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Smoke and carbon monoxide alarms to be legal requirement in rental properties
Landlords in the UK will be required by law to install working smoke and carbon monoxide alarms in their properties from October 2015, it has been announced. According to Housing Minister Brandon Lewis the move will help prevent up to 36 deaths and 1,375 injuries a year after a consultation showed strong support for the measure. Fire and rescue authorities are expected to support private landlords in their own areas to meet their new responsibilities with the provision of free alarms, with grant funding from the government. Lewis explained that it is part of wider government moves to ensure there are sufficient measures in place to protect public safety, while at the same time avoiding regulation which would push up rents and restrict the supply of homes, limiting choice for tenants. ‘In 1988 just 8% of homes had a smoke alarm installed but now it’s over 90%. The vast majority of landlords offer a good service and have installed smoke alarms in their homes, but I’m changing the law to ensure every tenant can be given this important protection,’ said Lewis. ‘But with working smoke alarms providing the vital seconds needed to escape a fire, I urge all tenants to make sure they regularly test their alarms to ensure they work when it counts. Testing regularly remains the tenant’s responsibility,’ he added. According to Communities Minister Stephen Williams it will help to create a bigger, better and safer private rented sector. ‘A key part of that is to ensure the safety of tenants with fire prevention and carbon monoxide warning. People are at least four times more likely to die in a fire in the home if there’s no working smoke alarm,’ he said. ‘That’s why we are proposing changes to the law that would require landlords to install working smoke alarms in their properties so tenants can give their families and those they care about a better chance of escaping a fire,’ he added. The proposed changes to the law would require landlords to install smoke alarms on every floor of their property, and test them at the start of every tenancy. Landlords would also need to install carbon monoxide alarms in high risk rooms such as those where a solid fuel heating system is installed. Those who fail to install smoke and carbon monoxide alarms would face sanctions and could face up to a £5,000 civil penalty. This would bring private rented properties into line with existing building regulations that already require newly built homes to have hard wired smoke alarms installed. New regulations will be laid in Parliament to require landlords to install smoke and carbon monoxide alarms in their properties, and are expected to come into force, subject to Parliamentary approval, on 10 October 2015. The allocation of funding to fire and rescue authorities to offer free smoke and carbon monoxide alarms to local landlords will be announced shortly. The British Property Federation said the crackdown was necessary to force the small number… Continue reading
Property prices still falling in London, but five year outlook suggests rise of 30%
Residential property prices are continuing to fall in London while Scotland and Northern Ireland outperform the rest of the UK, according to the latest monthly survey from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS). Some 28% of surveyors in London reported falling prices in February, the sixth monthly decline in a row. But RICS members are positive about the outlook for prices and believe that they will rise by 30% in the next five years. Values increased across the rest of the country due to the demand supply imbalance, the report shows. There was also price growth across the South West and the South East. The upward shift in prices is in part being driven by a decline in the number of houses coming onto the market in most parts of the UK and 8% more surveyors saw declines in new supply in February and new instructions have now fallen in six out of the last seven months. Price expectations over the next three months increased from a net balance of 3% to 10% and despite anecdotal evidence suggesting that political uncertainty may be leading to the election effect of vendors sitting on the fence, RICS member forecast for house price growth over the next 12 months stand at 2.4%, up from 1.8% in January. Notable exceptions to the trend however were London, the North of England and the East Midlands, which may indicate that political uncertainty may be weighing more heavily on specific markets, the report suggests. It points out that as supply dips, the national picture of demand appears to be stabilising after seven consecutive months in which the headline reading for new buyer enquiries was negative and a slightly more upbeat trend is also emerging in more parts of the country than previously was the case. In the lettings market, demand continues to rise, while instructions to let remained unchanged following 10 months of steady declines. This is being reflected in the medium term view for rents with respondents, on average, envisaging an increase of 2.6% over the coming year. ‘It is encouraging that that the negative trend in buyer enquiries appears to be dissipating, perhaps in part because of growing confidence that the cost of borrowing will stay lower for longer, but more worrying that instructions to sell property continue to drop,’ said Simon Rubinsohn, RICS chief economist. ‘This very modest reversal in the demand picture is already being felt in the key measures of price expectations highlighting the extent of the challenge policy makers will face in addressing the housing crisis in the aftermath of the coming general election,’ he explained. ‘Even in London, where the key RICS indicators remain in negative territory, there is a strong view in the survey that property will become even more unaffordable over the medium term. Respondents suggests, on average, that house prices will rise by a further 30% in the capital over the next five years,’ he added. Continue reading
New tax burden for UK homes owned by company or partnership
New tax rules which come into force next month in the UK could leave some home owners with a bill of £7,000 if their property is partly or wholly owned by a company or partnership. The 2014 budget reduced the threshold for dwellings that fall within the Annual Tax for Enveloped Buildings (ATED), what used to be called the Annual Residential Property Tax, from £2 million to £1 million. The threshold will come down again in 2016 to £500,000 bringing thousands more properties throughout the UK into the tax bracket and forcing owners to submit an ATED return. Sue Crossley, from The Country House Company in Hampshire, which handles the sale and letting of high quality rural properties throughout the south, said many owners were unaware of the new tax burden. ‘This is going to be a shock for a lot of people. This change was tucked away in the small print of the 2014 budget but now it is actually coming true for a lot of people,’ she explained. Most residential properties are owned directly by individuals, but in some cases they may be owned by a company or a partnership with a corporate member. Then the dwelling is said to be ‘enveloped’ because the ownership sits within a corporate wrapper or envelope. Crossley pointed out that there are reliefs that could reduce the tax completely but they can only be claimed when a tax return is completed and sent in. There are also exemptions for charitable companies using the dwelling for charitable purposes. The returns are due by 01 October 2015 and payment by 31 October 2015. From April 2016, properties valued at greater than £500,000 but not more than £1 million will have an annual charge of £3,500. ‘Many people living in properties worth £1m who run businesses and use their property as an investment vehicle will find they have an extra bill to pay this year. That will have a direct impact on a significant number of people this year but many thousands more people will be affected next year when the threshold comes down again to £500,000. There are millions of people living in houses worth more than that,’ said Crossley. ‘I can see why the government has made this change. They have seen people in business use their property as a shield from some of their tax burden and the Exchequer has been looking for a way to claw some of this back. But the bill will still come as a shock to many who may not have been expecting it or may not have budgeted for it,’ she added. Continue reading
