The coronavirus pandemic continues to plague certain corners of the property market and responses to it look to have a significant longer-term impact.
The following news snippets might help to illustrate that impact.
Changes to Right to Rent
Online searches should make it easier for landlords to carry out Right to Rent checks – on the immigration status of prospective tenants – according to a news item on Property Wire on the 19th of October.
Despite protests from landlords’ groups that the need for Right to Rent checks made landlords out to be “unpaid border control officers” the legal obligation remains a provision of the Immigration Act 2014.
Those now granted entry to the UK, though, will have a webpage containing their photograph, immigration status, and right or otherwise to rent a home in this country. That should make the job of landlords more straight forward.
More than ÂŁ1.7bn worth of unclaimed property lying vacant
An estimated 8,000 properties across the UK are sitting vacant and unoccupied because they remain unclaimed after the deaths of their previous owners, revealed a report by Landlord Today on the 22nd of September.
The combined value of all this empty property is estimated at some £1.744 billion – an average of £218,300 per home or unclaimed estate.
Landlord Today cites London as the unclaimed property hotspot of England and Wales. This is an estimated 30% of all unclaimed estates located in the capital and with an estimated worth of ÂŁ516.7m. These unclaimed estates equate to the same value as 1,079 London homes (based on the current average property price of ÂŁ479,018).
Most of these empty homes have been left by widows, spinsters or bachelors who died intestate (they did not leave a will passing the property on to any named beneficiary). Unclaimed properties such as this continue to be officially listed by government for 30 years, after which they are passed on to HM Treasury.
If you are a distant blood relative or spouse and are interested in details about how to make a claim on hitherto unclaimed property, these may be found in guidance issued in the official Gazette on the 8th of September.
From urban to rural – tenants ditch the commute for more space
Rents in cities are going up while those in the countryside are coming down. The rising demand for homes in the country confirms that tenants are copying homeowners in a steady exodus from city life.
In an article on the 28th of October, Property Investor Today commented on third-quarter statistics showing that demand for city-located flats and houses had fallen – with rents on the average flat falling by 0.63% (or £5 to £795 a month) – while rents had risen steadily in the increased demand for terraced, semi-detached and detached houses.
Despite those increases, however, average rents across the whole of the UK for the third quarter of this year registered a slight decline of 0.26% – falling by ÂŁ2 to a nationwide average of ÂŁ780 a month.
