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landlords and tenants

If You Have Great Tenants, You Want to Keep Them – Here’s How

The perfect balance for any landlord is to ensure a regular, unbroken income for your property with a minimum of effort and hassle. And the best way of ensuring that is to keep any good tenants you already have. So, what can you do to make it a no-brainer for your great tenants to stay? 5 Ways of Keeping Good Tenants Make the property a home for the tenant. Tenants who see the property simply as meeting bare minimums
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Will Your Rental Property Meet the New EPC Standards?

As part of the drive towards Net Zero, the Government has launched a consultation on its plans to set a minimum EPC (Energy Performance Certificate) rating of C for privately rented homes by 2030. This starts a countdown to obligations on landlords that could cost the private rental sector as a whole nearly £20bn. What Are EPCs? Energy Performance Certificates rate the energy efficiency of a building, with the aim to
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The Renters’ Rights Bill — What Does It Mean for Landlords?

The Renters’ Rights Bill, which has been several years in preparation, is about to have its third reading in Parliament — usually the final stage before it goes to the Lords and for Royal Assent. This is a wide-ranging bill to reform the private rental sector — so what can we expect from it, and what does it mean for landlords? The Background to the Bill Legislation for the private rental sector can be extremely diff
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Recovering Commercial Rent Arrears with CRAR

If you’re a landlord, serious rent arrears can prove inconvenient and annoying, reducing your ability to pay bills and to invest in growth. There are mechanisms to recover rent arrears, but these are different depending on whether the rental is for domestic or commercial purposes. If you need to recover commercial rent arrears, the mechanism is the Commercial Rent Arrears Recovery scheme — CRAR for short. What Is CRA
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The Private Rental Sector — What’s Changing in the Sector?

The private rental sector has been volatile for some time, with changing regulations, fast-rising rents and difficulties for landlords, and that doesn’t look like ending any time soon. What with a reduction in the buy-to-let market, further increases in the cost for tenants and uncertainty over what measures the new government might bring in, the whole sector is holding its breath. A Fall in the Buy-to-Let Mark
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Crisis in Private Rentals — Bad News for Landlords and Tenants

Figures just out show that private rents increased in the past 12 months at a rate well above inflation. At the same time, as prospects seem to be diminishing of the renters reform bill passing before the election, record numbers of tenants are being forced to move. It might seem at a casual glance that this is all great news for buy-to-let owners, but it’s actually not that simple. If you’re a private la
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Are We Producing a Financially Illiterate Generation?

While the current economic problems in the UK can’t really be laid at the feet of consumers, there’s no doubt that widespread poor financial management isn’t helping matters. This ranges from naivety in investment to a general “have it now, pay tomorrow” culture that’s fuelling debt. A recent survey suggests that this isn’t set to improve. The study, by Compare the Market and MyBnk, found that only 41% of young adult
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Avoid Having to Repossess Your Properties

The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) has just released the official figures for landlord repossessions during the period October to December 2022 — and they’re alarming. The number of repossessions in that time has risen by 98%. So why is this? And how can you avoid having to go through the costly and time-consuming procedure of getting your property back? The Rise in Repossessions The MoJ figures make alarming reading. Dur
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Are Your Properties Mould-Free?

If you rent out residential properties, you must be aware of the tragic case of Awaab Ishak, the Rotherham toddler who died in 2020 from exposure to mould in a rented home. In this case, the property was owned by a housing association, but if you let your property privately, you could be personally responsible for such an incident. So, what do you need to know about mould and how to prevent it? What Are the Dangers f
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Growing Calls for More Flexibility on Debt Repayment

It’s hardly surprising that the current cost of living crisis has seen a sharp rise in people with problem debts. Recent figures suggest that one in three households have missed paying a bill in the past year, and this looks set to rise. In this atmosphere, calls have been growing for banks and credit lenders to take a more flexible and compassionate approach to repayment by vulnerable debtors. The Problem With Lende
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