The National Federation of Property Professionals NFOPP has produced some video guides on renting in the UK.
Click on the title to watch the videos:
- All about tenancies
- Deposit Protection
- Understanding your Energy Performance Certificate
- Inventories
- Why choose an ARLA agent?
The Office of Fair Trading has published a list of estate agents who are currently banned from engaging in estate agency work or who have received a formal warning.
The Estate Agents Public Register can be browsed either alphabetically or by date. The list contains the names of individuals and companies with whom you better avoid making any deals in the property business.
We will have to keep an eye on that list to make sure that none of them appear on our London Letting Agents page.
Via The Rat & Mouse
Britain’s Got Talent @ YouTube
Singing sensation Susan Boyle has reportedly moved into a converted convent flat in London. Britain’s Got Talent star and her cat Pebbles will be staying in the £2million pad for 5 weeks.
Read more from The Sun.
Rental property marketplace upad CEO James Davis has just sent us the following announcement:
upad gives UK landlords £100,000 in free online advertising
Following hot-on-the-heels of its national launch, upad, the online property rentals specialist, is giving away £100,000 in free online advertising to the UK’s landlord community.
Between 10th and 19th June 2009, upad will allow almost 1700 ads to be posted at no cost, enabling landlords and estate agents across the UK to advertise as many vacant properties as they want free of charge.
Launched in London in October 2008, upad is ‘reinventing renting’. The site enables landlords to advertise each property for a one-off cost of £59. And, since its national launch at the end of May 2009, the service is now available to the 1.5 million landlords across the UK.
James Davis, upad’s CEO, explains: “upad aims to prevent vacant properties costing landlords time and money. Our free online advertising campaign is intended to encourage landlords across the UK to sign up risk free to upad, to try out a new way of doing business.
“It’s time for the property rentals sector to evolve. Portals and websites need to support landlords in their bid to generate tenant leads, and the current economic climate has meant that this has never been so important”.
To take advantage of upad’s free advertising, simply register as a landlord, and click ’Add Property’ to post your free listing. It will immediately appear on the site and upad will begin distributing your property to its network of over 50 rental and classified websites.
Would be good to hear from renters who already using the site. We are just about to take a closer look!
Our friends and acquaintances often turn to us when they are on the lookout for a new home in London. We usually help them by just spreading the word but often advise on which websites to use, which letting agents to contact, etc. We help a little bit more if they are new to the city, as we want to make sure they keep safe and don’t end up being trapped in a place they didn’t really want.
We thought it might be a good idea to take that wishlist out from the drawer, and put it up on our website. Maybe one of our dear readers knows a suitable place that is available for rent. Perhaps they have some interesting information about the area or have just used an agent that was so good they’d like to recommend them. These are just a few ways in which we can help someone trying to find a needle in the haysack:D
So if you want to help – here is our London Renters Wishlist.
Please note that since there are a lot of incompetent letting agents operating in the market at the moment, we will be forwarding ARLA member agent offers only. List of London letting agents can be found HERE.
Renters who want to add their wish can just fill out the form below the list and press “Send”. All requests stay up for 4 weeks! We will not give your E-mail address to anyone – it is entirely up to you if you want to answer the E-mails we forward you. All suitable offers will be forwarded once a day. Advice and other offers will be sent in an E-mail once a week.
This is of course all for free!
Jump to London Renters Wishlist
Edit 28.07.2009: The wishlist has proved to be useless in this form. We’re currently working on some changes!
An important press release from one of the tenancy deposit protection services:
Urgent statement: “mytenancydeposit.co.uk”
04 June 2009
MTD Secure Limited trading as mytenancydeposit.co.uk is NOT part of Tenancy Deposit Solutions Limited (TDSL) (trading as mydeposits.co.uk).
This company does NOT operate a Government-authorised Scheme for the protection of tenants’ deposits within England and Wales. The three official Schemes are:
* Tenancy Deposit Solutions Limited trading as mydeposits.co.uk
* The Dispute Service, also known as the Tenancy Deposit Scheme (www.thedisputeservice.co.uk)
* The Deposit Protection Service (www.depositprotection.com)
These are the ONLY 3 Schemes where landlords and letting agents can legally protect their tenants’ deposits.
The claim that “MTD Secure Limited is a company administering a tenancy deposit protection scheme by Tenancy Deposit Solutions Limited under contract from Communities & Local Government” is NOT true.
Any letting agent and/or landlord using this company should be aware that their deposits will NOT be protected. You should immediately use one of the three Schemes above with which to comply with the law. Not protecting with one of the three Government-authorised Schemes can lead to penalties for the landlord.
If you have already deposited funds with this company, you should seek legal advice immediately.
The new FindaProperty.com Rental Index for May 2009 was published last week.
Key points from the London market overview:
ASKING RENTS
- Asking rents increased in 23 of the 33 London Boroughs, suggesting that the London market is beginning to show some early signs of recovery.
- Overall the London market saw a month-on-month rise in asking rents of 0.4%, from £1,623 pcm in April 2009 to £1,630 pcm in May 2009. In addition, of the 10 boroughs that showed month-on-month falls in asking rents, all of the declines were modest with the largest fall being in the City of London, where rents fell by only 1.3%.
- Despite the recent growth in rental prices, the London market is still far from making a full recovery. Overall, rental prices have fallen by an average of 6.6% year-on-year between May 2008 and May 2009, with only the three boroughs of Barking & Dagenham, Hillingdon and Greenwich showing positive annual growth.
London Boroughs Overview, excerpt from Findaproperty.com May 2009 Rental Index Report.
RENTAL YIELD
- The average rental yield across the Capital stands at 4.74%; however, investors are continuing to receive better returns in London’s outer boroughs, especially in areas which are undergoing extensive regeneration. Average yields in excess of 6% can be found in Barking & Dagenham (6.44%) and Newham (6.52%), two areas which have seen some of the largest yield growth over the past year, with rates of return rising by 1.11 percentage points and 0.34 percentage points respectively.
- It continues to be the prime areas of central London such as Kensington & Chelsea and Westminster as well as affluent areas of south west London, including Richmond-upon-Thames and Wandsworth, which have the lowest rental yields. Kensington & Chelsea has the only sub 4% average yield in London at 3.92%, followed closely by the City of Westminster with a yield of only 4.12%. In addition, rental yields in some prime areas are falling with Westminster recording a 0.72 percentage point fall in the yield over the past twelve months.
Download the full report here > FindaProperty.com Rental Index May 2009
London estate agency DP Estates in Crouch Hill N8 has been expelled from The Property Ombudsman redress scheme after failing to pay £817 following a single complaint.
The Ombudsman found the agency failed to provide a copy of the tenancy agreement prior to occupation by the tenant; did not notify the landlord of key terms in the new tenancy agreement; showed a “destructive / unprofessional” attitude because another agent was instructed to sell the property; and omitted to meet complaints with appropriate response and failed to respond to phone calls and emails throughout the period 2005-2007.
The firm will not be able to sell properties without belonging to a redress scheme can legally still deal in lettings.
Property Ombudsman offers free dispute solving for all the registered firms’ clients, and has the powers to award compensation should you be treated badly. Find out if your letting agent is registered with the scheme HERE.
