Regulation of Sales and rent Back is Needed says Lettingfocus.com
The Property Buyers Association (PROBAS) has just been launched with a code of conduct for Sale-and-Rentback - and aims to gain eventual approval from the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) and the Financial Services Authority (FSA), the Government's City watchdog.
But so far PROBAS currently contains just three members and the danger is that unscrupulous operators muscle in.
Many of the companies who do sales and rent back say they can complete a house purchase within days, although the selling period is usually quite a bit longer in practice.
At present, the business of buying houses from people in mortgage difficulties is completely unregulated and there are lots of one man bands in the sector, learning the tricks of the trade from seminar givers at the trade shows – who often make a lot of their money by providing the would-be investors with bridging loan finance so they can seal up good property deals fast.
The fact that PROBAS now exists is good. It’s just a shame it is so late in the day.
Whilst the business is unregulated lots of hapless people in debt will become tenants in very one sided deals.
In about 10 years time the government may get round to regulating this. By then it will be too late for vulnerable people who lost their homes.
On another topic, one of the questions that vexes me is why do people spend thousands going on a course to learn about buy to let from companies who have terrible reputations for selling properties that are overvalued and wont rent well? Just a few minutes on google would alert them to the poor performance of many of these players. Journalist Graham Norwood is the latest scribe to do a hatchet job on one of these firms in the weekend press.
So, if you have been mugged by one of these firms and spent £2,000 on a weekend’s course with one of them, please get in touch
Or maybe you think that the £1990.01 you paid over and above the cost of my own book, “Successful Property Letting – How to Make Money in Buy to Let” was £1990.01 extra well spent. If so, again, we would like to know.
If you need more advice on where to buy investment property ask me. I’m David Lawrenson from independent property investment experts www.lettingfocus.com
I’m the author of the landlords bible “Successful Property Letting - How to Make Money in Buy to Let” the UK’s top selling property title.
I’m an expert on property letting and a well known writer on buy to let and I contribute to newspapers and a host of property websites, write a property investment blog and run a landlord and tenant advice service - check out my columns for FinancialExpress.net and Archant’s “The Guide” magazine
I also work as a consultant helping banks, building societies, housing associations and web portals with their buy to let and property products and services.
You can read more of my landlord blog and details of my networking, advice, property investors seminar programme at my website www.lettingfocus.com.
My next London landlords networking meeting is on March 12th.
What’s unique about lettingfocus.com is that we offer independent property investment mentoring 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 2008. This blog is updated at least twice a week. Permission must be sought before using the material in the blog.
But so far PROBAS currently contains just three members and the danger is that unscrupulous operators muscle in.
Many of the companies who do sales and rent back say they can complete a house purchase within days, although the selling period is usually quite a bit longer in practice.
At present, the business of buying houses from people in mortgage difficulties is completely unregulated and there are lots of one man bands in the sector, learning the tricks of the trade from seminar givers at the trade shows – who often make a lot of their money by providing the would-be investors with bridging loan finance so they can seal up good property deals fast.
The fact that PROBAS now exists is good. It’s just a shame it is so late in the day.
Whilst the business is unregulated lots of hapless people in debt will become tenants in very one sided deals.
In about 10 years time the government may get round to regulating this. By then it will be too late for vulnerable people who lost their homes.
On another topic, one of the questions that vexes me is why do people spend thousands going on a course to learn about buy to let from companies who have terrible reputations for selling properties that are overvalued and wont rent well? Just a few minutes on google would alert them to the poor performance of many of these players. Journalist Graham Norwood is the latest scribe to do a hatchet job on one of these firms in the weekend press.
So, if you have been mugged by one of these firms and spent £2,000 on a weekend’s course with one of them, please get in touch
Or maybe you think that the £1990.01 you paid over and above the cost of my own book, “Successful Property Letting – How to Make Money in Buy to Let” was £1990.01 extra well spent. If so, again, we would like to know.
If you need more advice on where to buy investment property ask me. I’m David Lawrenson from independent property investment experts www.lettingfocus.com
I’m the author of the landlords bible “Successful Property Letting - How to Make Money in Buy to Let” the UK’s top selling property title.
I’m an expert on property letting and a well known writer on buy to let and I contribute to newspapers and a host of property websites, write a property investment blog and run a landlord and tenant advice service - check out my columns for FinancialExpress.net and Archant’s “The Guide” magazine
I also work as a consultant helping banks, building societies, housing associations and web portals with their buy to let and property products and services.
You can read more of my landlord blog and details of my networking, advice, property investors seminar programme at my website www.lettingfocus.com.
My next London landlords networking meeting is on March 12th.
What’s unique about lettingfocus.com is that we offer independent property investment mentoring 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 2008. This blog is updated at least twice a week. Permission must be sought before using the material in the blog.
This entry was posted by lettingfocus, on
Monday, February 18, 2008.
