Landlord newsletter winter 2009

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LANDLORD NEWSLETTER - WINTER 2009

elcome to our inaugural newsletter specifically aimed at Landlords! We felt that it would be an excellent way of keeping you up to date with the general market conditions and new initiatives that we are working on to improve our service for both Lettings and Property Management.

Of course, our negotiators will all be in touch with you individually throughout the year regarding your own properties but please do not hesitate to get in touch with us – wherever and whenever you need us. Lajla Turner It is fair to say that this year has seen a great deal of change in the Central London Lettings Market.

There was a veritable deluge of instructions flooding the market at the start of the year, driving down achieved rents by as much as 30-40% in extreme cases (the average being a decrease of 20%) on 2008. This was due mainly to the stagnant Sales Market.

Today, the Central London Sales Market is once again active.

Many owners who put their properties up for letting last year having failed to sell them, are now revisiting sales and as

a consequence there is a severe shortage of properties to rent with a large number of serious tenants being unsatisfied. Predictably, this has stabilised the rent levels.

We have found that demand at the moment is specifically high in the two bedroom house and flat market around the £500-£700 per week level and also for family/ larger homes with at least three large bedrooms in the £1,500£3,000 per week bracket.

As you may already be aware, Lurot Brand has always maintained an excellent working relationship with relocation

agents who are again busier with plenty of companies and individuals looking for homes in London. The message is clear; there is a definite need for instructions right across the board, which is positive news for you the Landlord.

With all this in mind, if you have properties coming available we would love to hear from you. As always, we work hard to ensure that we maintain the high level of service which you have come to expect from Lurot Brand Tania Gedmintas

PROPERTY MANAGEMENT BOILERS - Prevention Rather Than Cure Every landlord wants a good tenant. Every managing agent wants a good landlord... No, this is not a lesson in “Landlordship”.

if any problems arise, he is not only familiar with the machine but is likely to have spare parts available.

Landlords have their own and varied reasons for choosing to use an agent to manage their property on a day-to-day basis and the property manager’s role starts on the day your tenancy starts (though at Lurot Brand we do try and advise or help where we can to get your property ready for the new tenants.)

In Property Management our role is often one of damage limitation.

We try to solve the most common problems and see if that is all that is necessary but sometimes it is not. This is often the case with boilers. Effectively we go through a process of elimination that can often be a test of the tenants’ patience.

When we take over the day-today management it is on the basis that the house is fit for letting and that there are no major repair, construction or maintenance issues that you are aware of. As a property manager we want to know that your tenants are not going to be subjected to repeated problems once they have moved in.

Ever mindful of our client, we do not send in a contractor to strip out the boiler in an effort to resolve the problem. However, sometimes we are forced to call in a specialist engineer in the hope that they might be aware of an inherent problem and that are likely to carry the parts in their van. If the part has to be ordered, we have no control over the timing of its arrival. The result is an upset tenant. Plus a frustrated landlord when the tenants ask for a compensation for the loss of the amenity.

We all know that no-one can guarantee that there won’t be any problems and believe me we don’t look to spend your money.

A happy tenant, in our eyes, equals a happy landlord.

One of the problems that frustrate all parties is a problematic boiler. You may have a service contract on the boiler but it can sometimes take up to 3 days before the engineer can attend.

If you are having a new boiler installed make sure that your warranty is registered with the manufacturer. You would be surprised how many times we find that a new boiler has been incorrectly fitted.

So, the first and most important advice is to always use a boiler fitter who is affiliated to the boiler manufacturer and this way

If a tenant is without heating (in the cold months) and/or hot water they are entitled to compensation and this is usually calculated as 50% of the rent each for the heating and for the hot water. So the landlord risks loosing 100% of the rent while the tenants are without these amenities.

We have had tenants without hot water and heating for 3 weeks over Christmas while waiting for suppliers to reopen. A nightmare for all parties – luckily the tenants were away and did not request compensation.

So what is the solution to this nightmare scenario? What can we do?

Well simply, we can overcome the problem of lack of heating by buying or hiring portable heaters. One problem solved.

No hot water – this is where we have a big problem. There is very little we can do to resolve this.

We have tried to get short-term membership to local gyms but find they are very reluctant to help us and frankly the tenants are not too happy with the trek to the gym for a shower each day.

Often the only solution is to find a local hotel for the tenants and the landlord sees very little change from £150 per night per room in central London.

How can you avoid this potentially expensive trap???

This is where my advice comes in. Prevention rather than the (potentially) expensive cure.

The answer is an electric immersion water heater. It is a form of insurance. So when you are looking to put your property on the rental market consider installing an immersion heater and you will avoid potential loss of rent and put a smile on your managing agent’s face at the same time.

Anne Roche, Property Manager

LAW & ORDER

REGULATIONS No one who has opened a bank account or appointed a solicitor or even visited an estate agent in recent years can have missed that irritating bit of bureaucracy in honour of the Money Laundering Regulations 2007 and the Proceeds of Crime Act. How often do we turn up for an initial appointment only to find we can get nowhere because we don’t have our passport or other ID. Before you get too cross let us tell you a story of a fraud that could have been avoided had today’s procedures been in place and operated properly.

It may change your views.

This is a true story that will put a small shiver down the spine of landlords. It is a true story concerning a landlord called Grahame Hawthorne and a tenant calling himself Andrew Manning.

In 1998 Mr Hawthorne decided to take a sabbatical from his job as a teacher in Sussex. He chose to go to the Far East and became a volunteer teacher in Laos.

After two years he decided to stay in the Far East and put his house up for rent.

All went well until October 2005 when the agents sent to him a letter advising that they had conducted a periodic inspection of the property and found a repossession notice nailed to the front door. This was all the more

strange since the notice was from a mortgage lender and he (the owner) knew he had no mortgage on the property. The mortgage lender was GMAC, which purported to have security over the house.

What had happened was this: In April 2005 the agents had found a tenant calling himself Andrew Manning. He satisfied the agents as to his income, employment and identity. Manning paid a deposit and six months’ rent in advance.

In fact he never spent a night in the house. He did however visit often enough to collect utility bills etc addressed to the landlord – Mr Hawthorn.

In May, about two weeks after taking the tenancy Mr Manning went to a mortgage broker and asked him to arrange a mortgage for about 90% of the value of the property. Now he claimed to be a Mr Grahame Hawthorne. The Land Registry check confirmed that there was no mortgage on the property. The broker asked for two forms of identity (then the standard procedure) which he was shown – one was a stolen utility invoice and the other a duplicate driving licence sent out without question by DVLA. One wonders how the broker missed the fact that the applicant was black and in his 30’s and the real Mr Hawthorne was white and in his 50’s! Using the same information, the bogus Mr Hawthorne had also opened a bank account at Lloyds TSB – quite unlikely with today’s procedures.

He drew £207,495 from GMAC, banked it and then immediately withdrew the money in cash, and disappeared.

The real Mr Hawthorne investigated immediately he received the letter from his agents. GMAC were reluctant to withdraw the Repossession Notice as they had lent the money in good faith. Finally, after completing their own investigation GMAC handed the property back to Mr Hawthorn and they, the lenders, who had been innocent all along suffered the loss. Police are still continuing with their enquiries.

At Lurot Brand we always ask for Passports, utility bills etc and normally use a professional referencing company which will take up a bank reference and employer’s reference as well. While this isn’t a cast iron guarantee, it is a great deal better than the conduct of Mr Hawthorne’s case.

The law relating to property rental is a complicated subject that can never be exhaustively reviewed in an article such as this, which may be considered a rough guide only.

Accordingly you should not rely upon the foregoing in connection with your property letting arrangements. You should always seek professional advice specific to your own circumstances.

Maurice Patry , Managing Director

MARKETING

Our website is constantly being upgraded to feature the best current facilities while being user friendly and easy to navigate.

Lurotbrand.co.uk is visited by people from 83 countries giving you access to a national and international clientele. Our website was one of the first agents’ websites in the UK to feature Google Streetview and we are currently developing new innovative facilities.

Your property appears on the leading UK property portals: Primelocation, Find a Property, Property Finder, Right Move, Country Life London section and the new and promising portal called Zoopla. We are also running multiple advertising campaigns on these portals.

Some agents promise not to send what they call “Junk mail”. We promise only to write to you with genuine applicants’ requirements, details of new local instructions that might be of interest to owners or their friends and information on properties sold and let by us in your area.

Your property is also featured in our monthly lettings and/or sales lists along with our managers’ market comments.

These lists are distributed from our offices, local partner shops & restaurants.

Mews News, our quarterly publication is sent to more that 10,000 mews houses & cottages all over London. More copies are distributed around our offices.

Our photographer, who has been working with us for many years, makes it possible for us to display high quality photos of your property, which will help it stand out in websites and magazines.

Lurot Brand advertise in the best London publications including The London Magazine, The Hill, The Resident, Property Review, Matchbox, Exclusive West One and many more over the year. We also maintain close relationships with the press and property writers, giving selected properties some editorial space in top publications.

Peggy Lurot, Head of Marketing