Give us your good landlording tips

At our recent NLA Conference, we were overwhelmed with stories from our members about how they look out for their tenants. So we asked some of our NLA Representatives to share with us some of their best tips to ensure their tenancies run smoothly.

Are you a landlord? Can you share any other good advice? Please let us know using the comments box below or follow and contribute to our Good Landlord #goodlandlord campaign on Twitter…

Getting to know your tenants is the obvious place to begin. London area representative Richard Blanco says he always starts with an induction meeting:  “I go through all aspects of the property with them and explain how everything works – the appliances, the heating, and what days the bins are collected.  I help them choose the cheapest energy supplier for their needs.  I also let the neighbours know a new tenant has moved in so they can make contact with each other and look out for each other.”

A reliable and understanding landlord will always be a hit with tenants. As James Fraser, representative in the East of England explains:  “I’m happy to adjust rent payment so it fits in with a tenant’s pay day.  I’m also big on getting any problems repaired quickly so if something goes wrong or breaks down in the property, I’ll try my best to have it fixed on the same day.”

Julie Woolfenden, NLA representative for the West Midlands has some good tips on how to handle the paperwork when a new tenant moves in. “I always keep duplicates of everything – the tenancy agreement, energy performance certificates, gas safety certificates and appliance instruction booklets.  I always give the tenancy agreement to the incoming tenant a few days before they move in to give them time to read over it.”

“When they move in there is a Welcome Card waiting, which also explains how the appliances work, the rubbish collection days, how to shut off the water stop cock and how the electricity, gas and central heating works.”

Understanding that a tenant might fall into difficulty and then working with them to resolve any matters is key, as London Representative Maryann Richmond-Coggan explains: “I always support tenants during difficult times.  If one is facing a tough time after losing their job I’ll make concessions and work with them to develop a payment plan to pay their rent along with any arrears they might owe.  I find it’s much better to work with an existing tenant than to go through the hassle of possession proceedings and finding a new one.”

Tailoring a property to a particular kind of tenant will mean that your property is set apart from the competition. West Midlands representative Mary Latham lets to students: “I provide a Wi-Fi internet service to tenants.  It doesn’t cost much to set up but makes the world of difference, especially for students.  If the property has a garden I make sure its low maintenance as not all tenants have green thumbs!  I install weed barriers and plant shrubs that require little attention.  I also give tenants a list of practical information when they move in – bus and train timetables, maps, local take-away shops, restaurants, along with contacts for a doctor, dentist and taxis.”

Keeping the property well maintained and everything in good working order is how Kent representative Marion Money ensures tenants are happy.  “If you promise the tenant a new kitchen when you are showing them around the property before they move in, then make sure you do it.  Keep up with your maintenance.  Get the boiler serviced during the warmer summer months when the heating isn’t being used.  That is also the time to do any outside painting.  Have the gutters cleared of leaves in autumn and make sure the tenant tests the heating system each year before it gets too cold.”

There are many ways landlords can help their tenants, and of course a happy tenant means a happy landlord.  If you’ve got any more landlording tips we’d love to hear them – just leave a comment below or join the conversation on Twitter – #goodlandlord.

Is your tenant who they say they are?

As a landlord, have you ever welcomed a new tenant with open arms, handed over the keys to the property and have them move in, only to discover that they stop paying the rent soon afterwards?  Or maybe they weren’t even who they said they were?

If so you’re not alone.

Many landlords fail to do basic background checks on their tenants before they move in, to confirm their identity and their ability to pay the rent.   By then, it’s too late, the AST has been signed and the landlord is forced to go through what will undoubtedly be lengthy possessions proceedings – all the time losing an ever increasing amount of money.

Our recent quarterly survey found that nearly three quarters of landlords who sought possession of their property did so because they experienced rent arrears. After all why would a business turn away a paying tenant?

But landlords can often avoid problem tenants by carrying out a simple background check on them before they move in.

A basic check will usually provide you with a County Court Judgement search, history of their past addresses, a check to confirm their identity and an alias name search, along with a bankruptcy or insolvency inquiry. A full tenant check will include all of this plus references from their employer and previous landlord, bank account details and even an assessment of a their ability to pay the rent.

Checks give peace of mind for landlords and should be done on all prospective tenants.  NLA Tenant Check found that approximately one in twenty tenants processed had one or more County Court Judgments (CCJ) against them at an undisclosed previous address during the first half of 2011.  It also revealed 39 false employments and 61 negative references from previous landlords or letting agents.

If you do intend to carry out your own checks, you should get the following information from the tenant:

• Personal contact details
• Next of kin contact details
• Accommodation addresses for the past three years
• Contact details of previous landlords
• Income (could be Local Housing Allowance)
• Referee contact details

But keep in mind, if you want to contact referees you must seek the tenant’s explicit written consent in advance.  If you want to do a credit report, the prospective tenant must also sign to confirm that they understand a credit search will be done. When carrying out any kind of referencing it is also worth considering your obligations, under data protection rules, to store, process and handle personal information responsibly.

For more information on tenant checks, you can down download Spotlight, the NLA’s Guide for Landlords at www.landlords.org.uk/spotlight.

How do you separate a Scottish landlord from his deposits?…….Ask Alex

David Kendall, NLA National Representative for Scotland, airs his views on the creation of Tenancy Deposit Protection in Scotland.

Good old Alex Salmond has done it again. He would hate to admit it but he just loves to copy the English! ‘If England has a tenancy deposit scheme, then so must Scotland’  he said – well not in exactly those words but you get the gist.

At the end of January this year, the draft legislation for a Tenancy Deposit Protection (TDP) Scheme was laid before the Scottish Parliament. With an election looming, the SNP rushed to make sure it was approved before they lost power. Except as we all now know, the predictions were not quite right and the SNP did what the ‘anoraks’ said was impossible and were returned with a majority.

So now landlords in Scotland are likely to be faced with a TDP scheme which will become operational sometime in 2012. However, of course Alex needed to make it a little different from England and there are some differences – which are bound to send the more unscrupulous letting agents running.

The new scheme will only be custodial. Landlords in Scotland are clearly not trustworthy enough to insure their deposits.

But it gets worse!

The scheme is also going to apply to EXISTING tenancies. Therefore, the millions of pounds which agents and landlords have spent on lavish cars, holidays, sorry I mean, put in designated accounts over the last few years, will  need to go into the scheme within a maximum of nine months of it going live.

Okay Mr Salmond, we know there will be no charge to landlords or tenants; we know the arbitration service is also free of charge; but surely you should have taken some responsibility. Who is going to publicise the scheme? Not the Scottish Government. No, the publicity must be provided by the scheme providers and reinforced by their desire to grow their market share.

Of course ignorance is no excuse for non-compliance, but relying on marketing alone to communicate the importance of protecting all new and existing deposits is bound to leave some landlords out of the loop. Which will have serious consequences.

If a landlord does not protect the deposit within 30 days of receipt the tenant can take him to court and will be awarded up to three times the value of the deposit. Alternatively, the tenant could wait until he has moved out of the property and then claim against the landlord within 30 days of leaving the property.

What this means is inventories are really going to need to be up to scratch. Detail everything in the property; the makes of appliances, model numbers, condition, everything. Make sure you take loads of photos. Most importantly, make sure the tenant signs everything when he moves in and remember all paperwork must have dates; do not preprint or write it in yourself.

In England and Wales almost all disputes which end in the tenants’ favour do so thanks to a lack of an inventory or the landlord failing to provide sufficient evidence to justify deposit deductions. So when it comes into force don’t try to ignore TDP, it won’t go away, and it is up to every landlord to make sure he protects himself from unnecessary litigation and cost.

For more information visit: http://www.mydepositsscotland.co.uk/home.aspx

What’s the difference between a Scottish scrap-metal dealer, a chip-shop and a landlord from Cumbria?

According to the Tax Man -  very little.

Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) has recently launched a raft of new task-forces to seek out tax evaders in different areas of the country.

The five new task forces have been instructed to focus specifically on:

• scrap metal dealers in Scotland, focusing on those who are deliberately suppressing their income or inflating expenditure to evade paying tax
• construction traders who are self-employed or run their own company who suppress sales or over-claim expenses in the North West and North Wales
• taxpayers not submitting their statutory returns across Corporation Tax, Income tax Self-Assessment, PAYE and VAT in the South East
• fast food outlets deliberately falsifying their records and mis-declaring their true sales levels to avoid paying the correct taxes in Scotland
• landlords – owning or renting three or more properties – evading their tax responsibilities in North West and North Wales.

Exactly why landlords in Wales and North West England are considered less likely to be up to date with their tax returns remains unclear, but according the minister responsible they should expect to be found out:

Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury,  David Gauke MP, warned:

“We will not tolerate those who break the rules. This taskforce will come down hard on scrap metal dealers and their customers or suppliers who have chosen to break the rules or deliberately evade the tax they should be paying. This is just the start”.

“It doesn’t matter who you are – HMRC can and will track you down. You will face a heavy fine, a possible criminal prosecution and ultimately jail”.

Of course the vast majority of landlords have nothing to worry about – but it is a timely reminder for all of us that the deadline for paper tax returns has just passed, while landlords planning to submit an online form only have until 31 January 2012 to file. Click here for key tax dates.

For more information on the financial aspects of running a portfolio why not visit the NLA Library or consult a qualified NLA Recognised Supplier.

Crisis point…

David Hewitt, outgoing Head of Private Renting and Housing Development at Crisis, explains their Private Rented Sector Access Scheme and the homelessness projects it is helping.

The National Landlords Association (NLA) is on the panel of Crisis’s Private Rented Sector Access Development Program, which award funds to specific homelessness projects in the UK.  Here, David Hewitt, outgoing Head of Private Renting and Housing Developments at Crisis, explains more about the program…

Crisis was awarded £10 million over three years by the government to deliver the Private Rented Sector Access Development Programme and help some of the most vulnerable people in our community to find and make a success of private renting.

Single people who are homeless or threatened with homelessness are the lowest priority for social housing and Crisis has been finding ways to improve the assistance available to them for nearly 15 years. However, in too many local areas, there are still no services available to help people out of homelessness and into private renting.  Often when they do exist, they are only available to families rather than single people.

Under the development programme, not-for-profit organisations can apply for funding to set up a PRS access scheme and help those at risk.  Crisis also provides training and advice to those that receive the funding and the involvement of the NLA has enabled us to tap into the local landlord networks.

We’ve recently selected 74 new schemes (from 210 applications) which will benefit those at risk of homelessness in their local area.  They are geographically spread from Cornwall in the South West to Middlesbrough in the North East.  We expect well over 2,000 people to receive help in finding and keeping a tenancy over the next year. The details will be published on www.privaterentedsector.org.uk by the end of November.

The NLA joined Crisis, the Department for Communities and Local Government, Homeless Link and the Ministry of Justice on the panel to decide which schemes received funding.

From the tenant’s side the PRS access scheme will ensure that the property is of a good standard and that they receive the support necessary to make the tenancy a success.  Landlords are reassured that tenants have been properly assessed and prepared for renting privately, that the tenancy is being supported and that there is someone that they can call if issues do arise.

The first round of schemes started back in February this year and have already helped over 800 people into private rented accommodation with over 95% of those tenancies still ongoing.

With homelessness rising and the cuts to housing benefit making it harder for everyone it is more important than ever to broker partnerships between tenants and landlords.

We look forward to continuing to work with the NLA on this and other programmes to tackle homelessness.

If you are a landlord and interested in making your properties available, get in touch by visiting www.privaterentedsector.org.uk or e-mailing us at private.renting@crisis.org.uk

Why hast thou Article Four-saken me?

Ken Staunton, NLA Head of Regions discusses the spread of Article Four Directions

Unless you’re an avid member of the National Trust (or happen to live in a conservation area) Article Four of the Town and Country Planning Act was probably not a major topic of conversation up until a year or two ago.

All of that has changed, thanks to some of the last actions of the previous Government in the Spring of 2010.

Up until April 2010 private homes housing fewer than six unrelated individuals, irrespective of their tenure or occupiers, were classed by planning regulations as ‘dwelling houses’. This was based on the notion that it does not make a great deal of difference to local infrastructure whether a household accommodates three unrelated sharers or an average sized family.

So far so good. Or so you would think….

Despite their own evidence to the contrary (see the 2008 Rugg Review of the Private Rented Sector anyone who is interested), the last Government decided that the over- concentration of Houses in Multiple Occupation (HMOs) was a problem of national significance. They then introduced legislation creating a whole new ‘use class’ for planning purposes. From that point onwards, a property could be either a ‘dwelling house’ or an ‘HMO’ dependent on who lives there.

Long story short, the Government changed colours and amended this legislation to remove the automatic need to obtain permission to change a house from definition to another, but allowed local authorities to require such an application in their area if they so choose.

The problem is that this is a little more than just a labelling exercise. Increasingly local authorities in England are using this new found option to arbitrarily limit new shared homes within their boundaries. So far, more than 30 have started down this path, with a few opting to forego the usual notice period and jump straight to implementing ‘Article Four’ notices (as the regulation is known) with immediate effect.

Some argue that this is social engineering of the worst kind; others describe it as nimbyism of the worst sort. Whatever the label the net impact is that the availability of shared housing is to drop at a time when demand is high and getting ever higher thanks to Government policy.

In January, single Local Housing Allowance recipients under the age of 35 will only be able to claim for a single room in a shared house (currently the threshold is 25.) This combined with other welfare reforms and an overall housing shortage is predicted to increase demand for shared accommodation by more than 60,000 individual units.

My question to Government, both local and central, is where are these homes supposed to come from? This at a time when so many local authorities simply want to push those on the lowest incomes and with the greatest need elsewhere.

Landlords around the country cannot afford to ignore this issue. To see if you’re affected, or to let us know that your area is considering an Article Four Direction, please visit the NLA’s website and help us to ‘Save Shared Housing’.