The 2012 Olympic Games is only a few short months away and already many investor landlords in London are rubbing their hands together with glee at the thought of all the extra cash they can charge for the few short weeks over the Games period.

Experts are predicting that with an anticipated 7.8 million people expected to visit London for the games there will be a serious accommodation crunch in the capital between June and September. Therefore it is not surprising that thousands of landlords are planning to evict their tenants as they will be able to charge visitors up to fifteen times more than the average weekly rent.

Some landlords and letting agents have already written penalty clauses into new contracts threatening tenants with astronomical rents unless they agree to move out for the allotted period, whereas others are simply planning to evict tenants to make way for temporary tenants willing to pay thousands for a few weeks accommodation.

Are short-term Olympic lets a good idea for landlords?

On the face of it, yes, the prospect of earning as much as £15,000 for a three week let is too good to pass up, but if you take a step back and look at the bigger picture, you might not be quite so convinced. Good tenants are hard to find, so why risk losing a trouble-free tenant who pays on time every month? A temporary tenant is less likely to look after your property and once they have gone, the rental market in London will be swamped with vacant properties and you may end up with a very long void period.

In an attempt to drive up the standards of student properties in the city, Oxford City Council has changed the rules for landlords of smaller HMOs (houses of multiple occupancy). The new licensing scheme for shared houses is the first to be introduced in the UK, and since at least four thousand smaller properties in Oxford are currently let to groups of students, a lot of landlords will be affected by the change.

Each landlord of a small HMO must register his or her property with the council or risk being fined up to £20,000. Upon registration, a council team will then inspect the property to make sure it meets fire, health and safety regulations, and if it does, a HMO license will be issued. Tenants of smaller HMOs will also be given the opportunity to report their landlord if they deem their living conditions to be less than acceptable, and if a landlord is subsequently found to be in breach of the tough new guidelines, they could end up being taken to court and awarded a hefty fine.

Whilst some landlords might not be too pleased at the new scheme, it is definitely a step in the right direction for tenants living in Oxford. Houses of multiple occupancy have long been associated with sub-standard living conditions, which only serves to tarnish the reputation of decent landlords. Hopefully now the days of damp, squalid, and dangerously unsafe properties operated by cowboy landlords will soon be a dim and distant memory because, as one local councillor said, “there is nowhere left to hide…”