More from ARLA.

They have posted a rather desperate sounding article on their website titled “Warn the public!”, asking all their members to step up and warn the public of the dangers of unregulated agents.

What every landlord and tenant should be asking a letting agent:

1. Are you a member of a professional body?
2. Do you maintain separate client accounts?
3. Are you bonded? Do you hold professional indemnity insurance?
4. Is your staff qualified?
5. Are you joined to a tenancy deposit protection scheme?

Every landlord and tenant must ask these questions of their letting agent and to only use them if they can answer yes to all these questions!

ARLA released a special statement today, saying that as the demand for housing in the Private Rented Sector is likely to soar due to the credit crunch, they are warning agents and landlords not to take advantage by cutting corners.

ARLA pointed out that both the law and best practice has moved on a long way since the early nineties when the last housing crisis produced soaring rental demand, cowboy agents and rogue landlords. They are worried that some landlords may try to cut corners and not comply with legislation covering safety and the protection of tenancy deposits. There could be an upsurge in lettings agencies opening for business, without being members of the professional bodies, having the right qualifications and providing clients money protection.

Read the full press release here.

So much for London becoming a renters market …

Popular musician Pete Doherty has been evicted from yet another rented home (3rd time in 3 years). A few highlights of what a seemingly nice young man was capable of this time:

- The walls, floors and some of the windows had been daubed with human blood.
- The stench from Pete’s nine abandoned cats was said to be unbearable.
- Scribbling on the walls, the floor, anywhere he felt like it.

Poor landlord, who has obviously never read the news or heard of Google…

Via: Metro

Update: The landlord, Earl of Cardigan, denies evicting Doherty. Oh well.

Financial Times discusses price trends for Canary Wharf E14 (East London), where only 1 of each 4 apartments is owner occupied. The estate agents agree that the sales are down but seem to disagree on rental prices:

Anthony Flynn of Morgan Randall says the letting market is booming. “We’ve seen an increase in people looking to rent property who pulled out of buying in other areas of London, so the letting market is now very busy. We’re seeing record prices for rents.”

However, Anita Sey of Tavia Lettings has noticed a slight downturn in rents recently.

I’ve taken out the housepricewatch.co.uk graph just to see what it says. It looks like the price for 1-and 2-beds is slightly falling, 3-beds are fine and 4-beds are down from quite a height.

As we all know, Canary Wharf is home to many financial service industry companies, so I’d say we’ll have to keep an eye on how they’re doing. Among Canary Warf tenants are banks such as HSBC, Credit Suisse, Citigroup, Lehman Brothers, Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, Northern Trust, and Barclays.

If you are looking for a home that is new, spacious and has more light - there’s lot’s of it in E14 new builds. One of the most popular ones is a 31-storey Ontario Tower its blue LED lit elliptical top (on the picture above).

Uncertainty in the London property market has left many potential buyers still renting. Even those who could afford to buy prefer to wait and see what will happen. Most of those would-be-buyers are signing a short term contract these days, as it gives them the option to change plans quickly. Telegraph writes:

“Lets between one and five months are now common,” says Kari Trajer, associate director with lettings for Hurford Salvi Carr, who has just opened up a division specialising in short-term rentals.

Short-term renting is flexible, but expensive and often costs between 40-50 per cent above a standard rent, though this will often include attractive extras such as porterage, utility bills and cleaning. A cheaper option is to negotiate a break clause in a longer contract.

Remember the Property Bureau case? It is apparently more serious than we thought - the company has 42 outstanding county court judgments totalling £214,000 against it.

How in the world did thy get into such a mess?

Surprised to see the site still up!

Property management “specialists” Hot Lets joins the list of scam-artists. God knows how much money they have put aside. The agency from Colchester apparently closed down their office last week without any notice to their tenant and landlord clients, who’s rents and deposits are with the company. Read the stories HERE and HERE.