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Property Rental

Disputes over Returning a Tenant’s Deposit

If you’ve been a landlord for any length of time, you’ve probably experienced the procedure when a tenancy ends by mutual consent. Among the steps that must be taken is the return of the tenant’s deposit. This is usually a fairly straightforward process, but occasionally there may be a dispute over what exactly you need to return. Regulations About Deposits When you take a tenant’s deposit at the beginning of the ten
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What Does It Cost You to Be a Landlord?

To anyone outside the buy-to-let world, it seems as if landlords are sitting back and raking in profits. While this was never really true, a few years ago there was some justification for the perception. But no longer. A combination of increasing hidden costs and Government measures such as increasing Stamp Duty have left landlords in a position where the average annual return is hardly more than £2,000 on each prope
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ENFORCING AT COMMERCIAL PROPERTIES

Although often a controversial topic, instructing a bailiff is one of the most effective ways of collecting a debt in the UK. If a tenant is in rent arrears or they have another outstanding debt to you, using the services of a bailiff is often the most straightforward means of recovering the amount. If you instruct a team of bailiffs to recover an outstanding debt from your commercial property – whether that is a sho
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Winter had a sting in the tail, but did your business get through it unscathed?

The end of the tax year is in sight, and it’s a time when many businesses suddenly find unpaid invoices making a hole in their profits. Hopefully you’re on top of your finances, but do get in touch with SJ Collections if you need any help chasing up debts. 2018 seems to be throwing up more challenges than usual for SMEs, from the government’s overhaul of the Corporate Governance Code to an unprecedented level of cybe
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You Might Be Surprised Who the Biggest Tax Dodgers Are

Tax evasion and avoidance are big news these days, and most of us associate them with the multinational corporations and super-rich celebrities we read about in the news. But HMRC recently revealed who the biggest culprits are — SMEs. SME Tax Evasion HMRC estimates that they’re owed a total of £5.2bn in evaded tax payments, and of course those are only the debts they know about. Tax evasion, unlike tax avoidance, is
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How Can Businesses and People Take Responsibility for Their Actions — and Do You?

The Oxford English Dictionary defines responsibility as “The state or fact of having a duty to deal with something or the state or fact of being accountable or to blame for something”, and action as “The fact or process of doing something, typically to achieve an aim, or to act or do something official or concerted to achieve an aim or deal with a problem”. The question is, how can we take responsibility for our acti
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Fraudsters Are Running Rings Round Right to Let

As I reported in the spring, the government has introduced tougher measures against landlords who fail to meet their regulations. One of the most controversial of these is the Right to Rent rules, obliging a landlord to make sure all tenants are in the country legally. This has created a whole extra layer of bureaucracy for landlords and letting agents. The BBC has revealed, though, that fraudsters are making their p
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New Technology to Make Rent Collection Easier

Most landlords are familiar with “that” tenant — the one they’re constantly having to chase up for overdue rent. Recent research suggests that 68% of landlords have experienced problems with rent arrears and late payments, but a new application could make it harder for tenants to miss payments, while at the same time rewarding the more conscientious among them. Late Payments Many tenants will once or twice in their t
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New Restrictions on Buy-to-Let Borrowing

A well-planned buy-to-let can be an excellent business model, but a badly prepared one can end in disaster. One of the biggest dangers is taking on a mortgage you can’t cope with, leading to debt, default and the loss of all your assets. From the 30th September, though, the Bank of England’s Prudential Regulatory Authority arm will be cracking down on buy-to-let mortgages to make sure borrowers don’t overreach themse
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tenancy-deposit

Tenancy Deposits — Make Sure You Don’t Get Caught Out

Since 2007, residential landlords failing to register a deposit taken from the tenant can be fined. Perhaps more seriously, though, they can have problems recovering possession of the property. Here are some of the main points. The Landlord’s Obligations Under section 213 of the Housing Act 2004, when a residential tenant pays a deposit for an Assured Shorthold Tenancy, the landlord has thirty days to register it wit
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