance owing from any one of the other tenants (or their guarantors) if they have them.
In these circumstances you would, by implication, be revealing that there was a shortfall in the rent receipts due because one or more tenants have not paid their “share.” As they are all party to a legal contract, you are perfectly within your rights to do this.
Other third parties who can be given the tenant details would include debt collection agencies or tracing agents who will need information on money owing to do their job. The Information Commissioner advises landlords to make it clear in the tenancy agreement that this could happen in the event that the tenant leaves with money owing.
Landlords should not give previous tenants’ new address to new occupiers unless the old tenants have requested this happen in writing.
To find out more about referencing tenants and how to find a good tenant ask me. I’m David Lawrenson from property seminar company Letting Focus. I’m the author of “Successful Property Letting – How to Make Money in Buy to Let” the UK’s top selling buy to let book.
I’m a buy to let expert , I contribute to newspapers and a host of property websites, write a property investment blog and run a property investment advice service
You can read more of my property expert insights and details of my networking, advice, buy to let mentoring programme and property consulting at my website www.lettingfocus.com.
My next London property seminar is on 10th September. Click here for details: Property Seminar Event and I am also speaking at the property investors show in London on 22nd September. I will also be a panellist at a debate in the afternoon at the show. Details here: http://www.propertyinvestor.co.uk/london/seminar.asp
What’s unique about lettingfocus.com is that we are unbiased and independent, because unlike most people in the buy to let and property “advice” business we are not linked to a property company, developer, agent or bridging loan financier and do not receive commissions from any of these sources.
If a property investment is lousy – We’ll tell you straight and we will tell you all about buy to let and property investment - the good and the bad.
Copyright: David Lawrenson 2007. This blog is updated at least twice a week
To read archived blogs select a date from the list at the right. To read recent ones, just page down.