Accidental Landlords now on the rise

Is your landlord just a landlord by accident? Did you ponder exactly how this came about?In a still or downward property market, the owners of family houses who want or need to move but are not able to find purchasers for their home and are not able to reduce the prices of their homes are renting them instead, becoming accidental landlords.

While this offers a welcome improve in houses to let, most of these land lords are quite unaware of the many rules required.

Traditionally a lucrative supply of income for letting agents, costs for managing rental properties are falling thanks to increased competition. Management fees, which cover inventory checks, rent collection, and cleansing and repair arrangements, typically run at 10 to 15 per cent of the rent. As a result, most buy-to-let landlords manage their own properties.
The massive expansion of the private-rented sector has attracted numerous new agents to set up, and levels of competition is intensive. Management expenses are set to fall, and new types of services are currently being offered.

The Council of Mortgage Lenders states that the amount of buy-to-let mortgages has been rising every year since the mid 1990s. The house market has stunted down but investors are still buying houses, or homeowners are nevertheless resorting to rent out there homes due to lower house prices. Banks and building societies continue to compete for investors' business, with many buy-to-let interest rates generally similar to those charged on ordinary residential loans.

At the same time demand coming from tenants seems to be keeping up.

There may be a predicted decrease in rental income, that presents a challendge for those Landlords whose mortgages remain high. This brings a large dilemma for stressed landlords as house values are too low to sell, yet renting the property out would not cover their costs. Additional to this are going to be maintenance issues and voids generated when tenants leave.Something has got to give as the landlords are unable to keep adding funds into these kinds of properties without seeing a gain.
A skilled letting agent could assist you to minimise void periods and keep servicing costs down.

There are more than 50 Acts of Parliament and 70 sets of regulations regulating the private rental houses and landlords risk hefty fines if they don't comply with these. There are many basic safety issues to think about and the rental houses must be examined every year to make certain the electric and gas appliances are not dangerous. There is also fire safety to take into consideration, smoke and or fire sensors must be installed and all supplied furniture must have fire safe labels.

People can and always should use a professional letting agent to find a suitable tenant and manage the property. The agent will make sure that all relevant laws and regulations are abided by. A decent agent will be able to recommend tradesmen at honest prices should any work need doing in the property.