According to the BBC, landlords in Wales will shortly have to contend with the intricacies of a Housing Bill, which will be the first one published by the Welsh Government. The government first released a White Paper in 2012, a document setting out exactly what it planned to include in its bill.

Key Proposals in Welsh Housing Bill
Key elements of the new Housing Bill likely to include:

• Landlord register – The government plans to make all landlords sign a mandatory landlord register before they are allowed tenants in their properties.

• Increased Council Tax on empty properties – Local authorities will be given the power to impose a higher level of Council Tax on any properties empty for more than one year.

Tackling Homelessness and Rogue Landlords
The government hopes that the new Housing Bill will tackle the problem of empty houses, of which there are many. In turn this should go some way towards resolving the issue of family homelessness in Wales. The government also wants to reduce the numbers of rogue landlords operating in Wales—these people will be targeted under the new legislation. According to the White Paper published last year, landlords will be forced to sign a landlord register, which should help to cut down the number of vulnerable tenants being ripped off by unscrupulous sharks in the private housing sector.

Whether or not the new Welsh Housing Bill proves to be successful remains to be seen. Only time will tell, but the Government has been vocal about its determination to provide homes for all families by the end of the decade and it is believed that this will be included in the bill.

A tragic incident in Derby has underlined how important it is that landlords
undertake regular checks of any appliances installed in rental properties.
Toxic fumes leaked from a faulty gas boiler in a buy to let property, killing
one tenant and leaving two other people seriously ill from carbon monoxide
poisoning.

Condemned Boiler
The court heard that the boiler installed in the buy to let property had not
been serviced for four years. In fact a gas engineer, who had been to the
property to install a new gas meter, had previously condemned the boiler.
Unfortunately, although the utility company had written to the landlord, the
tenant had not passed on the letter and had decided to reconnect the boiler
because there was no other form of heating.

The landlord was given a 16-month prison sentence, which was suspended for two
years, plus 200 hours of unpaid community service. She was also fined £4,000
and ordered to pay costs of £17,500.

Court Finds Landlord at Fault
The court heard that the landlord had failed in her statutory duty and had not
had the gas appliances in the property checked every year to ensure they were
safe, as she should have done. It was only by sheer good luck that a friend of
the tenant came to visit the property and summoned help, otherwise there could
have been a triple fatality.

Landlord’s Responsibility
Landlords are obliged by law to have gas fixtures and fittings safety checked
and serviced at least once per year. A qualified Gas Safe engineer should
carry out the work.

In the wake of three recent court judgements in the UK, the NLA believes that
some local authorities may have overcharged HMO landlords. As a result, the
NLA has written to all local authorities to warn them that they must contact
any landlords affected and let them know that they could be entitled to
refunds.

Important Court Judgements
The three judgements cited by the NLA are:

• Crompton v Oxford City Council – Oxford Council tried to charge a fee
for a variation in a HMO licence, but the court ruled this was unlawful.

• Hemming v Westminster City Council – The court ruled that councils are
not allowed to use licence fees as an excuse to make extra profits and that
licence fees must be transparent and open to scrutiny.

• Bristol City Council v Digs (Bristol) Ltd – Bristol Council tried to
force a landlord of a privately owned two storey maisonette to obtain an HMO
licence, but the court ruled that the lower (third) storey (which only
contained a hallway and entrance corridor) did not count and therefore the
property was not an HMO.

NLA Comments
Licence fees are a contentious issue. There is a risk that local authorities
are making it unnecessarily difficult for landlords by introducing licensing,
although the councils say that by doing so they are helping to regulate the
sector. This could be discouraging new landlords from entering the sector,
which is bad news for tenants in overstretched areas. Many also believe that
local authorities are using license fees as an excuse to profiteer.

Are you an HMO landlord? Do you think you have been unfairly charged? If so,
let us know.

One of the biggest social landlords in the private sector has voiced his
concerns to the BBC about the roll out of the new Universal Credit payments to
tenants. The combined benefit payment has been introduced as part of
government reforms to the whole benefits system. At the moment claimants
receive up to six separate benefits payments, including Housing Benefit, but
once the change over has been completed, these separate payments will be
merged into one. The changeover has already begun in a few areas.

Self-Made Social Entrepreneur
Kevin Green owns more than 700 homes in the private sector and approximately
60% of them are let to tenants claiming benefits. Mr Green is fearful that
tenants will soon fall behind on paying their rent once Universal Credit kicks
in. He thinks many tenants will find it hard to budget their money and benefit
payments normally earmarked for the rent could end up being swallowed up by
other expenses.

Tenants Lack Budgeting Skills
At least one trial run of the new system seems to indicate that this is
exactly what will happen once Universal Credit becomes standard practice.
Figures showed that tenants living in social housing in Torfaen definitely had
a problem managing their money once their benefits were streamlined into one
single payment. Rent arrears shot up from £20k to £140k over seven months. Mr
Green makes the point that he may be forced to pull out of the social housing
sector if he ends up dealing with major rent arrears, which could lead to a
shortage of homes.

Are you a social landlord? Are you worried about the introduction of the new
Universal Credit payments? If so, let us know in the comments.

Benefit fraud is a very common problem and one that regularly hits the
headlines most days. There are hundreds of people out there who think its OK
to claim benefits whilst enjoying a secret income, but in the case of one
dishonest landlord, benefit fraud investigators eventually discovered his
secret stash of cash and buy to let property.

Landlord Benefit Fraud
A landlord in Manchester was recently convicted of fraudulently claiming
around £32k in benefits, despite having made nearly £60k when he sold a
property. He managed to get around the problem of too much cash in the bank by
squirreling away his profits in a friend’s bank account. He was also found to
be the owner of a buy to let home worth around £47k. He has now been ordered
to sell the rental home and use the money to repay some of his debts.

Landlord Fire Safety Fines
In another case before the courts, a landlord in London has been ordered to
pay a total of £24,250 in fines and costs for failing to ensure his HMOs meet
fire safety standards. He had also not bothered securing any HMO licenses for
his properties and Welwyn Council was quick to prosecute. They are clearly on
a roll because this case was the council’s third success in the last six
months, so landlords in North London better pull up their socks and make sure
their properties are legal.

Most reputable landlords never need to worry about court appearances because
they do everything by the book, but if you are a dodgy landlord, remember:
crime never pays!

Every year, the water companies are faced with the problem of unpaid water bills. Since someone has to cover the bill, the end result is that the paying households in the UK are charged an extra £15 to make up the shortfall.

Government Water Database
The government believes that the majority of the people who don’t pay are tenants who move home without paying their outstanding bills. To address this issue, the government plans to introduce a national voluntary database where landlords can supply information about their tenants. The more information the water companies have, the easier it will be to chase the non-payers for money if they try and leave a property without paying the bill.

Plans to Make Landlords Legally Responsible
If the Welsh Government has its way, landlords would be made legally responsible for their tenants not paying the water bill, something that all landlords quizzed by the RLA oppose. Indeed, 80% of those questioned were happy to support a voluntary scheme and 63% already provide information when asked.

As Richard Jones, Policy Director of the RLA commented,

“Making landlords legally liable for the debt incurred on water bills where they did not pass on their tenants details to water companies would serve only to add to the creaking weight of regulations already affecting the sector and lead to increased rents to reflect the greater risks involved.”

Hopefully, if the government backed voluntary database proves to be successful, the standing charge we are all obliged to pay will eventually be abolished.

HMRC has issued several warnings to landlords in recent months to remind them that profits from rental properties must be declared. They have done this to give landlords the opportunity to admit their earnings before the next stage of the crackdown begins.

There are estimated to be around 1.3 million private landlords in the UK. Unfortunately, less than half of these people are currently declaring extra income from property, which strongly suggests the rest are either in ignorance about their responsibilities, or deliberately avoiding their tax liabilities. Many landlords are ‘accidental landlords’—people who were unable to sell properties when the market crashed, and therefore let them out instead. Now that the market has recovered, many landlords will be looking to sell, which also puts them at risk of capital gains tax.

HMRC Information Gathering
HMRC has lots of information gathering strategies at its disposal, which means it is very difficult to avoid pulling the wool over the eyes of the taxman indefinitely. HMRC will check bank records to see who has taken out a landlords’ mortgage. They can also investigate records at the Land Registry. Deposit Protection schemes are another avenue of investigation.

Reducing Your Tax Liability
• Mortgage interest – There are many ways to reduce the amount of tax you pay. Having a mortgage is actually useful for tax purposes because you can use the interest you pay on the loan to offset your tax bill.

• Maintenance repairs – Every day repairs and maintenance can be used to offset tax, but home improvements cannot.

• Letting expenses – If you pay a letting agent, service charges, accountants’ fees etc, all of these can offset your tax bill.

If you have yet to declare your income from rental properties, time is running out, so don’t delay any longer.

Anyone living in the south of England can’t fail to have noticed the fact that a massive storm passed over the UK at the beginning of last week. The media was awash with pictures of storm lashed coastlines and fallen trees everywhere, which is all very interesting when it is happening somewhere else, but not quite so good if your house has just been flattened by a huge tree. But if you were affected by the storm in any way, fear not because the NLA has just issued a guide for landlords with properties damaged in the storm.

Check Your Insurance Policy
Hopefully you will have insurance cover in place, so now is a good time to pull out the policy documents and check the small print to see whether (or not) your property is covered by storm damage. And if you don’t have insurance cover or your policy doesn’t include storm damage, consider this a valuable and very expensive lesson well learned.

Do Your Tenants have Contents Insurance?
Flood damage may be a problem in some areas affected by the storm. Your landlord insurance should cover fixtures and fittings affected by water damage—for example kitchens and carpets—but the tenant will need to have contents insurance in place if his own possessions have been damaged by water.

What’s the Damage?
If the damage to the property is not too severe, consider whether it is worth making a claim on the insurance. Claiming will cause your premiums to go up, so weigh up what the repairs are likely to cost against paying extra on future insurance premiums.

Whatever the damage, do make sure your tenants are okay and if the property is no longer habitable, check whether your insurance will pay for alternative accommodation.

The NLA is warning MPs that UK landlords could be put at risk if the
government proceeds with plans to force landlords to check their tenant’s
immigration status. However, ministers are convinced that the system will work
and that landlords are in an excellent position to be able to identify illegal
immigrants who are not entitled to be in the UK.

Landlords Keeping Tabs on Tenants
The new system will come into effect in October next year. Landlords will be
expected to check documentation provided by tenants. If tenants cannot prove
they are UK citizens they will have to produce documents to prove their
status, which landlords will be able to verify by contacting the Home Office.

Potential Fines
Unwittingly renting a property to an illegal immigrant will not attract
criminal penalties, but landlords will be fined if they mistakenly take on a
tenant who is not entitled to be in the UK. But the fines are only part of the
wider picture. The NLA are concerned that asking landlords to check up on
tenants could put them in the firing line.

The NLA Speaks Out
“Landlords simply cannot walk in the property and require the tenant to speak
to them,” Chairwoman of the NLA, Carolyn Uphall, was quoted as saying in a BBC
report a couple of days ago. “If a landlord just turns up unannounced that can
be harassment and a criminal offence.”

“In the worse scenario, the tenant feeling themselves possibly under threat –
because they might be sent out of the country and perhaps back to a war zone
they are very frightened off – could potentially become aggressive with the
landlord.”

The NLA is concerned that some tenants may become aggressive if they feel
their immigration status is in question, which could lead to vulnerable
tenants being forced to use rogue landlords.

If you are a landlord, what is your opinion on the matter? Let us know in the
comments.

Thousands of buy to let landlords with tracker mortgages are up in arms
against the West Bromwich Building Society’s decision to raise its tracker
rate by 2%, even though the Bank of England base rate hasn’t moved in four
years.

Building Society Attempts to Justify Rise
According to the BBC, the West Bromwich Building Society is justifying the
rise by saying it has no choice because it now costing more for them to fund
tracker mortgages. It also claims there is a clause in its terms and
conditions that allows it to alter interest rates—something many customers are
disputing.

Landlords Fight Back
One landlord fighting against the building society is the equivalent of David
trying to take a stand against Goliath. But it isn’t just one landlord
fighting back. More than one thousand aggrieved buy to let landlords from an
online property forum have joined forces. Many have already sent their cases
to a firm of solicitors, who are also representing customers unhappy with the
Bank of Ireland (who also raised their rates some time ago).

Many landlords fear that other lenders will jump on the bandwagon and raise
their rates and mortgage brokers are advising anyone affected by the current
increases to contact the FCA via letter. The buy to let mortgage sector isn’t
regulated, but lenders are, so it is worth complaining.

Landlords: have you been affected by the West Bromwich Building Society or
Bank of Ireland rate hike? If so let us know whether you are taking action to
try and force the lenders to do a ‘u’ turn