Landlord Voice Magazine June 2015 - Bristol | Page 4

Landlord News

Landlords and the
post-election outlook

I

t is possible a good portion
of landlords relaxed their belt
buckles and let out a long sigh of
relief when a Conservative majority
was announced in last month’s
General Election -with both Labour
and the Green Party proposing
rent controls and the former going
further to put forward three-year
tenancies.
Very little policy explicitly
addressing the private rented sector
was tabled in the Tory manifesto
although the party did announce
plans for 200,000 new homes to
be made available for new home
owners under the age of 40 by 2020.

However, several matters remain
to be settled from the previous
parliament’s business.
They include a motion to
make it illegal for landlords to
ban tenants from sub-letting
properties in tenancy agreements,
a verdict on whether the West
Midlands immigration checks
pilot will be rolled-out elsewhere
and the enforcement of a section
in the Deregulation Act which
makes it illegal for landlords to
evict tenants when they make
a legitimate complaint about a
property.

Selective Licensing and
buy-to-let loans on the rise

A

Leeds judge has
dismissed an application
by a group of South
Yorkshire landlords to take
Rotherham Council to judicial
review over a selective licensing
scheme. It would see all privately
rented properties in the centre
of Rotherham, Dinnington and
parts of Maltby subject to a fiveyear licence costing up to £625.
The Rotherham Action Group
was ordered to pay the council’s
court costs of £23,128. Under
the selective licensing scheme
landlords must have a separate
license for each property they
own within the area.
Local authorities were granted

P4 | June 2015 | Landlord Voice

the power to introduce the
selective licensing of private
landlords to tackle the problems
in areas of low housing demand,
such as antisocial behaviour.
In areas which are subject
to selective licensing private
landlords who fail to obtain
a licence can face fines of up
to £20,000 and there have
been frequent prosecutions of
landlords who have breached
licence conditions.
But despite all the doom and
gloom, figures from the Council
of Mortgage Lenders show the
number of buy-to-let loans has
risen by 21 per cent in a year.

There were 18,200 loans in
March, with a total value of £2.7
billion.
The surge in buy-to-let loans is
thought to be down to low buyto-let mortgage rates during the
last few months.
But a word of warning comes
from Richard Dyson, of the
Daily Telegraph, who said
disproportionately high property
prices in comparison to rents
meant lo