Pimlico Flats have started work on building 8 New Affordable Homes in Pimlico, London SW1. The homes will be low cost flats appropriate for single professionals or couples working in Central London, and after value for money. The appointed Architects, Simon Whitehead Architects Ltd, have produced a design which maximises the use of light and space within the design envelop of the Planning Permission , the quality of the tenant’s lifestyle and a low carbon footprint have been priorities of the design process.
South London builder Bradley Construction & Developments have been appointed to start on site on 9th March 2009, and a show home is programmed for completion in early June 2009. The full project is due for completion by September 2009.
Central London accommodation at affordable prices, available from 1st April. Rent of £750 pcm is for 6+ month tenancies or £300 pw for short lets. The house is a recently refurbished stucco fronted property in the Pimlico Conservation Area. The studio is suitable for a professional single or couple working in Central London, student or short term visitor, after value for money. Details, photos & a plan.
The Government has always made & controlled the process of Law but now suddenly, thanks to the Credit Crunch and it’s ownership of the banking system, it also owns & controls those who abide by the law. Are we about to see a Government prepared to take a stance when others have to pay the piper, but not prepared to back those ideals with it’s own money?
In 1984 the UK rental market had all but died – privately rented housing stood at 7% of the housing market (down from 90% over 2 generations), and worse – housing was allowed to stand empty rather than be exposed to the risk of being rented to someone who stayed to acquire a Protected Tenancy and it’s dreaded “Fair Rent” (set by Rent Officers at around a third of the market rent). It was believed at the time that one of the drivers of the recession & stagnation of the 1970s economy was the immobility of labour. Norman Tebbit is probably (and erroneously) best known as saying directly to the unemployed “get on your bike and look for work”, and this attitude reflected a certain frustration in government that when there were jobs labour couldn’t live close enough to take them up.
The Assured Tenancy Agreement was introduced in 1985 to address the inequity of the 1974 Rent Act, & it intended to provide the responsible tenant with security of tenure, whilst providing the landlord with a fair process for establishing a market rent when one could not be agreed by negotiation with the tenant. It was fully intended that this legal agreement would be the basis of a whole new recovery of the rental market, and yet 20 years on few letting professionals even knew of it’s existence, let alone the tenants for whom it was put it in the statute book. Why should this be?
Whilst the government was preparing it’s legislation it perceived two problems that required different solutions. It hoped to resolve the problems of how to give a landlord a market rent whilst protecting the tenant’s security of tenure with the Assured tenancy, but it could also see a vast pool of empty houses which the owners wanted to sell or live in themselves in 6 months, or a later date. These stood empty because the owner knew that to rent them out under the 1974 legislation was tantamount to giving them away. For this second problem the government prepared the Assured Shorthold Tenancy Agreement, which we all know today as the only tenancy agreement available. This contract was only intended to be used for stop gap tenancies of 6 -12 months which can clearly be seen from 2 key parts of the initial legislation:
The tenancy wasn’t valid unless the tenant had clearly been warned that the tenancy could be terminated by the landlord. This legislation appears in section 21, & thus the warning became known as a “Section 21 Memorandum”. If the Section 21 Memorandum hadn’t been served correctly the tenancy would default to an Assured Tenancy.
Whilst the Assured Tenancy incorporated a mechanism whereby a rent was set by a third party when a landlord and tenant couldn’t agree a new rent, the Assured Shorthold Tenancy has no mechanism whereby the landlord can increase the rent except serving notice & offering a new tenancy.
So what happened to the Assured Tenancy? Well quite simply – no one used it, understandably landlords wouldn’t sign away their tenure of a property when there was an option that gave them a right of possession. In the rental market that existed 25 years ago tenants were desperate for whatever scarce property they could find, so were very happy to sign up for an Assured Shorthold agreement even when they wanted to stay for many years.
Whilst the Assured Tenancy died, the 1985 legislation did indeed save the life of the rental market in the UK, but in ways that the government never dreamt of whilst framing their legislation. The stock market proceeded to crash in 1987, and individuals who were saving for a pension looked for somewhere other than shares for their savings. The Buy-to-Let market was born like a Phoenix from the flames of the Stock Market & the enabling legislation of the Assured Shorthold Tenancy. Before the Assured Shorthold Tenancy Banks & Building Societies made it a condition of loans that a property couldn’t rented out, because they effectively lost their security with a tenant, admittedly there were specialist loans available – but these were at a premium, which of course forced the cost of rental property even higher. The 90s became the decade of the tenant as Buy-to-Let properties were bought, & let out, but the rebirth of a rental market brought typical consumer problems with it.
Consumer problems boil down to – are you best protected buying from someone else, or from a reputable business? The answer is of course a reputable business, I don’t think that there is any argument about that, however the Buy-to-Let market is a vast amalgam of individual landlords who have tainted the reputation of an industry. The Landlords feel themselves consumers too, so in a Landlord v Tenant disputes it’s consumer against consumer, however the tenant consumer has the charity Shelter on their side. Shelter has immense influence over government & has influenced much of government policy over the last 40 years in spite of having no direct experience of the rental market itself. Remarkably for such a massive charity devoted to housing with an annual income of £34,000,000 p.a., it does not actually provide or administer any accommodation for the homeless whatsoever, it’s income is devoted to influencing government policy on housing. A powerful force indeed!
So what to the future? Well Shelter has been agitating for the repeal of the Assured Shorthold Tenancy Agreement, in order to give the tenant the right of possession rather than the landlord. Given that most of Shelter’s campaigns have resulted in successful amendment to legislation this seems inevitable., so what will it bring? Without doubt Banks & Building Societies will withdraw from the Buy-to-Let market if they can no longer secure their loans against the property freehold, & my personal view is that the only possible result of this would be a return to the situation pre 1985. This will result in the loss of much of the housing stock to the rental market, & a consequential rise in rents. This can only be good for the landlords who stay in the rental market for the long term.
There is however an interesting alternative. With the Government currently in effective ownership of the majority of the mortgage market it is in a position to insist that banks & building societies make loans on properties let under Assured Tenancy Agreements. Amazingly there is no need for any change to the Statute Book, the legislation is available to meet Shelter’s demands for the tenant’s possessiary rights, it only requires Government to make a small adjustment to the fine print of it’s lending policies. The big question is whether it is prepared to make that small change?
It’s a very quick & easy way of announcing new vacancies to people looking to rent London flats, or studios.
It raises our profile & makes it more likely that people looking to rent London flats or studios will regularly visit us.
We genuinely wish to help people looking to rent London flats or studios, even when they aren’t going to rent from us.
What should I do about the Pimlico Flats Blog?
Enjoy. Life is a journey not a destination. There is already a lot of information here, it has been put here for you, not us. I’m sorry that it’s not as neat & tidy as we would all like, one of my future projects will be to review it all, & condense & summarise it in one document. Meantime have a look, or bookmark & come back.
If there is something you want to know – ask. Put a question in the comments & I will answer the question. I will answer either by pointing you to the information, or writing the answer as a comment or a complete new posting.
If you are looking to rent a London flat, or studio right now – check the Homepage & check recent blogs.
If you are looking to rent a London flat, or studio within the next 30 days – check the Homepage & check recent blogs. Subscribe to the Blog (either by RSS or by eMail).
If you are looking to rent a London flat, or studio in the long term – check the Homepage & check recent blogs. Subscribe to the Blog (either by RSS or by eMail) & Bookmark the Homepage .
Internet marketing is becoming increasingly popular & the fastest growing web based platform is Twitter – Twitter users grew in number by 782% in 2008 (yes, seven hundred and eighty two percent). Twitter has gone mainstream, being mentioned in the broadsheets and tabloids, and earning celebrity endorsement such as Stephen Fry & Jonothan Ross.
My question is – when will the property industry wake up & plunge in? Or will they even be welcome? Gumtree tried syndicating their listing onto Twitter, but appear to have given up the unequal struggle, after all who want to sign up to receive a stream of advertisements? Someone didn’t quite think that one through! Now the Gumtree name is held by a handful of Cybersquatters optimistically holding Gumtree IDs. None of the famous London Estate Agents have registered their names on Twitter – is it simply that Estate Agents don’t want to be social?
If you know a Lettings Agent or Landlord who tweets please send me a tweet or comment below. I’ll let you know how we get on. I’d be really grateful if you are on twitter, for your tweeting about this post. You can find me on Twitter & an especial thanks to Su Butcher who stimulated this posting.
Have you ever arrived to view a Flat, & known the moment that you got off the bus, or came out of the tube station, that you really didn’t want to live in that area, whatever the flat was going to look like?
Most people have, & now there is an answer – use the internet to check out the area before you travel. We are still waiting for Google’s Street View to do this for us, but while Google is still promising to realise the data at some time in the future, Seety has gone ahead and done it. The people behind Seety have been working on mapping technologies and panoramic images for the last few years. Based on their experience, they have created a site that works the same way as Google’s Street View. However, they have beaten the search engine giant in their coverage of London. The imagery uses Google Maps as an index. They claim to have driven more than 1000 kilometres around London and produced a total of 171,103 pictures.
The Route from Pimlico Flats to Sainsbury’s Markets
So now you can have a look at your prospective area. For instance this map shows Pimlico Flats (the big red cross), the route to Sainsbury’s Market – a 5 minute walk highlighted on the map. The Market is marked by the red arrow, & the photo can be rotated 360 degrees in Click for Seety’s view of Wilton Rd. .
So now you will always be able to check out an area before you travel to a viewing.
