Private Rented Sector Buy to Let Consultants
Alternatives to Tenancy Deposits Is there an alternative to taking a deposit from tenants asks David Lawrenson, private rented sector and landlord advisor at www.LettingFocus.com. In this article I will explore if “no deposits” are feasible or sensible. Alternatives to Taking Tenancy Deposits – The Situation Today Landlords will soon be unable to take more than a six week deposit. […]
Read moreMany local authorities and other public bodies are looking into setting up their own not-for-profit letting agencies to house people in the private rented sector. Sometimes these initiatives are called private rented sector access schemes. Most private landlords and /or commercial letting agencies would normally turn these types of tenants away, so this is quite a challenge. At LettingFocus, we […]
Read moreIncredible though it may seem, many landlords entrusted to middlemen companies who said they would find them tenants and pay a guaranteed rent for a period of 3 or more years. Now, it seems, a few of these companies appears to have gone bust taking all the housing benefit rent money that had been paid over by the councils with […]
Read moreLettingFocus 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 […]
Read moreLocal authority schemes to attract private landlords to let to people with few housing options often fail. Here at LettingFocus, we explain why. I was invited to speak at the Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH) Homelessness conference in Nottingham last week. This is a big national event to which around 140 local authority and housing association staff from all around […]
Read moreCouncils’ failure to engage with private landlords means families could be needlessly placed in emergency temporary accommodation or out of their local borough. Back in July, the Guardian newspaper published a piece of research I had just completed which showed how councils and housing associations are failing to engage private landlords with their various schemes. I thought it worthwhile to […]
Read moreKey Point: Most private landlords don’t set high value on things like membership of accreditation schemes and property inspections offered by some councils as part of Local Letting Agency schemes designed to attract landlords. They won’t pay much for these features either – especially where a good private let alternative exists. Local authorities must be realistic about what landlords want […]
Read moreKey Point: We are concerned that whilst local authorities will, in theory, be able to discharge the homelessness duty into the private rented sector, the reality is that many councils may not have done enough to convince private landlords to make their property available to this end of the lettings market. On Monday, I featured with a clutch of housing […]
Read moreSome of our work at LettingFocus involves working with local authorities on setting up local or “social letting agencies” and “private rented sector access schemes.” The aim of the various schemes is to try to encourage landlords to consider letting to tenants who are on housing benefits, who are vulnerably housed or who “present” to the local authority seeking a […]
Read moreMany local authorities, housing associations and charities designing strategies to try to get private landlords to let to tenants on Local Housing Allowance are very fond of doing surveys of landlords. (Readers of this blog will know how critical I was of one particular survey of landlords that, last year, was used to make some astonishing claims for the impact […]
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