Protecting your investment

Tue, 01 Nov 2022 | Property management

It’s a challenging time for landlords right now, and not least because of the rise in the cost of living. The recent Levelling Up White Paper proposed legislation changes such as revoking Section 21 notices, increasing EPC ratings in order to create more energy efficient homes, making periodic tenancies the norm, and amending the Smoke & Carbon Monoxide Alarm legislation. It’s hard to keep up with it all… a bit like our parliament right now!

Do not fear - we have our ears to the ground and are already preparing for what may or may not change for landlords in the near future. In fact, we believe that a lot of positives could come from these changes, including a more secure tenancy structure, longer term tenancies, and security of income for your investment.

Further, despite the tumultuous changes this year, landlords are still enjoying high tenant demand, longer tenancies, and higher monthly rents. Due to a strong appetite for rental properties in the home counties, we are seeing more tenants opting to renew at the end of their tenancy rather than move, and up to 85% of these tenancy renewals are resulting in rent increases.

Find out more about what we are doing to protect your investment and improve your returns below.

Non-Paid Rents

Whether you are an investor with a large portfolio or a landlord with just one property, it’s more important than ever to have your rent paid on time in the current climate.

Even in this period of financial uncertainty, our non-paid rents were 1.11% in September, which is the lowest we have seen them since February 2020. To put this into perspective, Propertymark advises that the industry standard of non-paid rents across the UK is around 10.4%. We’ve been able to keep our non-paid rents far lower than the national average by using rigorous processes to ensure a good caliber of tenant and having protection in place for when you most need it. For those clients that have our Rent Protection and Legal service in place, there is peace of mind of knowing that they will be covered no matter what.

Deposit Disputes

There is nothing more contentious than having to agree end of tenancy dilapidations - another area in which we ensure that we are providing the most effective service for our clients. We will only ever let a deposit dispute go to the TDS if we have exhausted all other options. In the last quarter, only 3% of all tenancies we finished had a claim arbitrated via the TDS. That means that 97% of tenancies ended with no deposit dispute, which is great news for landlords and tenants!

Changes in Smoke and Carbon Monoxide Alarm legislation

Finally, we recently contacted you to advise that the Smoke and Carbon Monoxide Alarm (England) Regulations 2015 changed on the 1st October. The new rules state that all rented properties in England must have a carbon monoxide alarm in rooms wholly or partially used as living accommodation where there is a fixed combustion appliance. This includes gas heaters and boilers but does not extend to gas cookers. We have contacted all tenants to check if they require us to provide a carbon monoxide alarm in order to keep your property is compliant.

If you do not have a working carbon monoxide alarm in your rental property and believe that you require one, please do not hesitate to contact your property manager today.

It's certainly been a big year for landlords, but we want to reiterate that our award-winning property management team are dedicated to keeping you compliant with all new legislation changes and are constantly reviewing our services and processes to reflect changes in the current climate. To find out more about our services and the work we do to keep up to date with lettings legislation, please do not hesitate to contact us.