Landlords-what’s the latest?

I haven’t written a blog post for some time and so I hope you’ve all been keeping up to date on my Instagram page @ukpropertylaw

There have been a few recent comments surveys and I’m sure you’ll have seen that the housing market is extremely busy and property lawyers and conveyancers are struggling to manage their huge workloads whilst in some cases receiving verbal abuse from clients. This is totally unacceptable. I read a story about one lawyer who left the profession due to the stress and lack of work-life balance and one of their clients made an official complaint that they had left.

Anyway, on to Landlords…

The average monthly rent over the last 12 month period up to September 20 was £725, the highest ever recorded by the Office for National Statistics. Of course as usual there are big regional differences but this is the highest average rent ever recorded.

The London average is now £1435 per month.

In November, 15% of all property sales agreed were on behalf of Landlords-a 4 year high. This figure is from Hamptons who say that landlords have joined other buyers in the rush to buy property before the stamp duty holiday ends.

Of the 15%, half of those purchases by Landlords were cash with no mortgage. However Landlords should remember that the 3% higher rates still apply, there is no holiday there.

2021 is a year of change for Landlords and an increase in taxes is also likely to come in the spring budget.

I have also seen a new report by the Committee on Climate Change saying that gas boilers should not be sold beyond 2033. Newbuild homes will have to avoid gas boilers from 2025. Although this is a recommendation currently, and there are no plans to force landlords to replace old boilers in their properties at the moment, this will no doubt be coming over the horizon for landlords in the future. Even if there is no requirement for old boilers to be replaced under the scheme of course eventually they will stop being energy efficient or stop working all together and the only choice will then be to totally replace with a new electric heat pump or other low-carbon alternative. Energy efficiency rules are already increasing and the Green Homes Grand deadline is quickly approaching.

That’s all for today folks, wishing you a very happy festive season. Stay safe.