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Estate Agents are generally an up-beat type. Selling property, to the right buyer, quickly and at an impressive price requires a “can do, will do” approach that is unlikely to be found in a pessimist.
Agents with a positive attitude are more likely to be able to identify opportunities on behalf of our clients. Combine this with a strong focus on proactivity and hard work and results tend to follow. To this end we have found that embracing the following activities at a time when some agents are blaming the market pays real dividends...
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The continued difficulties in the mortgage market have created opportunities for vendors who are understandably tempted to consider letting as a lucrative alternative to a sale.
The continued dearth of mortgage availability has meant that fewer would-be purchasers are able actually to buy. They are therefore forced to rent if they cannot secure the mortgage they require. This in turn has driven up demand for rental properties and rents have consequently risen to record levels, delivering excellent returns for landlords.
The continued low rate of interest on mortgages for those who are credit-...
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One of our tenancies came to an end and the client had decided to keep hold of the property rather than re-let it. He was thinking of selling and asked to pop round before the tenants moved out. We had inspected it a few months prior to the move out date and the tenants had been looking after the place, or so we thought.
I received a call from the client on site. “They’ve put a pond in the garden. It’s about five feet across and they say it’s about four feet deep in the middle” he paused “there are fish in it”. A short period of silence followed while I tried to work out if he thought the fish...
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Squatting’s a contentious issue in the UK that causes serious problems for landlords and property owners. On September 1st the government made a debatable decision to criminalise squatting in an attempt to appease the public furore the media have been stirring up for the past year.
It’s incredibly rare to find a situation that’s as black and white in reality as it appears in the press, squatting is one of those issues. I’d hope nobody reading this would begrudge a person in need living in an empty commercial building, or a vacant housing estate. I would expect everyone reading this to object...
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After one of our tenants refused to vacate upon expiry of two months’ notice (Section 21), their landlord decided to apply for a possession order. We drafted papers on behalf of the client, they checked them, signed them, and we forward them to the court along with a cheque to assign the expense against the client’s property. It’s a fairly straight forward process and, after a few months of forms pinging back and forth from the client and the court, results in a possession order. Or at least it always used to be.
We received a letter from Bow County Court asking us why we were conducting litigation? Initially I misread it and was in the middle of celebrating my successful (and inadvertent) completion of a law conversion, when the possible implications of the letter sank in.
For those of you who’ve tried to seek clarification from the courts on documentation that they’ve sent, you’ll already know how pointless it can be, feel free to skip the next paragraph.
I rang the court to find out exactly why they thought we were conducting litigation.
