Some Sympathy for Landlord Licensing in Southwark

David Lawrenson of LettingFocus.com has some sympathy for councils over landlord licensing. He calls on central government to make penalties for criminal landlords far harsher and let the councils keep the cash raised. He also questions whether licensing of landlords is being abused and used as a tool to deal with criminals offending on a wider basis. Some Sympathy for Landlord […]

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Newham’s Universal Landlord Licensing Approach Not Popular with Local Authorities

Most housing options staff at the councils are not in favour of Newham’s universal landlords licensing scheme says David Lawrenson of LettingFocus.com Many private landlords labour under the assumption that the local authorities are simply there to make life hard for them. But actually that is not usually true: There are a lot of people at the councils who see […]

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London Local Authorities and the Private Rented Sector

LettingFocus despairs of the approach adopted by one London Council in dealing with its private rented sector. We have just been sent an invitation to tender from a London local authority. In the invitation they identify that they need to do some work to improve their local private rented sector, which now forms a substantial 30% plus of all housing […]

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The Impact of Landlord Regulation on Buy to Let Mortgage Terms, Conditions and Availability

Many buy to let mortgage lenders are still not “ahead of the curve” in terms of understanding the impact of legal and regulatory changes in the private rented sector – and this often leaves their own businesses exposed to losses, says David Lawrenson of private rented consultancy, www.LettingFocus.com In an interesting piece in Joanne Atkin’s “Mortgage Finance Gazette”, Paul Walshe […]

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Scottish Landlords Registration Scheme Fails and Implications for the Rest of the UK

David Lawrenson of PRS consultancy www.LettingFocus.com shows how government seems to be failing to learn from past experiments to control the private rented sector – and calls for more robust analysis. Landlords have paid £11.2m in fees since the introduction of the Landlord Registration Scheme in Scotland. But the scheme has resulted in only 11 people being reported to the […]

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Selective Landlord Licensing and the Localism Agenda

David Lawrenson of www.LettingFocus.com says that the move to “localism” is leading many town halls to make some very bad decisions about the private rented sector. One of the obvious consequences of the Coalition’s liking of “localism” is that it gives more control to the local authorities. But the localism agenda can be a problem for the private rented sector […]

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