Pimlico Flats rent studios and flats, and first impressions count for prospective tenants, consequently the next phase of our development is to enhance the entrance, and this will have a number of practical benefits to tenants as well.
As with everything in the Pimlico Conservation area, we can’t blow our nose without permission from the planning department, but we have now reached a stage where we know what we won’t get permission for, and are proceeding with the items which will get approval:
Unfortunately we will not be getting permission for individual letterboxes for each property. Letter boxes are a major issue for the planners, and although we have argued hard on behalf of the tenants we are not making progress.
Junk Mail is a major problem and we will now be opening discussions with the Post Office to see if they can help us with a solution.
We will have permission to paint the foot of the pillars and all the doors black, and tile the porch. This will lead into an entrance hall decorated in a traditional style, with a false ceiling to hide the multitude of cabling. There will be cornices, features and a new Sisal carpet and runner up the stairs. There will be a new reception/office open to the entrance.
We will be installing security cameras. Although Pimlico is about as safe as you can be in Central London we are taking the opportunity of the new network wiring to introduce some advanced technology which may be attractive to tenants. We haven’t worked out what we will be doing with the video feeds yet – watch this space (not literally!).
We will be installing Solar Panels to heat the Hot Water.
We expect all of this work to be completed before Christmas.
Things round here are getting more organised. The bits that help you find things are in the column on the left, and the links I want you to click on are on the right. Feedback has asked that we should loosen up the spammer controls to make it easier to comment – DONE! Now it’s over to you, please comment. Additionally I’m sorting this summary into 4 sections:
Companies have been asking for upfront fees to source below market value deals and marketing property deals that, once surveyed for mortgage purposes, are figures far short of the original claim. A victim of the Ahuja Group bought a property that was supposed to be worth £100,000 with a monthly rental income of £1,541 for £3,000 - the survey valuation came in at £72,000 and the rental figure was just £375. Full Article
With so many companies in the property market on the edge of bankruptcy – will a landlord get their rent when an agent goes under? If you rent through an agent make sure that all client money should be kept in a special clients account, separate from the agents own money. If this is done, the money will still be available even if the agent becomes insolvent. Full Article
Squatters have turned Inspector Morse’s once elegant home from the classic ITV series into an ugly eyesore, the 19th century house – actually on the Castlehill Park Estate in Ealing, West London – now lies derelict with its windows and doors boarded up. Full Article
Grant Bovey, the property tycoon and husband of Anthea Turner the television presenter, whose buy-to-let empire collapsed with debts of more than £50m to the taxpayer, has abandoned his comeback venture after just four months. The Distressed Property Company hoped to market properties worth between £200,000 and £1m, potential investors were asked to pay £250 for joining a register to view pictures and films of homes on sale for 40% less than in 2008. It was hoped the bulk of the firm’s earnings would be commission from developers and banks keen to offload properties. Full Article
A review of iphone apps and mobile sites after Rightmove launched their new iPhone app which is topping the ‘Top Free Apps’ league on iTunes. Full Article
You can buy the property, but not sell it! Under new powers in the Housing and Regeneration Act 2008, more than 13,000 small rural settlements will be designated “protected” areas across England. Shared ownership properties in these “protected” areas will be retained by either restricting to 80% the share owners can buy or allowing owners to acquire up to 100% but ensuring the provider, for example a housing association, buys the property back to retain it for future purchasers. Full Article
London
Visitors to London always have to be on the look out for pickpockets, but now there’s another, more positive phenomenon on the loose – putpockets. Anything from 5 pounds to 20 pound notes is being surreptitiously deposited in unguarded pockets or open handbags in Trafalgar Square, Covent Garden and other busy spots, being funded by a broadbrand provider, which says it wants to brighten up people’s lives in unusual ways. London’s police have been briefed about the plan, which will see at least 100,000 pounds given away. Full Article
Tributes were paid to a larger-than-life Pimlico youth club leader who died. Full Article
Hundreds of angry motorbikers converged in Westminster for the latest protest against bike parking charges introduced by the council. The motorcyclists have been campaigning for the last 12 months against daily parking fees of £1.50, or £150 a year, to park in the borough. Full Article
A garden party was held in the beautiful open space on the Lillington and Longmoore Gardens Estate, in Charlwood Street, the gardens, nicknamed the ‘Hanging gardens of Pimlico’, are an oasis of calm just five minutes from Victoria station. The party was to celebrate the achievement of picking up a third Green Flag accolade for being among the nation’s best green spaces. Full Article
Renting
Judges are being forced to make unfair court orders thanks to the way the tenancy deposit protection scheme (TDPS) legislation was rushed through without due consideration. Judge Jacklin DJ Lightman commented that “the sooner Parliament looks at this the better” Full Article
A private landlord who was successfully prosecuted by Cardiff Council for failing to licence a property under the 2004 Housing Act and may now be forced to repay 12 months rent. Full Article
Gumtree Landlord
The weird side of Gumtree – Offered a ‘hardly used, mostly empty’ flat (both caveats were unsettling). He was evasive about rent (‘We can work something out,’) and even if he owned the place. I held back with answers. Then he said, tentatively: ‘…In your ad, you describe yourself as a professional female. That’s an interesting phrase…’ Just the standard wording, I said. ‘It makes you sound like a working girl. Would you be interested in male company?’ Only a festering, man-size wart would interpret ‘Flat Wanted’ as ‘Hey ugly guy! Me love you long-time for garret in hovel.’ Full Article
General
10 Signs You Really Need To Get A Life
Interest rates will remain at historically low levels for years after the Bank of England gave a strong hint that it might again expand its policy of flooding the economy with money. Full Article
Review of Credit Report Websites - a lot of web sites that offer free credit score and credit report, however, many of them are not really free and some have down right misleading advertisement regarding their offers. This website contains some of the most popular web sites that offers free credit report and credit score. From the list, two of them offer completely free official credit report from at least one of the three credit bureaus. Full Article
There are a lot of web sites that offers free credit scoreand credit report. However, many of them are not
really free and some have down right misleading advertisement regarding their offers. This list contains some of the most popular web sites that offers free credit report and credit score. From the list, two of them offer completely free official credit report from at least one of the three credit bureausFull Article
This is our second blog summarising the news this week in the world of a flat hunter, tenant, landlord, in London or elsewhere. Two makes a series, so every weekend we will be summarising the week, starting from renting flats in Pimlico (of course!) but ranging out through the world of London, the UK, Property, Technology, the World and Life. Serious, amusing, balanced, it aims to be a must read with a summary and links to where you can find more. Please comment, particularly if you would like me to blog in more detail on any particular subject.
UK House Prices Falling Again
The discount of properties sold at auction has been rising since May, and properties at auction are now being sold for an average of 18% below their market price. Auctions are like a snap-indicator of coming price-trends because properties are being sold much faster, and the widening of the auction discount over the past two months is the first indication that the housing rebound is fizzling out. Read More:
A wakeup call to landlords over their responsibilities, but is a fine enough? Hilary Thompson, aged 82, of Portscatho, was fined £5,000, and ordered to pay £1,182 costs, and probably is guilt-ridden. She inherited the property, and rented it on an AST in March last year. A few days after Thirza Whittall moved in with her husband and two young children she went to take a bath but tragically died when she was electrocuted after touching the taps. There was an electric, oil-filled radiator in the bathroom with the plug being run from a socket in the kitchen, the radiator was more than 30 years old, had a damaged flex, and was fitted with a 13 amp rather than a three amp fuse. A fault occurred when the flex was pulled tight allowing the electrical current to make a connection with the water pipes, there was a lack of earth bonding on the water pipes and the bath taps became live. The court heard in Thompson’s defence that she had asked a local electrician to check the house before the Whittalls moved in, but he had not had the opportunity because he had been too busy, and the radiator had originally been in another part of the property and was not intended for use in the bathroom. Read More
£6000 Housing Benefit Fraud …… £100 Fine!
A woman failed to declare that her landlord was the father of her children, which resulted in an overpayment of benefit totalling £6034.74. The woman was told she must pay back the full overpayment when she was sentenced last week and given a £100 fine plus £40 costs. Is that enough? Read More
Renting to Students
This has been the week where the world of journalism has discovered that renting to students can be profitable, probably off the back of a report by Knight Frank. The student letting market continues to buck the trend in other areas of the economy with record numbers of students applying to enter higher education this year, student numbers have grown from 1.8 million in 1997 to 2.5 million in 2007, and Knight Frank estimate that London alone requires an additional 100,000 student bedspaces.
Renting a Spare Room
Mr. Rigsby
Both my wife and I managed to afford the first house that we bought when we were single by renting rooms to lodgers. Now renting a room is proving to be a lifeline for thousands of beleaguered households across Britain under the cosh of the recession. Having a lodger can typically bring in £393 a month or £4,716 a year, and figures show there were 388,000 lodgers in July last year, rising by 152 per cent to 981,000 a year later. Households in London are the most likely to take in a lodger, with 6 per cent renting out a room, compared to just 1 per cent in Scotland and Northern Ireland. The Government’s Rent a Room scheme allows households to earn up to £4,250 a year tax-free. However, those renting rooms to lodgers could find their details being studied by tax inspectors under government proposals for a national register of landlords. The most popular age to take in a lodger is 25 to 34 years old, with this age group making up a third of all new live in landlords, and 70 per cent of live-in landlords are single.
Mouldy Landlords Stink!
Ovenu (call 0800 140 9800 or visit www.ovenu.co.uk) the leading UK oven cleaning specialist did a survey which showed that tenants are 3 times more likely to be put off by mould in a property (77%) or bad smells such as smoking or pets (66%) than practical issues such as small rooms.
Landlord Registers
Currently, each of the four countries within the UK is adopting a widely different approach to whether landlords should or should not be on a central database.
England: the Government is proposing a national register of English landlords which would include not only their names and addresses but also the addresses of their rental properties. Run by an independent organisation, landlords (or their agents) would have to register every year. In return, landlords would receive a unique landlord registration number to be used in tenancy agreements, court proceedings including eviction, and housing benefit claims.
Scotland: every council in Scotland already holds a register of landlords and letting agents. If they have not registered, or applied for registration, it is a criminal offence. Since its introduction in 2006 there have been calls for the scheme to be reviewed as 25% of rental properties are not registered.* Landlord registration has failed to have sufficient teeth to deal with rogue landlords who have failed to register.
Northern Ireland: the Executive has stated clearly that mandatory registration of landlords “would put an unnecessary and unfair focus on those landlords who are already complying with legislation and acting responsibly. It would not provide the most effective means of targeting those landlords who are not complying with current law, particularly those who are unaware of, or who deliberately decide to operate outside the law.” ** In other words, there will be no register in Northern Ireland.
Wales: the Assembly Government has no immediate plans of its own to introduce any type of landlord register. However, it is possible that if legislation is introduced atWestminster, it could be extended to include all Welsh landlords.
‘With borrowers unsure about the next move for interest rates, they appear to have been opting for the security of fixed rate deals.’
I’m sorry Paragon – that’s tosh
Borrowers are being forced into accepting overpriced fixed rate deals because they can’t get anything else!
Landlords to House Britain
In a headline to bring tears to the eyes, the National Association of Estate Agents (NAEA) says that with a lack of homes available to meet demand the private rental sector step in to pick up the slack.
“The government will end up relying on buy-to-let investors to provide property for rental and ensure that Britain has a roof over its head.”
This is not a case of the Estate Agents, Hairdressers and Management Consultants from the “B” Ark saving the country, but actually a cry for help.
“But to make this happen, the buy-to-let market needs assistance from the banks and it will only be ministerial pressure that will make that happen.”
It follows updated guidance from the National Housing and Planning Advice Unit which calls for 5% more new homes to be built a year, and that banks also need to start lending to developers again so that mothballed projects can resume. Read more
Evicted from the Family Home
Knightstone Housing Association’s nuisance prevention team took action against a man who was released from prison on 5 August and wanted to return to a property in Chard. The man is not a tenant of Knightstone but his long-term partner is. Knightstone took action because the street in question contains 19 girls under the age of 16. In a case in Yeovil County Court this week it saw an interim injunction, preventing the man returning to the property, extended until 29 September. Evidence in the case was heard this week and it was agreed by both parties that closing submissions will be given in writing to the judge by 1 September. Read More
Should a tenant be evicted because they have a boyfriend who is a reformed criminal? What’s your view?
