Letting in Manchester

Paul Robertson, Business Development Manager, PAD4U Letting Agents Manchester writes:

Perhaps I set the bar too high?  We only received one correct response, so congratulations to Steve Hall your IPOD is on it way!

I will run a few more competitions later in the year, but remember you have to be in it to win it!

We recently did a promotion to attract tenants to move into any of our empty properties before Christmas by offering them a free Ipod shuffle. There is still a few Ipods remaining and we are offering these to our landlords if they take part in our simple general knowledge quiz and answer these questions correctly.

Here are the questions.

1. Who is Harry Potters enemy at Hogwarts?

2. Calpe was the former name of which place in Europe. France, Gibraltar, Jersey or Venice?

3. What country  does  the detective Poirot  originate  from?

4. What is the capital of Australia?

5. From which country does Ouzo come from?

6. In music what term is used to describe three or more notes played simultaneously?

7.Who wrote the Hounds of the Baskervilles?

8. What is the name of the garment worn by many Islamic woman which covers the entire body?

9. An island of the Whitsundays shares its name with a fictional sea Captain. Here is a choice Nemo, Ahab, Hook, Simbad?

10. What is the currency of Vietnam?

While we have your attention if you can provide us with any comments on our service we would be grateful. We will not be offended by any suggestions and we may even adopt these improvements if they are viable!

Please send your completed quiz by email (property@pad4u.com) or post to PAD4U at 834 Stockport Road M19 3AW and the correct answers will be put into a draw which will take place on 22rd February and the successful winners will be notified by email or post . The correct answers will be published in our March newsletter along with the name of the winning landlords (staff and family are not allowed to enter the competition!).

Have fun and good luck!

David Boyd, Managing Director, PAD4U Letting Agents Manchester writes:

The TDS (Tenancy Deposit Scheme) is one of three Government schemes introduced in 2007 to regulate how deposits are collected, processed and to resolve deposit disputes.  Since inception the schemes have proved controversial.  Although supposedly the schemes act in a neutral manner to both landlords and tenants, the very naming of the schemes and certainly the manner in which we have found them to operate is solely in the interest of the tenant.  The landlord is left to protect his/her interests with the assistace of their  letting agent.

The TDS  have found themselves inundated with claims and unable to cope and control their costs.  The TDS has now, in a desperate move, axed 80 per cent of their external arbitrators who judge disputes and decide how the deposits are to be allocated between tenant and landlord.  A small in-house team will now process disputes.  This will undoubtedly lead to greater delays in processing of deposit disputes.  The response to hike up the fees that letting agents pay annually to the TDS, was the predictable response, rather than trying to understand why such schemes are fundamentally flawed in the first place.

Imagine, if I were to offer you an opportuntiy to make £400-£500 or perhaps much more by placing  a single phone call or cheaper still, registering over the Internet;  your odds are reasonable and even if you don’t win, you wouldn’t lose a penny for trying?  I think you would be happy to give it a go.  Well, I guess it’s not surprising then, that tenants all over the UK have decieded that taking a one way bet, is a no brainer either.  Hence the TDS receiving a dramatic increase in disputes each month.  Before the TDS and other deposit schemes launched, a tenant would need to put his case to court and would have to pay a small administration fee  to the court to process his claim (no solicitor fees would need to be paid as it would be small claims matter).  If the case was found in favour of the tenant then the court fee would usually be refunded to the tenant along with the deposit.  However, if the case was not found in favour of the tenant the court fee would not be refunded.  This system ensures spurious claims do not clog up the courts.

Why then do deposit scheme’s not charge a small fee (£25 for instance) to the tenant for lodging a dispute - which would be paid back if the dispute is found in their favour?   The naivety of this error typifies much of the medling in the property market by the Government recently.  Governement ideas on HIPS, Licensing, Deposits, are poorly planned and implementation not given a second’s worth of thought.  Now, one of the Government schemes is on the verge of collapse and the others are probably suffering smilar problems.  Legally, however, the landlord has no choice but to use these failing schemes if they wish to take a deposit on their property.

The problems don’t end there either.  The level of proof and evidence required by a landlord/letting agent if they are to have any hope of winning a dispute is beyond anything that a court would reasonably expect.  Photographic evidence (time and date stamped), naming conventions of files, CDs of images which must be posted  and labelled correctly, tenancy agreements which must contain the exact clauses required by the schemes, inventories that must follow strict criteria and have an enoumous amount of detail,  certificates that must be registered within 14 days, etc, etc.  If any of these administrative tasks is not carried out with 100% precision, then the default is the landlord losing his/her case, whether the case had merit or not.  The process is such that inventories now take over 2 hours to carry out and process, both ingoing and outgoing.  This maybe possible for properties in London which let for £1000 + a month, but for properties that rent for £400-500 it’s not sustainable.

PAD4U are attempting to negotiate with the TDS and are working hard to find ways to manage the mess that the TDS now finds itself in.  Dramatic increases in fees may not be able to be fully absorbed by PAD4U (although we are trying everything in our power to do so).  Landlords may have to pay for registration of deposits in future.   Some landlords have stopped taking deposits at all, prefering to take two months rent upfront instead, but this approach has it’s disadvantages also.

Ultimately rents will have to increase to cover the costs of these Governement schemes, thus every tenant will pay a price unless the Government reviews these schemes to create a more balanced approach.

Alaine Bradbury, Estates Manager, PAD4U Letting Agents Manchester writes:

As you are no doubt aware PAD4U encourages the team to get involved with charitable events whenever possible. At Christmas time we considered having a food collection for the homeless but we felt we’d like to take it one step further and help the homeless in Manchester

Luke and I, have been volunteering over the Christmas period at ‘Lifeshare’ in Manchester. Lifeshare is a voluntary organisation established to help meet the needs of the homeless and the disadvantaged in Manchester, Salford and the surrounding areas. They are one of the first points of contact for people on the streets, they offer practical assistance, support and information from the shelter. They are different from a soup kitchen as they not only serve hot and cold meals they offer continued assistance to enable people to secure suitable accommodation, support to maintain their tenancies and help the homeless access initiatives to carry their lives forward.

My Experience of volunteering

I read an article in the Manchester Evening News during November about a homeless man who was asleep in a commercial refuse bin when it was processed, sadly he lost his life. This inspired me to find out more about the homeless cycle and try and learn how people end up sleeping on the streets. I have a real interest in people and property and like looking into all aspects of housing. I often have a hand in helping landlords evict tenants however we always consider that to be a last resort and often go to great lengths to help them stay in their homes. Cara is especially qualified in helping set up and maintain housing benefit claims.  We often feel we could assist more with a more understanding Housing Benefit service.

The volunteering started off with a training course that gives you an insight into the types of people that live on the streets and the reasons why they are homeless. Over 80% are male and some of the reasons they become homeless are: drug and alcohol abuse, falling out with family, financial reasons, mental illness, being in the care system when they were younger, choice and bereavement.  They also briefed us on what to expect from the shift we were working.

Lifeshare not only offered hot and cold food thought the days over Christmas, it is open throughout the year and gives people the opportunity to chat to people and socialize, playing ping pong, board games or watching TV, we were encouraged to eat together at mealtimes and join in the games, the social aspect of the project was very strong at Lifeshare. They also had other services where local people gave up there time to provide things such as chiropodist, doctor, hairdresser, nurse and clothes donation team.

I mainly worked on the clothes donation team and helped choose clothes for the people that needed them. I was surprised at the amount of young men on the streets and the amount of requests I got for label’s such as Nike, Ted Baker, DKNY ect. I found it very hard to tell apart the clients from the volunteers!

On reflection of my volunteering experience, I had a image in my mind of what a homeless person looked like and I met very few that fit that image, there were young men and women of my age in various different situations. I was lucky to meet and chat to many of them, lots of people had at some point in time been just like me, working full time in a job they loved!

I met a professor that worked at a university and a chef from a well known hotel chain to mention but a few and realised that for some it was circumstances and luck that had changed their lives.

Paul Robertson, Business Development Manager, PAD4U Letting Agents Manchester writes:

Your PAD4U team joins me in sending you best wishes for the New Year.

I’m delighted that this greeting goes to more than clients than ever before. Not bad for a recession - but in troubled times that’s when you turn to an Letting Agent you can trust.

This year we are celebrating our 24th year of doing business locally and thank all our customers for their continued support. We have invested in the training of all our staff from IT skills, dealing with customers enquiries, tenant deposit scheme to health and safety and welcome one new colleague Matt Binns who will be answering your calls, carrying out viewings with tenants and speaking directly to landlords. We are very proud that we have also this year, after many a sleepless night studying, passed the exams and been accepted as a member of ARLA (Association of Residential Letting Agents).

The construction and maintenance section of the company have also been busy and  achieved the Trustmark accolade. This is a recognition that the quality of our building work is to the highest standards in the industry, and we can offer a unique insurance on our work for 10 years which is Government backed. To successfully achieve the Trustmark certification involves an inspector from the FMB (Federation of Master Builders) inspecting a minimum of three extensions or projects and accessing them for quality and finish and speaking to the customers involved, stress testing our accounting practice and customer service.

In order to supply our landlords with information quickly and be more environmentally friendly we are sending all monthly newsletters and statements electronically via email. So please provide us with your email address if you have not already done so and help us do our bit to save  the planet. Cheque payments to customers will soon be a thing of the past so it is important, if you are one of those landlords that still receive a cheque, to provide us with your bank details so all future payments can be paid directly into your bank via the BACS system.

Some of you will have visited our  offices in Manchester. But if you can’t visit Manchester there is always our  landlords on-line access via your own password and login which will keep you informed of the rental income on your property and you can download copies of rental statements plus much more.  We aim to improve this service during 2010 so landlords can see all aspects of their portfolio online including rental status.

It is our aim to take the stress and hassle out of letting your property and by investing and using the latest technology available to us. Our current rent payment policy is to take payments by standing order. We have been negotiating with a new high street bank and early in the New Year we  are trying to set up new tenants rent payment by direct debit. This will make it more difficult for tenants to stop payments of their rent and reduce delays in rent payments.

Thank you to those landlords who have written to us this year - your feedback and opinions are really valuable. Pad4u looks forward to helping all our landlords to a profitable 2010 and on behalf of everyone here we would like to wish you a peaceful and safe New Year.