Tom Entwhistle of LandlordZONE was reacting to a recent ruling by the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) against Foxtons estate agents. OFT found that the agents renewal commission terms were not fair and transparent. They further added that the ruling should serve as a warning to other agents to get their clauses in order.

Mr Entwhistle welcomes the ruling as a welcome development as “It is patently unfair to hide onerous conditions and charges in the small print of contracts,”. He also cautions landlords that they should make sure that they read that small print in an effort to protect themselves.

Going one step further David Salusbury, chairman of the National Landlords Association, has come out after the ruling and called for the letting agent renewal fees to be scrapped altogether.

That is certainly food for thought I suppose. In the long term if more letting agents are caught in this kind of activity then I would hazard a guess that is exactly what will happen. In the meantime we need to make sure we are looking after ourselves.

LetAssured UK managing director, David Plaister, has been upfront and blunt about Mr Healey’s plans for the private rented sector, saying, “I do not believe for one second that providing tenants with a feedback website where they can post comments, which may or may not be true, about their landlords will improve the quality of rented accommodation in the UK.”

He is, of course, referring to the much discussed site and hotline that the government has set up to allow tenants to ‘rate’ their landlords. I actually fully agree with him. I did not put it quite so bluntly in my blog last week but he is right. I too doubt that much real good will come of the move.

Mr Plaister goes on to say that he would be happy to support any proposal that facilitates the great work done by the majority of fair, hard working and reputable landlords in the UK. Once again, I applaud this statement. The government seems to have an odd idea of how to support an industry that is helping them out of what could be a major housing crisis. 

They ascertain that buy to let landlord’s could have made a 187%  return on their investment over the last ten years. This includes a 3% deduction from gross rents to cover costs.

There were things that did actually perform better over the same period but they are things that do not immediately jump to mind. There was, for example, a 242 % return on investment over the last ten years on precious metals.

Martin Ellis, group economist at Halifax, said: “Property has still delivered good long-term gains despite recent turbulence.” But the poor performance of UK shares, which registered one of their worst decades ever, would “make people think harder whether they want to invest in equities”, he said.

In fact the stock market was not a good bet at all, on balance with it only being up on a total returns basis including dividends. With inflation totaling 30% investors failed to make any real return.

It is nice to know that even in times of crisis bricks and mortar are still a decent investment that will see a return. 

The interesting comments regarding this data were made by Jonathan Daines, founder of the website when he said

 “I am pleased that the site generates quality leads for Landlords and Agents from employed tenants; however I am concerned that landlords may be missing an opportunity if they do not at least consider tenants claiming income support or LHA.The most common reason given by landlords is due to a poor experience that they have had in the past with their local councils and rent payments.”

He goes on to add that in his opinion that particular landscape has changed dramatically recently. He says that local councils are now more aware than ever that they need to get proactive when it comes to these issues.

Most councils now will entertain the idea of requests for rent to be paid directly to the landlord, despite recent changes in the LHA that allowed for it to go to the tenant. This is very good news indeed for those of us that would like to take the opportunity of renting to those that are on LHA so long as we can rely on being paid.

According to Gordon Brown the boiler scrap-age scheme should lower the bills of the home owners as well as helping the government towards its targets of reducing carbon emissions. On top of that it has the added bonus of creating work in a time where it is really needed.

The offer is open to those residential landlords that qualify and many have taken the opportunity up. Some, though,  think it ought to be extended further to include social landlords and I lend my support to that. I see no reason why they should be excluded.

Others are pointing out that the vouchers are working but that actually more could be done. Given that 3.5 million homes are believed to have inefficient boilers the 70 000 vouchers on offer are unlikely to address the whole problem.

One thing to note though if you are in the market for a new voucher is that some companies have offered to match the governments £400 offer. that may well be worth looking into of you have a large portfolio.

Without making too much of a comment on what that says about the state of the economy, it makes it crystal clear how much this country is relying on its buy to let landlords to provide accommodation for its citizens. And it looks like being a long term thing.

Approximately 55 percent of tenant respondents expected to rent for the remainder of the year and for as long as three more years according to Rightmove’s first Consumer Confidence survey for 2010. Nearly one third of all tenants (31 percent) anticipated renting for more than three years.

In a very interesting turn of phrase Rightmove noted that the results of the current survey indicate that 2010 may very well be the “Year of the Landlord.”

Let’s hope that government acknowledges the importance of our sector with some key reforms in the very near future. 

It seems that in April a new scheme will be introduced wherein the tenant and the landlord sign a contract agreeing to take measures to reduce the a given building’s carbon emissions, make the property more energy efficient and reduce waste. To begin with these green leases will only be seen in the largest commercial properties but the government has pledged that if they are successful we will soon see them rolled out across the rental sector including residential properties.

They also pledge that the scheme will be revenue neutral. Landlords that go over a certain carbon emission will have to buy vouchers to cover it and that money will then be re distributed to those that are doing the most to try to improve their efficiency.

On the face of it this sounds great but I am puzzled as to where the tenants come into it. Surely if they are not the ones faced with having to get vouchers to pay for the emissions then they have no incentive to keep them low? There is some indication that landlords will draw up contracts with in built penalties for tenants that do make an effort to remain energy efficient. Thats sounds fair enough but somehow I see that line of making an effort becoming very ‘blurred’.

As well as this and actually far less worryingly they have also given tenant the option of contacting a hotline to get advice on any problems they may be having.

The hotline does not concern me, advice and education are always a good thing and this is no exception. A place to rank landlords and fairly much put your personal spin on everything to do with your relationship with your landlord, is not a good idea.

Most of you will have heard of sites that allow people to rank hotel and motels and air their grievances. Plenty of you probably think they are a good thing but I have friends in the hotel/motel industry and have seen vindictive customers impugn the reputation of decent people just because they did not get exactly what they want. Not matter how unreasonable the request was.

Granted this initiative is not to be privately run and one can only hope that means that it will not be the free for all libel fest that the hospitality sites have become. However I have my doubts. I hope to goodness that the fact that this is people’s livelihood we are dealing with here, is taken fully into account.

We shall watch with interest. 

55% of the landlords that the ARLA surveyed indicated that one or more of their tenants were currently in some way behind on their payments.

ARLA’s Ian Potter rightly calls this figure a cause for concern.

He notes also that this rental arrears situation has close links to the high level of unemployment we are currently experiencing. And as almost all indicators are signaling that unemployment is set to rise over the next year, respite does not seem likely.

Even though demand for rental accommodation is high at the moment, indebtedness is a problem for a lot of tenants. The worrying trend we discussed earlier in the month, of paying rent with credit cards, is hardly likely to make this situation any better. We have to prepare ourselves for the fact that rental arrears may get worse before they get better.

Potter refers to it as a web of debt and that seems an apt description. Let’s hope that the predicted rise in unemployment does not eventuate as that seems to be our best hope of avoiding arrears spiraling out of control.

They point to the fact that all our reluctant landlord’s are happily selling up and getting out, as the reason for the shift. In addition those who would like to get into renting property are being blocked by the banks current scrooge like attitude.This, of course, reduces the number of rental properties on the market and makes it less of a buyer’s, or in this case renter’s market.

On the whole though I do not think that talk of power actually benefits us landlords in anyway. Tenants may be losing that battle at the moment but they are certainly winning the PR war.

For example the article sees the fact that we may well become a nation of renters if things progress in the fashion they are, slightly differently from those of us in the game. Whereas we tend to talk about the importance of protecting the sector that is likely to provide the housing for the nation, they talk about a country of renters needing far more security for  tenants.

The article writes off the ARLA’s concerns over new legislation and plans to have a Tripadvisor style website to rank landlords, as predictable.

Landlords need to take heed of the fact that they need to be careful with their image. The court of public opinion is a very powerful one, it changes laws and could well hit landlords in the hip pocket if they are not careful.