RLA : RPI : In brief - December 2003 / January 2004

News from the Residential Property Investor, the bi-monthly magazine for RLA members

other artilces from the December 03 / January 04 issue

In brief - December 2003 / January 2004

An additional 90,000 affordable homes should be built each year and an estimated 750,000 existing empty homes should be brought back into use, said the new Christian housing charity Housing Justice. Launched at a service led by the Archbishop of Canterbury, the charity wants the Government to tackle the lack of affordable housing - 'the root cause of homelessness and bad housing' 'as a matter of urgency'.

From next April it will be illegal for local authorities to place homeless families with children in bed and breakfast accommodation for more than six weeks, the Government has announced. The number of homeless families with children in bed and breakfast accommodation at the end of June this year was 3,730 44 per cent down on a year previously.

Double glazing can reduce heat loss through windows by half as well as reducing noise and condensation and saving up to £40 a year on heating bills. This is the advice of the Energy Saving Trust in a new guide, Benefits of best practice, Window. The Trust's website, at www.est.org.uk/bestpractice, includes a database of documents covering all aspects of best practice in energy efficiency.

Building regulations, due for amendment in 2005, and the planning system should be overhauled to encourage developers to build more eco-friendly housing, a report from the Sustainable Housing Forum has demanded. Building sustainability: How to plan and construct new housing for the 21st Century claims that, 'by simply changing the current building regulations and the planning system, all new houses will be built to the highest standards that make homes cheaper to run and have less environmental impact on the planet'. The report is available via www.tcpa.org.uk.

Tenancy agreements are covered by the Unfair Terms and Consumer Contract Regulations, the High Court has confirmed. The Office of Fair Trading had stepped in as an 'interested party' in an action between the London Borough of Newham and three tenants. They had challenged the council's placement policy for homeless people and said its standard tenancy agreement contained unfair terms. The council, which has been given leave to appeal, had unsuccessfully countered that the regulations did not apply to the transfer of land and that it could not be considered a 'supplier'.

Professional property managers say there could be chaos if the Government does not clarify quickly how over £1bn of residential leaseholders' money is to be dealt with when the Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Act 2002 comes into force next year. 'Association of Residential Managing Agents members are as one in wishing to implement the new requirements', said ARMA executive secretary David Hewett. 'But as yet the Government has been unable to confirm what will be acceptable as "separate bank accounts" (required for each group of service charge paying lessees), what the actual format of the annual summaries (of service charges) will be, and how on earth managers are going to be able to include the required several pages of text on lessee rights in their demands'.

'London landlords are enjoying a sustained improvement in rental yields which have now broken the 7 per cent barrier', reported Paragon Mortgages managing director John Heron. He was commenting on the latest Buy to let index from the company. Based on its own lending portfolio (in which buy to let landlords own an average of more than 11 properties), the company puts October national average yields at 7.6 per cent the highest being 9.45 per cent, in the north.

other artilces from the December 2003 / January 2004 issue

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