In this video Heidi Roberts of Amber Hart describes the websites that she finds useful. I have added the links described in the video so that you can go to them quickly & easily – I have personalised the list a little to reflect my own experience of Heidi’s websites.

Property Search Websites

http://www.auctionhouse.uk.net

http://www.nethouseprices.com

http://www.propertysnake.co.uk

http://www.mouseprice.com

http://www.Rightmove.co.uk

http://www.property-bee.com

http://www.primelocation

http://www.auctionhouse.uk.net

Useful Utility Websites

http://www.bitly.com

http://www.saynoto0870.com

http://www.wunderkit.com

http://www.dropbox.com note, joining with this link gives you an extra free 0.5G of space.

http://www.landregistry.gov.uk

http://www.salesforce.com

http://www.stoozing.com

http://www.moneysupermarket.com

http://www.newbouldguardians.co.uk

http://www.ukmobilenumber.com

http://www.lmgtfy.com

http://www.fiverr.com

I’m a member of the Guild of Residential Landlords and I wouldn’t be without their website & it’s legal advice.

Apart from the passing of the 1988 & 2004 Housing Acts by Parliament I have never experienced such a collection of changes to renting a flat all in one go. The following Legislation has just become effective (April 2012).

• Tenancy Deposit Protection information must now be provided within 30 days or you may be fined and invalidate your right to evict a Tenant by issuing a S21 notice.
• An EPC must be commissioned before a property can be marketed and the EPC must actually be issued within 7 days of marketing.
• In 2018, rental properties with the two lowest EPC scores are due to be banned from the market, meaning that landlords must have improved them by then.
• DHSS allowances for Housing Benefit (LHA) change dramatically.
• The age limit of the Single Room Rate (SRR) rose from 25 to 35 years old. Anyone under 35 yrs will only get Bedsit LHA
• The five bedroom Local Housing Allowance rate has gone so that the maximum level is for a four bedroom flat.
• Local Housing Allowance rates are reduced so that about 3 in 10 properties for rent in the area should be affordable to people on Housing Benefit, rather than every 5 in 10 properties as before.
• Local Housing Allowance weekly rates in any area cannot exceed:
• £250 for a one bedroom property
• £290 for a two bedroom property
• £340 for a three bedroom property
• £400 for a four bedroom property
• Local Housing Allowance (Housing Benefits) will be set in line with the Consumer Prices Index (CPI) instead of the Retail Prices Index (RPI)
• Small-shared houses or flats occupied by between 3 and 6 unrelated individuals who share basic amenities were reclassified under planning laws from “C3 Dwelling Houses” to “C4 Houses in Multiple Occupation“. Depending in which part of the country you are you may need Planning Permission to rent these.

So from today the tenancy agreements that you use should be different to the ones that you used to use. The way that I keep up to date with legislation is through my membership of the Guild of Landlords which costs me £80 p.a. and provides me with current documents and a legal advice line to advise me on their use.  I chose the Guild because it was strongly recommended to me, and I appreciate the personal nature of the organisation. However the other landlord organisations have their own supporters, and I don’t think that it is important which one you join, just that you do join one of them.

Using Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) in your posts on Ning and other HTML based Forums and Bulletin Boards is easier than it sounds. It is surprising how important knowing basic HTML is to a quality online existence – of course many people don’t care about things like grammar, spelling, let alone the things that HTML gives you like layout, well presented quotebacks, embedding videos & pictures, anchor text links …… nevertheless I think it worthwhile in order to present a professional image.

Learning basic HTML through posting on an HTML BB like Ning is a painless way of picking up how HTML works, which will then allow you to do more sophisticated things like adding HTML widgets to your Blog. You don’t need to become an HTML expert – or even that competent – the 80:20 works in your favour – understand 20% of HTML and you will be able to undertake 80% of what you need to do.

In your normal posting view you are shown what you post will look like, but actually it is produced using HTML – as you type you produce HTML which is hidden from you. You can see the HTML that is being coded for you as you type by clicking on the HTML button.

Some simple tags to get you started:

Firstly understand a “Tag” – this controls the content within the “< >” TAG it’s best understood by trying out some of the examples, and also clicking on the HTML view of your posts before posting them to see what the HTML looks like ………..

Note that on the WWW colours are identifies by a code of the form #ffffff – a hash and 6 digits. Every combination of the 6 digits produces a different colour (the digits have to be 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,a,b,c,d,e,f – for a geeky reason that we won’t go into!).

Joining HTML together

You may have noticed that the font, and colour are changed using the <FONT> tag.

If you wanted to change the text to a courier font, and red you would put the following
<FONT FACE=courier COLOR=red>Edited text</FONT> which gives Edited text

Example 2: To make the text bold, underlined and green all at the same time use

<B><U><FONT COLOR=green>Text here</FONT></U></B> gives you Text here

It is important that you close the tags in the same order as they were opened. In the example above <B> was opened first so must be closed last <FONT> was the last opened and first to be closed.

Rules:

• Only tags with the same beginning can be merged together
• All < > tags must be closed with the appropriate </ > tag
• The first tags opened are the last ones to be closed

Adding a link to a different page

Links are what allow people to move to other pages on the Internet. They can usually be identified because the mouse pointer changes when over a link and the text is usually underlined and a different colour. To create a link use the following:

<A HREF=http://www.pimlico-flats.co.uk>Pimlico Flats</a> will look like Pimlico Flats

To display a picture

Use the following:

<IMG SRC=http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v479/mepage/69.gif”> gives

Please note: There is no closing tag for a picture

<IMG> tag properties

You can set the following properties for the <IMG> tag. It is recommended that you set the width and height for each picture as it makes the picture load faster.

WIDTH	The width of the picture
HEIGHT	The height of the picture
ALT	Text to be displayed if the image can not be displayed – note a description should be included to help the visually impaired

Both width and height are specified in either pixels or as a percentage of the screen size.

<img src=”http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v479/mepage/1236.jpg” width=150 height=100 alt=”Snowy mountain”>

You just need to put the two codes together

<A HREF=address of page you want to go too><IMG SRC=address of picture></a>

Create a numbered list

Create a bulleted list

Adding a picture is really simple. All you need is an image host (somewhere to store your pics) the following instructions are for how to use photobucket.

Click on a picture to make it larger

1. Sign up for a free Photobucket account
2. Activate the account
3. Right click on a pic you want to use and select “Save Picture As…”

1. Choose an appropriate place on your computer (recommended place:my documents) and select save
2. Sign in to your photobucket account
3. Click the browse button

1. Find where you saved your pic and click on it, then select the open button
2. Select submit (your picture will now be added to your bucket)

Under the picture there are 3 lines…

• Right click the tag line <img src=”….”> and select copy

• Go to where you want the picture to appear (the boards)
• Right click and select paste in the message box
• Post the message

The picture should now have appeared

You can also rotate and change the size of the picture once it is in photobucket by clicking on the edit button above the picture you want to change.

Creating a signature picture

To put your name on a picture you need some drawing software

Most people use a specialised program called Paint Shop Pro (PSP) to add their name to pictures.

You can download a free trial here.

Now just get creative

Photo credit: LibraryatNight

I was ill – I caught a debilitating disease for which the medical term is Domii Pauci – my G.P. identified the problem and got me an appointment with a specialist who had devoted his life to curing people with this complaint. I prepared a wet fish, and finally the day came for my appointment and I marched into his surgery and announced:

“You bloodsucking leech! How can you live off the misery of your patients! How dare you sit in your comfortable surgery, taking taxpayers money? I am going to make sure that you never practise medicine again! Then I hit him round the face with a wet fish. I don’t think we will see HIM in surgery again!

At least that was the message that I got from today’s Independent in their story:

A new era of house building could create jobs, stimulate growth, and help the poor. So why won’t Cameron do it?

It’s a great story with a lousy message.

Yes there is a problem, especially in London: a modest two-bedroom place in London’s Zone 2 – a standard monthly rent is indeed £800, even £900. The Independent reports hundreds of furious Londoners bombarding with their renting horror stories. One had a 35 per cent rent hike imposed on them at Christmas; another was forced to desert their Stockwell flat after a 40 per cent increase. “My tiny flat in the East End went up by £200 a month for the next occupants when I left”. Clearly the patient is sick, sick with Domii Pauci – a housing shortage.

The Independent’s solution is the wet fish: “Private landlords can do as they please, of course. Having a roof over your head is a basic human requirement and, when there is a lack of houses to go around, it is a need that can be exploited. A landlord knows that, if their tenants don’t like an outrageous rent hike, their only option is to put themselves back at the mercy of the ever more pricey private renting market. According to Shelter, annual rents in inner London went up by 7 per cent last year – or just under £1,000 for a two-bedroom house. When people’s wages are flat-lining, that’s a big hit.”

As a Landlord of some 20 years I have seen this coming, indeed it’s why I am a Landlord. The strange thing is that the Government hasn’t seen it coming, and still doesn’t understand why it is happening, and getting worse. The fixed costs of being a Landlord are increasing exponentially – Pimlico Flats has had to take on an employee solely for the purpose of administering deposits, council tax, utilities. Computerisation has enabled big corporations like Westminster City Council to remove thinking from their activities and leave automated mailshots. New regulations require building work to prevent such things as “death by only having one lock” ……. again, many of the new initiatives are good, and contribute to tenants well being, but some don’t. And all carry a cost, and at the end of the day the tenant bears that cost,  not government, or the landlord.

It’s time for Government and Shelter to examine what leads to higher rents, and what leads to lower rents, and to act accordingly.

Meantime don’t be surprised if Landlords leave the Planet saying thanks for all the fish.

Margaret Thatcher

An interesting article today in Social Housing and Local Government news website http://www.24dash.com about how Right To Buy has affected Westminster Council.

Nearly half of Westminster’s 22,000 council homes have been sold through Right-to-Buy in the past 30 years, and because government rules don’t allow local authorities to keep the proceeds of sale the properties haven’t been replaced by further social housing. Of course many of the flats purchased under Rent to Buy have been recycled into Private Sector renting – I personally know of 4 people who were able to retire to the country in middle age on the proceeds of the Right to Buy windfall which could be as much as several hundred thousand pounds in extreme cases.

This has left the council with a situation where they are paying housing benefit to tenants who are renting ex-council properties from private landlords – and this costs the council around four times the rent charged for a council home rented directly from the council, and on occasions up to five or six times the council rent.

What a mess – but probably not a mess that the government wishes to acknowledge as it stems from a conservative policy a generation ago, rather than something that can be neatly pinned on the last government.

‘Successful Property Letting – How To Make Money In Buy-To-Let’ by David Lawrenson 

If you are only ever going to by one authoritative book on being a landlord then judging by it’s track record this is the one to buy.

Best treated as a reference for specific topics rather than trying to read it from cover to cover, it has lots of references for where to get further information.

It also provides quite specific advice, clearly from experience, on many things and represents excellent value and written to be understood.

Unpretentious, unassuming style a ‘must’ for all Property Landlords.

 ’The Complete Guide to Residential Letting’ by Tessa Shepperson 



Written by a legal authority it is the ultimate in being right.




Tessa runs a legal online advisory service for her members, and has produced an authoritative book for landlords (from professionals with large rental portfolios to people letting rooms in their home), which covers everything landlords need to know in a clear, easy to understand style.



‘The Complete Guide to Property Investing Success’ by Angela Bryant


You often hear about people who have built up a substantial property portfolio and are now, or on their way to being financially independent. This book will help you make the move to becoming a property investor. Written in an easy-to-read style the author clearly sets out the steps to take and the pitfalls to watch out for.

The author has demonstrated that her and her husband have learned the hard and this brings credibility to the information and tips she shares. The personal stories bring an added dimension to the book.

As well as a ‘how to’ element to the book there is also a self motivation section to encourage you to start on the journey to becoming a property investor.

Leading From The Front, Gerald Ronson

Above all this is a Property Story. Amazingly for a man who now holds an iconic status in British business, Ronson quit school before his 15th birthday to work with his father in the family’s furniture factory, and as a young man he and his friends were street fighters, using their fists to take on the British fascist movement. This propelled into a role as a leader in the country’s Jewish community, and he is now considered to b the most influential secular Jew in the UK.

Ronson will forever be associated with the famous Guinness affair, which was the biggest financial scandal of the ’80s. He was found guilty after a media circus of a trial in which the cards were stacked against him and he spent six months in jail. Years later, the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg ruled that it had been an unfair trial. True to character, he organised his life in prison, tried to assist his fellow inmates and has since helped many of them find their way back into society.

After Guinness, which Ronson calls the greatest crisis in his life, he suffered a major financial crash that nearly bankrupted him, and he has spent the last two decades rebuilding his empire and reputation.

In For A Penny, Peter Hargreaves

In this candid and outspoken book, the multi-millionaire founder of investment company Hargreaves Lansdown tells the story behind its extraordinary success and gives his forthright views on what it takes to be successful as an entrepreneur and as an investor. Starting from his spare bedroom with a single phone and borrowed office equipment, Peter and his business partner Stephen Lansdown set out to build a business that would consciously be different from that of all their competitors. They have held fast to their unconventional ways ever since, regularly turning the companyâ TMs strategy and business model upside down in their relentless effort to give their clients the best information, the best prices and the best service. Widely recognised as the number one firm in their business, Hargreaves Lansdown was floated on the London stock market in 2007, valued at £800 million. – a great book on investment, building a business / brand and looking after your clients.

200 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A recent survey conducted by holiday home specialists Owners Direct has revealed that 50% of Brits in the South East who plan to, or have already rented out their homes for the Olympics are looking to escape the UK for a Mediterranean break. Owners Direct has also seen almost a 90% rise in enquiries during 2012 to date for the London area and an 80% increase for surrounding areas such as Essex.

As a result of increased demand for properties near the Olympic sites next summer, Owners Direct have launched a service specifically to cater to the needs of those looking for short term let options. Launched at the end of October last year, it offers landlords a cost effective way to market their homes to people all over the world who are looking for accommodation during the Olympics.

With over 50% of people who took part in the study who own a holiday home in the South East already having received enquiries for the 2012 games, Marketing Manager Angela Southall said the company was keen to extend their offering to people who didn’t need to list their properties for a long period of time.

“We have launched a service that will allow homeowners who wouldn’t normally rent out their properties to do so for a short time. “We’ve been amazed at how many people are willing to pack up their lives and find a roof elsewhere for a few weeks!” says Angela Southall.

Home owners can take advantage of the two month trial listing, available exclusively to UK owners, by visiting www.ownersdirect.co.uk quoting UK49

I try to keep this blog tightly on the subjects of Pimlico, Renting, and Flats. It’s not too difficult because I can use the Forum to ramble about other subjects, and this keeps the blog focussed.

I thought that I would stray a little to talk about this blog, and blogging, as a way of thanking my many sources of information, and I have broken the story into three parts.

Pimlico

Renting

Property

Pimlico

Blogging about Pimlico is probably the easiest of my 3 core subjects, particularly since I define “Pimlico” as being anywhere within walking distance of Pimlico Flats – so that covers Central London, and makes:

• Victoria & Belgravia “North Pimlico”,
• Kensington and Chelsea “West Pimlico”,
• Battersea, Vauxhall, Stockwell, Clapham “South Pimlico”
• Westminster, Soho “East Pimlico”

I try to focus on free and little published events and attractions, as the bigger professional things are generally commercially advertised and known about. My biggest source of information is the weekly publication The Pimlico News and Journal which is something that I publish myself and is automatically curated from various feeds. It has been sufficiently successful that I now carry it as a page on this website which can be accessed from the menu on the left.

It’s a great Newspaper but I must give thanks to some of the contributors. There are of course the usual traditional sources of information, BBC, Newspapers, but the purpose of niche blogging is to uncover the real story, and here are the local blogs and websites which I follow in order to reach the news other blogs can’t reach:

London Blogs

• Foremost has to be the Westminster Chronicle  just because we need professional journalists and local newspapers in our lives, and if you don’t use them and pay for them we will lose them, and be all the poorer. I don’t know how the power of the internet will pan out, but printed news is under pressure from free blogs like this, and the free “Pimlico News and Journal” that I just promoted. In spite of my competition with the Chronicle all I can say is that we need our local shops, and newspapers, so please buy a copy from your local newsagent.
• Londonist  a website about London and everything that happens in it – it’s a professional publication set up in 2004 as The Big Smoker. I like it because, although it is a comprehensive London-wide reference resource, it carries this off with humour and is in touch with it’s community roots (e.g. the Hand Drawn Maps initiative). They provide everything you need to know about the capital, as well as celebrating the quirks, eccentricities, hidden and surprising bits that make up the alternative side of the city.
• Discovering London - which I juxtapose alongside Londonist because Peter’s blog is small, if not tiny, yet it is brimming over with personality, quality, and originality. Peter has yet to reach his 1st anniversary of blogging, but already his website is one of my favourites.
• Tired of London, Tired of Life began in October 2008 as a place to document those moments of inspiration for making living in London exciting & different. Doing the same thing day after day can get anyone down, but our city has an almost infinite number of things to see and do. If you’re not getting the most out of London, it is a sad truth that you have no one to blame but yourself. This site was part of a personal plan for the author to get the most out of the greatest city on earth, and it has worked.
• Going Underground Look at what the mainstream press has to say! The magic, mystery & sometimes maddening shortcomings of London’s Tube are documented with love, enthusiasm & sometimes despair by its unofficial social historian ……. The best blogs have a tinge of obsession about them … On some mornings it can feel like the only reason to be grateful that the Tube exists … one of London’s obsessives
• Young and Poor  Cheap/free events, gigs, food & drink, or sales —  never paid to mention things so it’s only things worth recommending.
• Ian Visits does NOT list the mainstream music/theatre/film events which are already so well supplied by the major newspapers and magazines – but DOES list the heritage open days, walking tours and mostly, the astonishing array of free (or cheap) lectures that the societies and universities of London provide. It’s a personal resource of remarkable usefulness.
• Boris Watch An act of frustration, at the loss to apparent personality politics, and the accusation that somehow young people are to blame …… but also a great tap into the stories that THEY don’t want you to read about.
• Laura Porter London-based travel writer & VisitBritain Super Blogger, mum, copywriter, tea drinker, afternoon tea addict & all-round London obsessive. She is a professional travel writer for About but I have recommended her twitter feed as she is a model in how to use Social Media. She does so much more than just promote her own writing, and is very generous with the links and information that she publishes. Consequently I would say – if you want to keep your finger on the pulse of mainstream London – follow Laura.

Speaking as a Pimlico HMO I was somewhat amazed at the stupidity displayed by 4 of my Bristol Bretheren who seem to have just ignored their local authority, and their responsibilities to provide safe decent accommodation.

The knowledge and attitude of local authority Environmental Health Officers can be patchy – they can be helpful, skilled, trained, or sometimes they leave you shaking your head in disbelief. You have to take the rough with the smooth, and in general things will turn out all right. What you cannot do is ignore them, or believe that the regulations apply to everyone else, but not you.

Housing Officers from Bristol City Council, found a series of problems at an HMO including:

• Failure to provide adequate fire safety at the property.
• Failure to ensure the shared areas of the property were maintained in a good and clean decorative order.
• Failure to ensure the property was kept in good repair.
• Failure to provide lighting in many of the shared areas of the property.
• Keeping a property whose structure was a danger to the health of the occupiers.
• Failure to provide information about the property when required to do so.

Bristol  can offer a range of advice and support to help landlords comply with legislation, however, where landlords refuse to co-operate and where there are serious breaches of the Housing Act (as in this case) local authorities can and will take legal action to compel them to bring improvements.

On December 21, the landlords were summonsed before Bristol Magistrates Court in relation to alleged offences under the Housing Act 2004 and the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1976. They, failed to attend Court or have representation – talk about committing suicide! The defendants were found guilty on all charges, and the combined fines totalled £30,036.30 and combined costs totalled £5,199.60.

Private landlord prosecuted by council for Housing Act failures

It’s not normally my place to blog about legal precedents, but this case is so relevant to Pimlico, Property, and Flats (the themes of this blog) that I couldn’t resist reporting an unusual legal judgement about one of the most contentious property estates in the country – Pimlico’s Dolphin Square.

Dolphin Square, Pimlico (Westminster London SW1)

Dolphin Square is a massive central London complex of 1250 luxury flats that is home to dozens of MPs, peers, judges, lawyers, QCs and senior military officers, and where Oswald Mosley, Harold Wilson, Christine Keeler, Charles de Gaulle, CP Snow, Donald Campbell, and Princess Anne once lived.

For decades it was one of the biggest scandals in the UK’s housing history – the block, paid for with public money, was run for the benefit of a few wealthy individuals. Social Housing for Millionaires in a borough with thousands of homeless and overcrowded families.

In order to rid itself of it’s political embarrassment in 2004 Westminster City Council sold its 27-year head lease of Dolphin Square to US private equity investor Westbrook Associates for a BMV of £176.5 million. I wonder whether even then Westbrook had it’s Machiavellian plan to acquire the freehold in mind?

Leasehold Flats Can Buy their Freehold

Westbrook has been publically aiming to buy the freehold since 2007.  The Leasehold Reform Housing and Urban Development Act 1993 (as amended by the Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Act 2002) gives tenants the right upon qualification to compel the sale of the freehold of the building or part of the building. Description of the process of buying the freehold of leasehold flats. The intention of this legislation was to enable individual flat owners to club together and break free from aggressive landlords.

The law was never intended to allow predatory head lessees to acquire freeholds for less than their market value, however Westbrook has taken advantage of the oddity that Dolphin Square has always been entirely let, either on decades-old regulated tenancies or assured shorthold tenancies but not on long leases so there are no leaseholders. The company was able to create 612 Jersey-listed companies, and sell each of them one or two Dolphin Square flats on 26-year leases, and then serve the Freeholder with a notice to enfranchise those leases. The owners of leases of more than 21 years have the right to buy the freehold, subject to no one leaseholder owning more than two flats. Changes in the 2002 act that were intended to help big London blocks enfranchise, even if many owners were subletting, abolished the ‘residency test’, which required occupation of a flat to qualify for enfranchisement.

The Freeholder is the life assurance company Friends Provident, who are not happy at this ruse.

‘We do not believe that the law was intended to allow foreign private equity investors to compulsorily acquire on the cheap a major asset of a British life assurance company that has held the property as one of its core investments for more than 70 years, the price offered to us in the legal notice compares unfavourably with the average £250,000 for which Westbrook sold the 1,200 flats held on 27-year leases to its 612 Jersey-based associated companies.’

Leaseholder Freeholder Legal Battle

Westbrook and Friends Provident are fighting  it out at the Leasehold Valuation Tribunal, the Lands Tribunal, the Court of Appeal, and most likely the House of Lords as well.  In 2009 the company brought a claim, but a week before the trial it pulled out, claiming it was because of “unfavourable market conditions”. In a second attempt, the company served a new notice in 2010, valuing the freehold at £111.6m – a £13.8m increase on the 2007 valuation. Friends Provident, which currently owns the freehold, has argued that the claim should be struck out given that Westbrook already abandoned its earlier claim. Giving his judgment last month, Mr Justice Arnold said that although enfranchisement laws allow the bringing of successive claims for enfranchisement, they do not allow the bringing of successive claims to be entitled to exercise the right to collective enfranchisement.

“I recognise that it is a strong thing to prevent a party from obtaining the court’s determination of what is accepted to be a reasonably arguable claim. However, Westbrook had a full opportunity to obtain the court’s determination in the previous proceedings, by bringing the previous claim, Westbrook caused Friends Provident and the courts to expend time and resources to deal with the claim. It chose to discontinue that claim shortly before trial. In my view, it both could and should have pursued that claim to trial to establish the entitlement of special purpose vehicles to exercise the right of collective enfranchisement if it wanted to maintain that entitlement.”

The High Court ruling is that the claim to use enfranchisement laws in relation to the 1,250-flat block “amounts to an abuse of process” and must be “struck out”, however on Monday afternoon, Mr Justice Arnold granted Westbrook permission to appeal the decision because the case raised an “issue of principle” that should be determined by the Court of Appeal.

Further Reading:

Who are the winners at dolphin square?

Westbrook given leave to appeal for Pimlico’s Dolphin Square freehold