What a Loverly Couple.

[John Pruden]

I wish some of the bastards in power would read some of our posts here they seem to have run out of ideas and common sense if I can see it running on half a brain surly they can?jp

[Des Taff Jenkins]

HI All
While I can't comment on whats happening at home, my experience was when living in a small village in Wales we rented our house from a Sir Somebody for 17 shillings a week but everyone had to take out a 50pound bond, in 1956 the landlord was selling all the houses with the people holding a bond having first choice, the price 150 pounds, as my mum and dad were breaking up we didn't do anything.
Now picture NZ when my wife and I went to buy a house in 1959 we got a 3% Govt loan, but had to have a small deposit, a bit of a struggle to pay it off but it gave us a start. The Govt got the 3% interest which went into the fund for others to borrow from. I think that this is the way for all Govt's to go.
Cheers Des

[leratty]

Rob, I find it hard to believe that across their empire they are owed 800,000 in rent, that is 800 for each property. No way any good property manager would ever allow his rent to get to such an arrears state. Also would they note be entitled to get their back rent of the government as they changed the rules & the tenants were in those properties on a lease as I understand guaranteed by them?
Cappy, we too had residential property in our retirement portfolio & got the hell away from it due to the hassles. We sold up in the 80's & went into industrial & small retail. You get a rent review every year or two at most, always 'to market' & all costs are paid by the tenant. Never had a bad experience, they pay on time, yes had one or two that did go boobs up in our time but hey that is a risk you take.

[Jim Brady]

Not all tenants are in arrears so it makes it more than £800 for each property.No matter who the property manager is it is a long process to evict a tenant and once they know action is being taken against them they certainly wont pay.Two stories today in the Sunday Post,landlords are concerned that the new universal credit would be paid to tenants or landlords many landlords are to consider whether or not to accept those on benefits.In Edinburgh 70% of landlords will now not take on tenants who are in reciept of benefits.
Regards.
Jim.B.

[robpage]

RE #23 , I did not just make it up because I was bored .


Landlord Fergus Wilson is owed £800,000 in rent by hundreds of tenants on benefits, he claimed.
That astonishing arrears figure is partly explained by Mr Wilson’s vast portfolio of properties. With his wife, Judith, he has owned between 700 and 1,000 homes in Ashford and Maidstone, Kent, since around 2006.
The pair became famous a decade ago for plunging into buy-to-let on such a scale. Modest and plain-talking in their TV and press interviews, they made unlikely moguls, even though their empire is conservatively valued at £120m and generates about £6m a year in rent.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/p...us-800000.html


This is 200 of their 900 tenants on housing benefit , 700 in work and on benefit all pay . To evict someone here in the UK , is quite rightly not an easy task

[happy daze john in oz]

We have similar problems here in OZ where many buy properteis as investmenst for their retirement. Rent them out in hope the rent will cover the home loan and claim a tax benifit for negative gearing, but try as they may there are still many that get trashed by the hooligan element. Bonds do not stop them trashing nor do court orders. But there is a school of thought here that is opposed to the idea of hosuing commision stylye, council owned, housing on the premise that it makes people too dependent on the state and discourages them from doing something for them selves.

[leratty]

Happy daz in Oz, yes agree with you however we can not in all reasonableness have people certainly in this part of the world sleeping outside. They can not survive in the weather.
I realised the property market due to cheap low doc loans was the end in Aus when a foreman in a factory told me he had six properties. How the f... could he do that on his wage one mused? Who gave him the loans? I then came across a guy who even got a loan on a property out west of Sydney that had no right of building approval. Again who the approved that loan? Most of us started in the property market with low equity(not the loan) however we built that up then went on to others either using that property as security, or better still funds saved thus keeping the 'home' separated. Yep hard to do but essential. All of us have been saying be it Aus, Hong Kong, London etc that the residential prices are out of kilter with the real world , yet nothing seems to stop the market & people paying those inane prices just to get on that ladder. What we saw in London you get for 500,000-1m stg was gob smacking in its seriously low standard as well as size.
How we resolve this conundrum I don't know.