Protecting your property in cold weather
If you have an untenanted property, it’s essential to take the right steps to protect it during winter. Especially from the main culprit behind a long list of problems; water. Freezing and general damp...
View ArticleA £5,000 fine or fit smoke and CO2 alarms – your choice.
This is our shortest ever blog post. The new rules on compulsory smoke and CO2 alarms in rented accommodation start this October. We know the overwhelming majority of our landlords are already doing...
View ArticleSmoke and CO2 detectors.
If you saw yesterday’s post you will see that new regulations are coming into effect in October on both smoke and CO2 detectors – There are some slightly complex issues to this and we are now checking...
View ArticlePaying the rent: Your tenant’s income during the Coronavirus crisis.
Apologies for a longer post than usual but there’s a lot to talk about.(note this replaces the post dated 27/03/20 at 07:13) There are two issues in the current virus crisis which are of particular...
View ArticleHousing and rental market starts to re-open
New web pages on tenants and COVID-19 Some good news for landlords, tenants, buyers and sellers – the property and rentals market is now slowly starting to re-open in-line with amendments to the...
View ArticleUnpleasant and hazardous to health
Nasty smelling, unsightly, germ-ridden and likely attract to every type of vermin imaginable. No – not me – despite what the blog’s co-editor, Liz Mooney says about me in private. We’re talking about...
View ArticleA quick update: Jobs, advice and evictions.
A few quick things The first three bullet points below have been borrowed from a newsletter put out by our colleagues in the Black Country Area Department of Work and Pensions. Although these aren’t...
View ArticleAn offer to Sandwell landlords
As we all know, ‘if it sounds too good to be true, then it’s not true’ but just sometimes – there are still some good things we can tell you about. My colleagues in Sandwell Housing Solutions are...
View ArticleA long wait for your property back
There’s been another government announcement for landlords on ending tenancies. You might have seen the first two points coming but point three perhaps wasn’t expected and it is significant. The...
View ArticleThe blog is back!
Return of the portal Eviction delays (again) and the possible abolition of section 21 notices. Apologies but for unforeseen and unavoidable reasons, the blog has temporarily been more or less out of...
View ArticleA double blog:
It’s getting colder. Contacting the council through MySandwell It’s that time of year again. No, not Christmas, but the time for our annual reminder on getting your property winter proof, making sure...
View ArticleHoliday accommodation
Are you engaged in letting out any sort of holiday accommodation, including Airbnb type arrangements? The Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (All Tiers) (England) Regulations 2020 mean that...
View ArticleNew guide for tenants.
Meet the ‘A’ team. It’s Christmas! Sorry – I have to start with a dull reminder but this is a bigger issue than it might look and you need to get this right. There is a new edition out of the...
View ArticleInventories and references
It’s a fairly quiet time of year so it seems like a good opportunity for some reminders on basics. There are so many things that you should have on your checklist for when you have a new or prospective...
View ArticleFree money to help keep your tenants warm
Interested? You need to act quickly. It’s not too late to apply for grants worth thousands of pounds under the Green Homes Scheme to make a property more energy efficient. Landlords can apply for a...
View ArticleRight to rent: Your tenants, their immigration status and new rules for EU...
Right to rent A reminder; don’t forget, wherever your tenant is from, the government’s ‘right to rent’ rules mean that landlords have a legal responsibility to hold documentary evidence documentary...
View ArticleRent arrears, evictions and “Breathing space.”
Evictions: Nobody likes them. Nobody wants them. And we certainly don’t want to encourage them but sometimes a landlord has no choice. The law on evictions seems to be in a constant state of change;...
View ArticleHMOs . . . The inspectors are coming.
They never actually went away, but as we start to come out of the pandemic our inspectors are getting busy again! If you own or manage a House in Multiple Occupancy (HMO) – you should be aware that...
View ArticleIt’s nearly crunch time for EU citizens claiming benefits
Anyone living in the UK who is a citizen of a European Union country (excluding the Irish republic) must apply for European Union Settled Status by June 30th if they want to continue to access a whole...
View Article
