Tuesday, February 4th, 2014 in Landlord, Managing Agent, News, Residential
Landlords should remember the following:
When a tenant applies for licence to assign a new lease, under what circumstances does the lease allow the landlord to
demand an authorised guarantee agreement (AGA)? Even if the landlord can request an AGA, it may not be worthwhile, for example, if the outgoing tenant is in financial difficulty.
Think before pursuing a former tenant or guarantor. If the former tenant or guarantor pays in full they will be entitled to
an overriding lease. It may be better to persevere pursuing the current tenant, or to forfeit the lease if there is a chance
of re-letting the premises at the same or higher rent.
Remember that varying a lease can release guarantors, including former tenants who have entered into an AGA.
Guarantors should, where possible, be joined in as a consenting party to a variation.
Giving time to a tenant in a binding way which will allow the tenant to pay rent late or not at all could operate to release
a guarantee.
Friday, December 27th, 2013 in Landlord, Managing Agent, News, Residential
An article in The Guardian states that The Office of Fair Trading is to investigate the property management industry following complaints from flat-owners and wants to hear from interested parties who can shed some light on why the management of leasehold homes in England and Wales may not be working well for consumers.
Read the full article here
Thursday, November 28th, 2013 in Commercial, Landlord, Managing Agent, News, Residential, Service Charge
A landlord often supplies services, other than rent, such as insurance, water and electricity. Some services may not be standard-rated as a stand-alone supply and Pearson has reported that barristers, who were tenants at the Middle temple, found that problems arose when their landlord supplied a ‘mixture’ of services. VAT law has a preference for treating ‘bundles’ of supplies as a single supply where splitting them would be regarded as ‘artificial’. When a mixed supply is deemed to be a single supply, the predominant supply will determine the VAT rate charged.
Read the full article here
Wednesday, November 20th, 2013 in News, Residential
Buying a home is increasingly out of reach for many, yet 78% of people want to be a homeowner. A revamped form of shared ownership could be the answer.
Read the full Guardian article here
Thursday, November 7th, 2013 in Commercial, Landlord, Managing Agent, News, Residential, Service Charge
Joanna Nicholls of Howes Percival has reported that, from 1 January 2015, it will be illegal to use the hydrochlorofluorocarbon (HCFC) gas R22 in either its newly produced ‘virgin’ or recycled form. R22 gas is a commonly used coolant in older air conditioning systems so its ban will have a significant impact as these systems will either have to be converted or replaced. The key question for landlords and tenants is who will pay?
Read the full article here
Friday, September 20th, 2013 in Landlord, Managing Agent, News, Residential, Service Charge
Peter Bolton King, the RICS Global Residential Director, reports that the RICS Service Charge Residential Management Code is in need of updating, as the current document is woefully out of date. RICS is intending to consult stakeholders next month about what revisions they would like to see in a 3rd edition and will also be asking respondents to assess the impact of any changes. Without a business impact assessment it is unlikely that any updated edition would be endorsed by the government.
Read the full article here
Tuesday, September 17th, 2013 in Landlord, Managing Agent, News, Residential
In February 2013, Russell-Coke posted a summary of the law relating to tenancy deposit protection. The recent Court of Appeal decision in Superstrike v Rodrigues has caused quite a stir. Ed Cracknell and Stephen Small summarise the consequences for landlords in light of both the case and subsequent guidance that has been jointly published by the deposit scheme providers.
Read the full article here
Tuesday, September 10th, 2013 in Landlord, Managing Agent, News, Residential, Service Charge
Practical Law notes that, in Blackpool Borough Council and others v Cargill [2013] UKUT 0377 (LC), the Upper Tribunal (Lands Chamber) held that a landlord had not acted unreasonably pursuant to section 19 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 where it had recovered from each tenant the same amount in respect of a global management charge via the service charge.
Read the full article here
Wednesday, August 7th, 2013 in Commercial, Landlord, News, Residential
When we started specialising in service charge audits they were frequently undertaken as part of the property owner’s general annual audit. This was not a satisfactory situation because specialist knowledge is needed for accurate service charge accounting assessment. Some of the advantages of an audit are:-
- Landlords and tenants can be assured of their transparent financial relationships
- Tenants can trust that the service charge is correct and fair at no added cost to the landlord
- There can be a significant reduction in investigations by tenants into service charges, saving time and money for landlords
- Specialist advice on current techniques for the internal accounts team will be available
Since that time many large landlords in the UK have moved to providing independent audited accounts for their service charges thus removing one cause of landlord / tenant conflict
Saturday, June 22nd, 2013 in Landlord, Managing Agent, News, Residential, Service Charge
An article in Inside Housing explains how Sutton Council corrected the service charge proportions in the leases of an estate, where some tenants had been paying slightly different amounts of service charge, which became critical when the social landlord proposed refurbishing the estate. Before the 1987 Landlord and Tenant Act, the only way to correct a mistake was if someone had acted fraudulently or where the document did not give effect to what the parties had intended. Part 4 of the Act now allows either a landlord or a leaseholder to apply to a leasehold valuation tribunal to correct such problems by varying the lease and this is what Sutton Council did successfully.
Read the full article here
