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News round up
Rent and mortgage payments are missed by 700,000 households
The financial pages of the Daily Mail revealed that an estimated 700,000 tenants and owner-occupiers fell into arrears with their rent or mortgage repayments in April. This accounts for some 2.5% of all households in the UK.
Missed payments and arrears were especially prevalent among tenants –with about one in 20 (5.2% of all renters) failing to make a payment that fell due during that month.
Landlords plan to sell properties at record rate according to new research
The exodus of landlords from the buy to let sector of the housing market continues to alarm the National Residential Landlords Association (NRLA), it said in a press release recently.
Recent market research revealed that a third of landlords interviewed in the first quarter of this year said that they intended to reduce the number of buy to let properties they owned. This represents a record proportion of landlords – only 20% of those interviewed in the first quarter of 2022 said they intended to sell up and quit the market.
On the other side of the coin, only one in ten landlords have said that they plan to increase their holdings of buy to let property.
Stricter fire regulations make inventories more important
A recent news story drew a connection between making an inventory and complying with ever stricter fire regulations in let property.
Legislation such as the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order and the Smoke and Carbon Monoxide Alarm (Amendment) Regulations impose an obligation on landlords to reduce the risks of fire in every way reasonably practical way and to ensure the safety of their premises by installing smoke alarms and carbon monoxide detectors.
Even so, fire and rescue services attend more than 33,300 domestic fires in the UK each year – underlining the important role that landlords can play in improving fire safety in their let property.
Drafting and conducting an inventory at the beginning of every tenancy offers the perfect opportunity for ensuring that those fire safety precautions are taken.
