Tenants on benefits or a low income who are living in the private rental sector have the right to claim money towards their monthly rent payments. Under the current rules, this money is paid directly to the tenant and then (hopefully) passed on to the landlord to cover the cost of the monthly rent payment.

The government is trying to sort out the welfare system by way of the Welfare Reform Bill (currently being debated in the House of Lords), but it is still proposing that the rent cost element of the new “universal credit” is paid directly to tenants, in much the same way as existing housing benefit always has been, unless there are extenuating circumstances to prevent this from happening.

However, there is a large number of consumer and housing organisations trying to persuade the government to rethink this policy and give tenants the choice as to who gets the money. If the government agrees to this amendment, tenants will have a choice as to who receives their housing benefit payment: it can either be paid to the tenant as before, or be paid directly to the landlord.

As a landlord, I can see the wisdom behind this proposal. It makes sense that money designed to pay the monthly rent should be paid straight to the landlord. Not only is this a simpler process, it also removes the possibility that the tenant will fall into arrears with their rent payments through poor money management, and then face eviction as a result, but it remains to be seen whether the government take the same view.

Despite the fact I read only a week or so ago that many of the big buy to let lenders were cutting back on their buy to let mortgage products, tightening up their lending criteria, and withdrawing some of the excellent rates they had been offering up until recently, it seems that all is not lost for those who are still hoping to increase their investment portfolio over the next twelve months.

One of the biggest names on the high street, Barclays, has confirmed that it plans on quadrupling the amount of money it lends via buy to let mortgage products in 2012, which is great news for potential and existing investors in the booming rental market.

Previously, buy to let mortgages were a significant part of Barclays lending business, but in recent years the bank took a step back and downsized their buy to let lending, and today buy to let still accounts for only a small part of the bank’s gross lending. However, a spokesperson from the bank has confirmed that Barclays plans on raising this lending threshold considerably over the next few months and is already putting the necessary administrative infrastructure in place in order to cope with the planned increase in mortgage business.

But although it appears that Barclays are looking to cash in on the continuing success of the buy to let boom, the bank has been quick to point out they will be concentrating on marketing their mortgage products at existing professional landlords as opposed to speculative property investors branching out into the rental market.

We all know it makes sense to have homes that are as energy efficient as possible, and even if you do not have lots of money to spend sprucing up older properties, there are grants available to help fund cavity wall and loft insulation, both of which can make a big difference to the running costs of a property.

However, energy efficiency is not just an issue that affects home owners—it also affects landlords, and if energy efficiency campaigners have their way, according to rules outlined in the Energy Bill currently doing the rounds in Parliament, from 2016 instead of 2018 there could be a ban introduced on the letting of private rented properties rated in band F or below.

At the moment, the House of Lords is not considering changing the parameters of the Energy Bill, but they have indicated that landlords who refuse show any signs of having made reasonable progress towards making their properties more energy efficient could be penalised under the new rules. As the Energy Bill currently stands, there is a loophole in the bill that allows landlords owning rental properties rated F and G under the energy efficiency guidelines to continue letting them to tenants, as long as they are showing willing and making some effort to improve their energy efficiency under the Green Deal Scheme.

But whatever the government is saying, the message I’m hearing from the discussion seems to be quite clear: make your properties more energy efficient or you could be penalised in the next few years.

Anti-social tenants are always a problem, particularly if you happen to live next door to them, and to combat the problem of anti social tenants in the private rental sector, Selective Housing laws have been introduced. These laws require that private landlords operating within certain designated areas, typically areas with poor housing and a higher than average level of social problems, must apply for a licence to rent out their properties.

Local authorities can apply to have parts of their boroughs designated as a Selective Licensing area in order to reduce the number of problem tenants and sub-standard houses. This means anyone owning a house in one of these areas must apply for a licence before renting it to a tenant to ensure that they are managing their properties in a responsible manner.

None of my properties fall within a Selective Licensing area, but if they did, I would be more than happy to comply with the laws and apply for the appropriate licences. However, one landlord in a Selective Licensing area of Middlesbrough apparently considered himself to be above the law, and despite being repeatedly warned that he needed to have a licence to let his properties, he failed to act. Consequently he was convicted in his absence and fined a hefty £1,600 plus costs.

The message here is clear. Landlords operating within Selective Licensing areas of the country cannot afford to ignore their legal and moral responsibilities: local authorities will not hesitate to enforce the Law when rogue landlords are in breach of it.

Landlords specialising in properties for students will now have the opportunity to gain special accreditation under a new national student landlord scheme set up by the Accommodation for Students (AFS) and Unipol.

The accreditation scheme will set a minimum benchmark of quality for student accommodation and will cover all student properties with a maximum of 14 occupants. It is designed to help students make a more informed choice about the accommodation they are looking at, plus it should help to remove the sub-standard properties sometimes offered to students.

Student landlords who apply for accreditation must pass a short online training course, after which their properties will be verified by a trained inspector and a report issued. Once any action points have been addressed, an accreditation certificate will be issued to successful landlords, who will then be allowed to show a “thumbs up” logo against their properties on the Accommodation for Students website.

How will the scheme help student landlords?

Any landlord who takes pride in their properties and the services they are offering will welcome the new accreditation scheme with open arms. The scheme will allow landlords to apply for accreditation based on the quality of their accommodation, which will make their properties stand out to potential student tenants. Other practical benefits offered by the accreditation scheme include template tenancy agreements and discounts.

Personally I think this scheme is a great idea. I can still recall the awful student accommodation I was forced to live in during my university days many moons ago, so anything that removes bad landlords from the accommodation process is a good thing for the rest of us.

Councillors in Wrexham have voted in favour of a tough scheme to introduce brand new licensing laws for landlords in the town. Under the strict new licensing laws, any landlord who owns shared houses, bedsits, and properties converted into multiple occupancy dwellings must apply for a five-year license costing £700. Once a license has been applied for, inspectors will come and view the property before granting the license to the landlord.

The legislation has been introduced to try and reduce the level of sub-standard housing in the area and councillors hope that the licensing laws will dissuade slum landlords from continuing to operate property rental businesses without bothering to spend their profits providing decent bathrooms, kitchens and fire escapes.

Since I don’t fall into the category of “slum landlord”, I can see the sense behind the legislation, but as has already been pointed out by critics of the scheme, there is a danger that introducing the rather steep £700 license charge will deter new landlords from entering the property rental business, or worse, encourage existing landlords to put up their property rents in a bid to off-set their increased costs.

However, there is no doubt in my mind that there needs to be some kind of legislation in place to discourage rogue landlords from cashing in on the increasing demand for rental properties, and it would appear that Wrexham landlords agree with me since they and the public were consulted before the legislation was passed and the majority were in favour of the move.

As all landlords are aware, producing a detailed inventory when a tenant checks in and checks out of a property is the best way to avoid exposure to a costly dispute over alleged damage and/or wear and tear.

In the good old days, landlords would write a detailed and descriptive list of existing damage plus the entire contents of the property, but in these modern times of fancy technology, a detailed written inventory has in many cases been superseded by the use of video film footage and photographs, with many landlords feeling that this is more than enough to protect them if tenants cause damage and they need to make a claim for repairs.

Why are videos and photographs not enough to protect a landlord from financial loss?

The vast majority of the time, whilst video film footage and photographs can be useful for highlighting extensive areas of damage such as stains on carpets or broken kitchen units, they not enough on their own because they usually fail to show the small detail such as cuts to worktops and cracks to porcelain sinks. And without sufficient evidence to back up claims made in a dispute, the case will be lost.

However, photographs and films are still very useful as long as you follow certain guidelines:

• Always date stamp photos and film footage.
• Take before and after shots and include a written narrative to provide extra detail .
• Make sure the scale of the picture is clearly shown.
• Use a good quality printer and print large photos.

Rogue landlords give the rest of us a bad name. They harass their tenants, illegally evict them, and generally do the opposite of everything a good landlord would do. But unfortunately, there are an awful lot of rogue landlords operating in this country, and after reading an interesting article in yesterday’s Guardian, I am beginning to think that perhaps a lack of action from local authorities is not necessarily to blame.

Many people, in particular the housing charity, Shelter, are firmly convinced that local authorities are at fault for not prosecuting enough rogue landlords, and therefore doing little to discourage disreputable landlords from exploiting their tenants for profit. The charity cites figures from a recent report indicating that there were only 270 successful prosecutions against rogue landlords in the last twelve months, despite the fact there were more than 11,000 complaints.

However, when you look at the bigger picture, it becomes clear that local authorities are more than willing to act against rogue landlords who abuse their tenants, but thanks to wholesale budget cuts and the sheer size of the problem, most of the time they do not have sufficient resources to do anything other than suggest dispute resolution services.

So apart from providing extra resources to help local authorities deal with the problem, what else can be done?

Regulating the private rented sector would definitely help, as would making sure the police have a greater understanding of a tenant’s rights instead of helping rogue landlords illegally evict tenants—which is often what happens. But in the meantime, with increasing numbers of families forced into the rental sector, the problem of rogue landlords is unlikely to disappear any time soon.

If you have not already taken advantage of the great low cost buy-to-let mortgage deals banks have been offering over the last few months, you might just be too late.

As I have been saying for ages, with interest rates so low and the rental market so buoyant, it is an excellent time to invest in rental property, so it is therefore not surprising that millions of people have also come to that conclusion. As a result, the lenders have been inundated with applications for new buy-to-let loans.

There have been some incredibly cheap mortgage deals on offer of late, which in part has helped fuel the buy-to-let boom. So it is rather a shame that the best of these cheap deals are no longer available to prospective landlords—big lenders such as the Skipton Building Society and buy-to-let specialist, Kensington, have all withdrawn their cheapest rates after reaching their lending limit on the cheapest (and most popular) buy-to-let mortgage deals.

Unfortunately, this means that any landlords who have not already acted and secured a low fixed rate or tracker deal are going to be stuck with much higher repayments on their loan.

However, even at higher rates, investing in a rental property is still a wise decision if you have the available funds. The number of tenants continues to rise, as does the average rental income, but if you ARE considering cashing in on the boom, do not delay or you could miss out on some of the best deals once again!

In the current economic climate, it can be very tempting as a landlord to save money by not being as fastidious with property upkeep as you might once have been. After all, when money is tight, the last thing you want to have to do is spend some of your rental income maintaining your properties on a regular basis. However, no matter how tight your property maintenance budget might be, ignoring such matters is likely to be a false economy with winter approaching.

I consider property maintenance very important, but according to figures released from one of the UK’s largest insurance brokers, claims made by landlords for incidents such as burst pipes and frost damage have increased by 5% in the last three years, and water damage is the biggest area of claims. This trend would strongly suggest that many landlords are ignoring the need for reinvestment in their rental properties in order to save money.

But such an approach will not help you form happy relationships with your existing tenants and it might even put off future tenants. So instead of trying to save some money in the short term, look at the bigger picture and make sure your properties are suitably watertight and ready for another winter, because if the sub-zero temperatures of last winter are anything to go by, neglecting essential property maintenance could see you landed with a hefty (and entirely avoidable) repair bill. And with heavy snow forecast for mid October, burst pipes and water damage insurance claims will not make for a very merry Christmas!