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The Bath Landlord Compliance Health Check: are you compliant?

Posted on by prateek

You may have seen recent reports detailing how one of the most prominent estate agents in the UK had left its landlords open to fines of between £9million and £30million in the last few days.

This is because they allegedly failed to send some paperwork to their tenants when their tenancy started.

This has had many Bath landlords picking up the phone to me to ensure they are compliant with their Bath rental property. So, what should every Bath landlord consider to ensure they are compliant and won’t be fined?

To start, there are nearly 170 pieces of legislation to comply with; these are some important ones that Bath landlords should consider.

Registering your Bath tenant’s deposit

Every Bath landlord (or their agent) needs to register the tenant’s deposit. It is believed that one in six tenants’ deposits are not registered, leaving the landlord (not the agent) liable to a fine three times the amount of the deposit, plus making it very difficult to evict them.

When your Bath tenant pays their deposit, it has to be protected in one of the government-approved schemes within 30 days.

Yet even if you do register the deposit, you must also give your tenant proof of being in the scheme. That must include information on which of the three schemes (The Deposit Protection Service, MyDeposits or the Tenancy Deposit Scheme) protects their deposit and how your tenant can get their deposit back at the end of the tenancy.

Gas Safety Certificates

Every Bath landlord must offer a safe rental home for their tenants. Every Bath rental property must have an annual Gas Safety Certificate. The certificate, issued by a qualified and registered Gas Safe engineer, is only valid for 12 months. All certificates must be retained for 24 months, and give your tenant a copy of the existing certificate.

EPC for your Bath rental property

The Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) is just like the colour-coded energy rating diagrams you see on fridges and washing machines, albeit it’s for your rental property. If you don’t have an EPC, you can’t rent your property. Also, since this summer, rental properties have had to achieve a minimum energy efficiency rating of ‘E’. If your property doesn’t meet this requirement, you’ll be unable to rent it out (although there are a handful of exemptions). Again, you also must give your tenant a copy of the up-to-date EPC certificate.

Right to rent checks

Every Bath landlord can only let their property to a tenant who has the legal right to rent in the UK. You have the legal responsibility of checking the prospective tenant’s identification and confirming that the tenant is legally in the British Isles. If you let your property to someone in the UK illegally, you might face a substantial fine.

Anything else Bath landlords should be aware of?

How about…

  • Smoke alarms
  • Licensing
  • Health and Safety
  • Client Money Protection
  • Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation) Act 2018
  • Fire safety risk assessment
  • Legionella risk appraisal
  • Electrical Safety checks

That’s just the tip of the iceberg. The list goes on…

As you can see, there are many things a Bath landlord must consider when it comes to being legal. Yet, apart from a logistical nuisance there are actual financial penalties involved if you do not observe with all your landlord obligations.

Final Thought for all Bath Landlords

Bath landlords can make sure they are fully compliant by having a free Bath Landlord Compliance Health Check with us at Reside. We can, within a couple of days, give you peace of mind that you are compliant, be you a landlord that manages your own Bath property or even with another agent (because being with one of the most prominent estate agents in the UK was not a guarantee the landlords would be safe from prosecution).

Call me, Toby Martin, on 01225 445777, and let’s have a no-obligation chat. What have you got to lose, versus you potentially losing thousands of pounds… the choice is yours!

Reside is an award-winning independent letting agent in Bath. Please get in touch if you would like to discuss any aspect of letting or managing your property; we would love to hear from you.

Bath People’s Addiction to their Spare Bedrooms

Posted on by prateek

The Housing Minister, Chris Pincher, has suggested older homeowners are “rattling around” in their homes as they are too big for them. He implied they are selfish and should sell up and move to a retirement home when he spoke to a committee in the House of Lords. He stated that many British homes are “under-occupied” and could be better used by younger families with children.

He went on to say that the Government will aim to persuade UK housebuilders to build more developments suitable for OAPs, freeing up space in their existing homes, which in turn would open up more homes for first and second-time buyers.

So why is this an issue?

The fundamental problem of the Bath housing ‘crisis’, is the point that the supply of Bath homes has not historically met demand, thus increasing property values (and in turn rents), consequently ensuring home ownership becomes an unattainable ambition for the twenty something’s of Bath.

Call me a pragmatist, but it’s understandable that either demand needs to drop or supply needs to rise to stop this trend getting worse for the generations to come.

Don’t get me wrong, I admire Westminster’s plans to help first-time buyers with their ‘First Homes’ initiative to increase the supply of new homes being built just for first-time buyers. Yet it’s targeted to deliver only 1,500 homes in around 100 locations in the next two years.

To give you an idea of how this a drop in the ocean, the Government sponsored the independent Barker Review of Housing Supply Report in 2004 which was tasked at looking at what could be done to level the playing field regarding the housing needs for the UK. The report found that the UK needed 240,000 homes to be built each year just to meet the demand of a growing and aging population. Since 2000, the average number of properties built in the UK each year has only been 177,975 per year. This means we have been around 62,000 homes short per year. Therefore, after 20 years of this annual shortfall we, as a country, have 1,240,500 too few homes – hence the massive uplift in house prices over the last two decades.

Click/tap to enlarge

Therefore, one option that could resolve the housing crisis is if the Government literally looked closer to home, concentrating on matching households with the appropriately sized home… and this is what the government has shone a light on – people with too many spare bedrooms.

Is having a spare bedroom something that in this day and age is particularly wasteful? Well, let’s look at the numbers for Bath.

12,652 Bath homes have one spare bedroom.

Well, everyone in my opinion needs a spare bedroom, especially in the light of lockdown where many of us needed to work from home.

Ok, let’s see who has two or more spare bedrooms.

Of the 40,336 households in Bath 13,754 have two or more spare bedrooms!

Of all the homes in Bath, be they owned, privately rented or council house, 34.1% of Bath homes have two or more spare bedrooms, compared to the national average 45.2%.

Let’s break it down by ownership/tenure:

Of the 23,889 owned houses in Bath, 11,882 have two or more spare bedrooms or as expressed as a percentage,

49.7% of Bath owned homes have 2 or more spare bedrooms (national average: 53.9%).

Of the 6,848 council houses in Bath, 547 have two or more spare bedrooms, or as expressed as a percentage,

8.0% of Bath council homes have 2 or more spare bedrooms (national average: 11.6%).

Of the 9,599 private rented houses in Bath, 1,325 have two or more spare bedrooms or as expressed as a percentage,

13.8% of Bath private rented homes have 2 or more spare bedrooms (national average: 19.4%).

You can see there is the spare capacity in the Bath housing market.

The Government hit the social housing sector with their ‘Bedroom tax’ in 2012, (also known as under occupancy charge or spare room subsidy) which meant that in council homes you would receive less in Housing Benefit or Housing Costs Element in a Universal Credit claim if you lived in a housing association or council property and were deemed to have one or more spare bedrooms.

Now it seems the Government has concentrated on the group that makes up the bulk of homeowners with spare bedrooms, the older owner occupiers of large properties, in their 60s and 70s, where the kids have flown the nest.

However, there are many explanations why these mature homeowners do not downsize. These people have lived in the same house for 30, 40, even 50 years, and as one matures in life, many people do not want to depart from what they see as the family home. Much time has been invested in making friends in their neighbourhood and it’s nice to have all those rooms in case every grandchild decided to visit, at the same time, and they brought their friends!

But is that a selfish point of view? Are we addicted to our spare bedrooms?

Or should the Government keep its nose out of where people live?

I would ask if the ‘Minister of Superfluously Sizeable Houses’ should be kicking you out of the Bath home you worked for and have spent much of your life in? And why is it assumed that retired homeowners want to downsize to small little bungalows and apartments? Many love their spacious living rooms and kitchens (which are typically found in bigger houses).

This Government is in a muddle about housing policy.

On one side of the coin, the Government announced an increase in the tax burden on the British public with a rise to its highest level since the early 1950s to pay for care and the NHS, yet on the other side of the coin, recently cancelling vote losing policies, so that mature people going into care do not need to sell their homes (which if you think about it, they won’t live in anyway because they are going to long-term care). Whilst at the same time, to muddy the waters, they are suggesting to mature homeowners they have to move out of those same large homes to free it up for younger families?  If the Government doesn’t know what the answer is, who does?

The subject of downsizing is a delicate one to unravel.

We all know that mature homeowners, if they moved to a smaller Bath home, would lose all the space they take for granted and would be unable to have the grandchildren over. Remaining in your large Bath home is not greedy, it’s just the accepted human longing to enjoy a life after 50 plus years of working and paying your dues and taxes. You could say, “Move to a managed retirement home.” Yet many are very small and quite expensive.

And anyway, why should you have to relocate and wave goodbye to all your neighbours who have become friends and provide a support network?

There is a case made by some that mature downsizers could be given stamp duty tax breaks to get them to downsize, yet I am not sure how this could be policed, and it doesn’t solve the problem of increasing the overall supply of property in the UK.

The real issue isn’t spare bedrooms, it’s the need to change the planning rules to increase the number and type of new homes being built that will satisfy these mature homeowners with excess spare bedrooms to move into.

Big national builders have exploited ham-fisted planning rules since the 1980s, but no political party seems to have the answer. Housing Minister Chris Pincher might say he wants to persuade builders to build more suitable homes for mature people, yet his Government’s actions don’t seem to match his words.

In the Queen’s Speech this spring, the Government announced a proposed new planning system, which would create “simpler, faster procedures for producing local development plans, approving major schemes, assessing environmental impacts and negotiating affordable housing and infrastructure contributions”, or in layman’s terms, allowing more building to take place.

However, word coming out of Government is those plans could be cancelled following the Conservatives’ surprise defeat in the Chesham & Amersham by-election to the Liberal Democrats in the summer, which was blamed by some Conservative MPs on the new proposed planning laws.

So, whilst the Government decides what to do, what can mature Bath homeowners do if they feel they do want to downsize?

The biggest fear many mature Bath homeowners have is they will sell their large Bath home but be unable to find anything to buy – thus making themselves homeless.

If you are a Bath homeowner or landlord and think this may affect you – feel free to drop me a line.

Reside is an award-winning independent letting agent in Bath. Please get in touch if you would like to discuss any aspect of letting or managing your property; we would love to hear from you.

Reside Review: October 2021

Posted on by prateek

Everything you need to know about the property rental market in October 2021. This month: an in-depth look into Bath’s rental property shortage.

More Reside records fell by the wayside during October, with more properties let over the course of the month than any preceding October since the company’s inception. Our average letting time was just 3 days between placing the property on the market, and having an offer accepted by the landlord. During the month of October, we achieved an average of 101% of the advertised rent.

This month’s data once again bears out the recent pattern of property supply being vastly outweighed by tenant demand, but exactly how in-demand are Bath’s rental properties?

Bath Property In High Demand

At the time of recording the above video, a quick Rightmove search revealed just 50 properties currently on the market across the entire city, with only 15 placed on the market in the last seven days.

As Reside’s average letting time of 3 days suggests, if a property has been on the rental market for longer than 7 days in the current climate… something is wrong. It could that the property is overpriced or poorly marketed – either way, the landlord owes their letting agency a serious conversation.

So just how much competition is there for these 15 recently launched properties?

In the above video, General Manager Toby Martin looks closely at the Rightmove data of two apartments that we recently let for £1,200 per month. One property let after just one day; the second apartment was launched on a Friday and let agreed on the Monday. Between them, they amassed around 1,500 views on Rightmove between going on the market and an offer being accepted by the landlord.

Two apartments. 5 days on the market between them. 1500 views on Rightmove. It’s no wonder that properties are letting so quickly, and that rents have been pushed upwards.

Will The Winter Market Slow Down?

Traditionally, both supply and demand dwindle during November, before almost shutting up shop entirely during December. It is likely that supply to the market will reduce even further over the next couple of months, as tenants bed in for the winter and delay home moves until the New Year.

What is unlikely to change, however, is the discrepancy between supply and demand. For every property on the market during November and December, there are still bound to be multiple interested parties. The property shortages of the past few months will have left a large backlog of home hunters who have been unable to secure their next move.

In that respect, it will still be a buoyant climate for landlords bringing their homes and investments to the rental market.

Reside is an award-winning independent letting agent in Bath. Please get in touch if you would like to discuss any aspect of letting or managing your property; we would love to hear from you.

The Autumn Budget: what landlords need to know

Posted on by prateek

Rishi Sunak’s budget holds little of interest for landlords, but a support scheme is announced for vulnerable tenants

For landlords, the most salient parts of the Autumn Budget were the omissions, rather than Rishi Sunak’s raft of announcements.

There was no mention of Capital Gains Tax, nor was there any review of stamp duty. This may come as a relief to landlords, many of whom had been expecting the Chancellor to announce increased property taxation and red tape.

Prior to the Budget, the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities released details of a support package aimed at low-income earners in rent arrears to help prevent homelessness.

This comes after months of lobbying by ARLA Propertymark and other organisations, who have long called for more financial support to be made available to tenants at risk of eviction as a result of the Covid pandemic.

“The £65m funding for those in rental debt provides some support but the devil is in the detail. Almost four million low-income households are in arrears with their household bills, yet this money will be targeted at those who are most at risk of homelessness, excluding a significant number of others from help.”
ARLA Propertymark

Reside is an award-winning independent letting agent in Bath. Please get in touch if you would like to discuss any aspect of letting or managing your property; we would love to hear from you.

We Are Hiring: Property Coordinator

Posted on by prateek

Property Coordinator

Hours: This role can be adapted to suit part-time and full-time applicants
Salary: £18-20k per annum

Reside is an independent, award-winning letting agent whose innovative, ethical and successful service is highly praised by its tenants and landlords.

We are looking for a motivated, approachable and conscientious candidate to support our busy property management team, helping to oversee the upkeep of our managed property portfolio. This is a varied and rewarding role, which we can adapt to suit part-time and full-time applicants.

In this role, you will:

  • Instruct property maintenance when required and manage repairs through to completion
  • Liaise with tenants and landlords, providing updates of maintenance jobs
  • Monitor our CRM system to ensure records are kept up to date
  • Carry out property visits, recording condition and meter readings
  • Assist with key management, collecting and delivering keys to local contractors and providing access to properties when required
  • Record property floor plans
  • Provide support to a busy team
  • Perform general office duties including filing, scanning, and typing

Requirements:

  • A compassionate and approachable manner, with the ability to form a good rapport with our clients
  • You can command a busy workload, offering and accepting support from your colleagues
  • Confident computer user, especially MS Office
  • A clean full UK driving licence
  • Industry experience is not required

Benefits:

  • Salary from £18,000 to £20,000 per annum, based on your experience
  • The opportunity to obtain an industry qualification
  • Headspace account to encourage a healthy and mindful approach to you work

This role can be adapted to suit part-time and full-time applicants.

If you are interested in applying for this role, please send your CV and a covering letter to ben@localhost.

Reside Named in Top 5% Of UK Agents

Posted on by prateek

Reside has been named as one of the country’s leading letting agents in the largest and most rigorous analysis of the nation’s property sector.

The Best Estate Agent Guide, which is produced by The Property Academy in conjunction with Rightmove, is the only industry award which does not require agents to nominate themselves or pay to enter. Every estate and lettings agency on Rightmove, which amounts to over 90% of agents in the country, is automatically entered into the awards.

The Best Estate Agent Guide covers over 90% of UK estate agents, is independently assessed and transparent

Gold Award Winners: The Reside Team

Initially, every agent’s Rightmove data is analysed over a six-month period against criteria such as average letting time, and how frequently properties returned to the market after a let fell through. The best performing 2,500 agencies are then mystery shopped to put their customer service and efficiency to the test.

Everyone at Reside is absolutely honoured to have been awarded the Gold Award in the 2021/22 Best Estate Agent Guide, the highest rating that can be achieved which places us in the top 5% of agents nationwide.

Ben Bower, Reside’s Managing Director, commented, “This award is a wonderful testament to the hard work of our staff, whose expertise in lettings provides complete peace of mind to our landlords. Being placed in the top 5% of agents in the country reassures us that we have been getting it right to date, but rest assured we won’t rest on our laurels – we are always trying to improve our services and our own expertise.”

Reside is an independent letting agent in Bath. Please get in touch if you would like to discuss any aspect of letting or managing your property; we would love to hear from you.

Reside Review: August 2021

Posted on by prateek

Reside General Manager Toby Martin brings you news of the rental market in August 2021.

As inevitable as an England batting collapse, August was yet again another busy month for the rental market. Recent trends of property supply being outweighed by tenant demand reached new heights, as competition for properties contributed to us letting more than 50% of our properties within 1 day during August.

Our overall average letting time was just 3.5 days which, in any other year, would be remarkable. In the current market, however, this only just represents our best month on the year so far.

Due to the overwhelming demand from tenants, the average rent achieved in August was 100% of the asking rent. In other words, every single property received an asking rent offer.

Another Legislation Change for Landlords

Towards the end of August, the government announced another change to legislation affecting landlords – there have now been around 50 since the start of the pandemic.

On this occasion, the announcement was a welcome one, extending digital Right to Rent checks until April 2022. Allowing these checks to be carried out digitally has been a great time saver for landlords and agents, and a permanent online system is hopefully in the pipeline.

Awards Season… Again!

Last year’s Bath Property Awards were delayed due to the pandemic, meaning that this year’s ceremony has come around quicker than ever. We were delighted to be named a finalists in the ‘Best Lettings Agent’ category, which we were honoured to win last year. For the first time, we have also been nominated in the ‘Best Employer’ category – if only there were a ‘Best Employees’ award, we would be a shoe-in for that one too!

Reside is an award-winning independent letting agent in Bath. Please get in touch if you would like to discuss any aspect of letting or managing your property; we would love to hear from you.

Tenants: 5 Tips To Help You Secure That Property

Posted on by prateek

Reside’s Toby Martin on how to get to the front of the queue in such a competitive market.

Since the beginning of 2021, the rental market has been overwhelmed by demand from tenants looking for new homes. At the same time, supply of available properties has dwindled, thereby creating a very difficult environment in which to secure your next move.

Here are our top 5 tips to beat the competition and secure that perfect property:

1. Register with the local letting agents

If we have a registered tenant on our books who we think would suit a newly available property, we will share it with them before the property comes onto the open market; our last few properties have all been let in this way, without the need to list them on Rightmove. If you are scanning Rightmove or On The Market on a daily basis, or waiting for their property alerts to arrive in your inbox, you will miss out on a great many properties.

Speak with the local agencies and make sure you are registered and known to them; you might just be given the opportunity to rent a property that never comes to the market.

2. Embrace technology

Video technology has really come to the fore during the pandemic, and our video tours have enabled a great many people to view and rent properties without needing to leave their homes. As we are now emerging from lockdown restrictions, these video tours have taken on a new use – enabling tenants to be the first to view a property, and get ahead of the rush. We are still agreeing many lets without carrying out physical viewings, thanks to our high quality and comprehensive video tours.

3. Be decisive

If you think you have found the right property, don’t waste time in expressing your interest and submitting an offer. If you take too much time to consider your options and view other properties, you may well miss out.

4. Make your first offer your best offer

In a normal market, we are quite accustomed to receiving an ‘initial’ offer from a prospective tenant, who is anticipating a negotiation with the landlord before agreeing terms. In the current climate, we are frequently seeing tenants submit their best and final offer from the outset, in the knowledge that they may face competition to secure the property.

5. Express yourself

Don’t be afraid to let your personality come across to the landlord. Landlords are not purely swayed by the terms of your offer, they are also looking for tenants who come across as friendly, reliable people – someone who will care for the property in which they live.

Reside is an award-winning independent letting agent in Bath. Please get in touch if you would like to discuss any aspect of letting or managing your property; we would love to hear from you.

Reside Review: July 2021

Posted on by prateek

Reside General Manager Toby Martin rounds up rental market activity in July 2021.

A month of frenetic rental activity resulted in Reside’s busiest July since the company opened in 2008.

July 2020 had set a new high for lets agreed over the course of the month, but this year proved busier still.

New applicants registering for properties during July increased by a staggering 40% compared to July 2020 and was also up by 7.4% on June 2021, demonstrating significant levels of tenant demand.

What is most staggering is the speed with which available properties are being secured by tenants, in the knowledge that they are likely to lose out if they are slow to make an offer. It took, on average, just 7 days for Reside to agree a let during July, achieving an average of 100.4% of the advertised rent.

These figures serve to reinforce the recent trend of high tenant demand being underserved by a dearth of available property. With such competition for available properties, there have been few better times to bring a rental property to the market.

Reside is an award-winning independent letting agent in Bath. Please get in touch if you would like to discuss any aspect of letting or managing your property; we would love to hear from you.