Liverpool landlord horrified by state of ex-Everton star Joseph Yobo's penthouse flat

A landlord was horrified when he saw the state in which a penthouse flat leased in the name of ex-Everton player Joseph Yobo had been left.

There were burn marks on the carpet, a dirty kitchen and bathroom, and holes in the wall left from a flat-screen television.

But the former Everton star says he has never lived in the apartment in South Ferry Quay, close to Liverpool Marina, nor even been there.

According to him, his younger brother, Gideon, paid the rent.

The keys to the flat  were handed back to the letting agent over the weekend.

Landlord Ray Smith says he was shocked by what he found when he went to inspect it.

He said: “The state it’s been left in is just unbelievable.“

There’s bond money of £1,500, but by the look of it it will need £5,000 to put all the damage right and I will have to call in industrial cleaners.“There are iron marks on the floor, as if left by ironing, and holes in the wall left by flat-screen TVs.

“I’ve never come across anything like this before and I’m just so shocked. The place looks as if it’s been burgled.”

Former Everton defender Yobo, who is now on loan to Norwich from Turkish side Fenerbahce, played his last game for the Blues in a  Premier League draw at Stoke in May 2010.

He contacted the ECHO himself to defend his conduct, saying he had been helping out Gideon.

He said: “It’s my name on the lease, but I never lived at the flat and I’ve never even been there.

“The landlord doesn’t know me and he hasn’t spoken to Gideon about this. I have property too and the landlord should have gone to the letting agents if he was unhappy.

“If he puts in a full inventory, Gideon is ready to pay for anything that is damaged.”

Gideon claimed he hired and paid for his own cleaners before moving out of the flat and arranging for the keys to be returned to the letting agent.

Yobo joined Everton from French club Marseille, initially on loan, in July 2002 as manager David Moyes’ first signing, making a permanent £3.5million switch the following summer.

He made more than 250 appearances and played in the 2009 FA Cup final defeat to Chelsea during his time at Goodison.

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Chartered Institute of Housing supports mandatory licensing for Welsh landlords

The Chartered Institute of Housing Cymru has joined forces with six partner organisations to assert our support for the proposed national and mandatory registration and licensing scheme, to better regulate private landlords, letting and management agents in Wales.

"In an open letter to the Western Mail we have said that the proposal for a low cost, easy to access registration process for landlords, coupled with a licensing regime for the managing landlord, agent or responsible person, will help to drive forward a sector that is providing homes for an increasing number of people in Wales."

Julie Nicholas, Policy and Public Affairs Manager at CHI Cymru said:

“We believe this is an exciting opportunity to ensure the Welsh private rented sector is fit for purpose, encourages inclusive partnership working and improves outcomes for tenants and landlords. We are committed to supporting and building knowledge and understanding and growing a healthy Welsh sector.”

“There is no question that the private rented sector is a key part of the housing supply solution, the provision of private rented housing in Wales is now almost equal to the level of social housing. As such it is important to ensure that the increasing number of Welsh families who are privately renting their homes are living in well-managed and safe properties.”

A copy of the letter is below:

17/03/2014

Dear Sir,

Re: The private rented sector in Wales

We the undersigned are writing to state our support for the Welsh Government proposal to introduce a national and mandatory registration and licensing scheme, to better regulate private landlords, letting and management agents.

The proposal for a low cost, easy to access registration process for landlords, coupled with a licensing regime for the managing landlord, agent or responsible person, will help to drive forward a sector that is providing homes for an increasing number of people in Wales. The proposal provides a clear signal that the Welsh Government is determined to improve standards, build capacity and tackle management issues in the private rented sector effectively.

Research shows that the private rented sector (PRS) is a tenure of extremes, with disproportionate levels of disrepair, whose tenants are overrepresented amongst those seeking housing advice services, with an almost non-existent tenant involvement movement. Vulnerable households are over-represented in the private rented sector, whilst the cost of private renting to the public purse is considerable, with all rental subsidies costing £9.3 billion per annum.

Raising standards and growing the private rented sector are not mutually exclusive goals; we support the need to promote a positive public image of the private rented sector as a tenure of choice in Wales, and for local authorities to improve engagement with landlords to help build relationships and local capacity.

We believe a national private landlord register, and licensing scheme for managers, will help to target rogue landlords, develop partnerships and improve consumer rights. We believe this scheme will improve services and participation for tenants and help to provide more decent homes for Wales. The proposal, properly resourced, will be integral to the success of other legislation, including changes to homelessness regulations and tenancy law.

We believe the proposals are timely and right; we urge assembly members to support the introduction of a national and mandatory registration and licensing scheme for private rented sector landlords and agents, as the Housing (Wales) Bill progresses through the Senedd in 2014.

Yours sincerely

Julie Nicholas, Chartered Institute of Housing Cymru

Jennie Bibbings, Shelter Cymru

Steve Clarke, Welsh Tenants

Nina Langrish, TPAS Cymru

Nick Bennett, Community Housing Cymru Group

Alicja Zalesinska, Tai Pawb

Auriol Miller, Cymorth Cymru

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Landlords – HMRC is closing in on your undeclared lettings income

Landlords who have failed to declare their rental earnings to HMRC are being warned to pay up or face higher penalties.

The Revenue is targeting widespread tax evasion on property lettings, and estimates that one million buy-to-let and other private landlords are not declaring their rental income, cheating the public coffers of at least £550m a year. Many are understood to be using inflated claims for letting expenses to pay less tax than they should. "A lot of people are knowingly not declaring," said an HMRC spokesman. "We want to hammer down that £550m – it's significant money."

HMRC is running a Let Property Campaign to encourage landlords to come clean, or risk higher penalties. As well as those with undeclared rental earnings from previous years, the campaign is aimed at landlords who have filed inaccurate tax returns.

Landlords who come forward voluntarily will still have to pay a penalty of up to 20% – plus the tax and interest – but this compares with penalties of up to 100%, and even the possibility of prosecution.

HMRC has been ramping up its scrutiny of landlords over the past two years. Last year Hertfordshire landlord Kevin Power, 61, who rented out and sold property evading £84,000 in tax was given a suspended one-year prison sentence.

The campaign comes as many landlords have been enjoying record rents in a booming lettings market. HMRC warns that landlords with unpaid tax who ignore the campaign's "disclosure opportunity" are "playing a high risk game". Officials are obtaining data from letting agents, local authorities and elsewhere to track down those who don't come forward.

HMRC already holds data on landlords who have received tenants' housing benefit payments directly, as well as those registered with schemes for protecting tenants' deposits.

HMRC has run similar amnesties to tackle offshore account-holders, plumbers and others. Landlords who sold a rental property but did not declare the profit for capital gains tax were the subject of its Property Sales campaign last year.

Accountants said such initiatives have been a cost-effective way for HMRC to recover tax in a range of sectors, with voluntary disclosures in past campaigns yielding more than £500m since 2007.

"It's money in for least effort," said Mike Warburton, director at accountants Grant Thornton. He added that while there would "always be scope for evasion" on property lettings because rents were not taxed at source, the individual amounts owed by many landlords were "not likely to be large" because of the tax-deductible expenses they can claim.

HMRC believes that most of those failing to declare rental earnings owe only a few hundreds of pounds of tax a year. Many are thought to be small-scale, amateur landlords renting out a property as a retirement nest egg, or "accidental" landlords letting out a former home they have been unwilling or unable to sell.

HMRC accepts that "not every landlord who owes tax is deliberately trying to cheat the system", and points out that in some cases those making a disclosure would not be charged a penalty. The campaign is "not about penalising genuine mistakes", said a spokesman.

An example, he said, might be a landlord who misinterpreted the rules on tax-deductible expenses by incorrectly claiming for the capital repayments as well as the interest on the buy-to-let mortgage. However, he added: "Most people letting out a property will know that rent is taxable."

Rental Income Tax Advisors (Rita4Rent.co.uk, a specialist in landlord taxation, said it expected most of those making a disclosure under the campaign to pay a penalty of 10%.

Janice Parker, manager at Rita4Rent, warned that while HMRC was likely to prioritise letting agents' records to pinpoint the landlords who are not paying up, those not using agents might still be identified if, say, they had advertised a rental property on a letting website or in a newspaper.

However, she added: "If a landlord is letting by word of mouth it's difficult to see how HMRC would pick them up, other than by anonymous tip-off."

Informal lettings "are by their nature harder to identify", said the HMRC spokesman, though he added: "You'd be amazed at how many people 'dob' each other in."

If you believe your landlord is dodging tax call the tax evasion line on 0800 788 887. For landlords, details of how to make a disclosure are at gov.uk/let-property-campaign, tel 03000 514 479

What landlords can claim

Tax breaks for private landlords are £5bn a year, according to recent analysis by thinktank the Intergenerational Foundation. Its report, Why BTL equals Big Tax Let-off, argued that relief for landlords is unfairly generous and a significant "public subsidy" for the wealthy. The tax breaks have fuelled the buy-to-let boom, it said, making it harder for first-time buyers to get on the housing ladder.

Landlords can offset a range of costs against rental income to reduce their tax. They get relief on mortgage interest – a relief scrapped for owner-occupiers more than a decade ago – and expenses such as house insurance premiums. They can also claim a "wear and tear" allowance of 10% of the rent on furnished rental properties.

According to HMRC, about one million landlords claim relief on a total of £6bn of mortgage interest a year, saving each an average £2,000 in tax. Another £7bn a year of deductions are claimed for property repairs, maintenance and other costs.

Overall, half or more of the total rental income declared by landlords is eaten up by expense deductions, significantly reducing the tax payable. And where landlords' tax-deductible expenses exceed the rent, they can carry forward the "rental loss" to reduce their tax in future years.

Defenders of buy-to-let tax breaks say that reliefs such as deducting loan interest are no different to those enjoyed by any business.

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Shelter needs to end campaign against landlords

Statistics published by Shelter on tenant evictions are failing to provide an accurate picture of the situation in the private rented sector according to the country’s leading landlord organisation.

The data, published jointly between Shelter and British Gas suggest that over the last year, 200,000 tenants in the private rented sector have “faced eviction” because they asked their landlord to fix a problem in their home. However Shelter has ignored the inconvenient truths.

Based on Shelter’s data, which indicates that there are  9 million tenants in the private rented sector in England, 200,00 is  only a little over 2 per cent of all tenants, meaning almost 98 per cent have not faced the problems Shelter and British Gas warn of. It should also be noted that these figures refer only to tenants facing evictions and not actual evictions.

Official figures published by the Ministry of Justice in February show that in 2013, the total for all tenants – in both public and private housing – having their homes repossessed by the courts amounted to 37,739 homes. This combined figure equates to only 0.5 per cent of all rented homes in England. Shelter admit to scaling up the figures from their research.

Shelter also fails to explain how many of the tenants were failing to pay their rent on time and how many of the “evictions” were as a result of tenancies coming to a close. In this instance, many landlords may have sought possession of their properties in order to embark on refurbishments. It is also noticeable that Shelter fails to indicate how many tenant evictions are as a result of anti-social behaviour.

Figures from the English Housing Survey show also that the proportion of tenants satisfied with their properties are higher in the private rented than the social sector. 83 per cent of tenants in private rented homes are satisfied with their accommodation compared to 81 per cent in the social sector.

Responding to the report, Alan Ward, Chairman of the Residential Landlords’ Association said:

“Shelter are once again needlessly playing to people’s fears.

“Whilst the RLA accepts that there are landlords who should be rooted out of the sector, the fact that almost 98 per cent of tenants have not faced the problems should be a sober reminder to Shelter that the majority of tenants face no problems whatsoever with their landlord.

“The best response to the problems that Shelter identifies is to encourage more good landlords into the sector in order to boost the supply of homes to rent and to provide tenants with genuine choices over where they live. Shelter’s continued vilification of landlords will serve only to put the good landlords off further investment in the sector and push tenants into the hands of those operating under the radar.” 

In a report on regulation in the sector due to be published shortly, Professor Michael Ball of Reading University finds that:

“Private landlords felt frustrated that they are always treated as potential devils, while social landlords are always seen in official eyes and political rhetoric as angels. In contrast to such publicly aired views, it was pointed out that surveys of tenant satisfaction actually show better results for the private sector. Nor is the social housing stock consistently in tip-top condition.”

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Shelter launches campaign to protect private renters from ‘revenge evictions’

Too many tenants living in poor quality private rented homes are afraid to ask their landlord to fix a problem for fear of so-called ‘revenge evictions’, according to Shelter, but landlords hit back to accuse the charity of scaremongering.

The charity has launched a campaign to tighten up protections for people who face the threat of losing their home simply because they have spoken up about bad conditions.

In the past year alone, the charity claims more than 213,000 renters across England have faced eviction because they asked their landlord to fix a problem in their home.

The organisation’s study also found many were too scared of eviction to complain at all – 8% said they’d avoided asking their landlord to repair a problem or improve conditions in the last year in case they were evicted.

Shelter’s ‘9 million renters’ campaign is urging the Government to change the law to protect tenants. The charity said the problem of revenge – or retaliatory – evictions was particularly concerning, given the growth of the private rental sector in recent years.

As the English Housing Survey (EHS) revealed earlier this year, in 2012-13 private rent overtook the social sector as the second largest tenure, accounting for 4 million and 3.7 million renters respectively. It also pointed out that the private rented sector also has the largest number of non-decent homes. Of the 4.9 million homes classed as non-decent in 2012, the EHS revealed a third (33%) were privately rented.

This is echoed in Shelter’s study, which found that bad conditions were widespread, with more than 40% of renters having problems with mould in the past year. Furthermore, 25% had lived with a leaking roof or windows, while 16% had electrical hazards in their home.

“No-one should lose their home for asking their landlord to fix a problem, yet these shocking findings uncover the true scale of unfair evictions taking place across the country,” said Campbell Robb, the charity’s chief executive. “We’re calling on people across the country to sign our petition and send the Government a message that England’s nine million renters deserve better, now.”

Shelter highlighted a number of examples from across the country. These included:

• A family in Norfolk who were handed an eviction notice three weeks after reporting damp and mould to their landlord

• A couple in Brighton who complained that the mould and damp in their home was affecting their health, and were served an eviction notice just a week later

• A family from Lancashire who were evicted after complaining about a leaking roof – their landlord told them it ‘wasn’t worth his while’ to fix the problem

“In a market where there simply aren’t enough homes to go around, renters are easily replaceable. Landlords know this, and so do renters themselves,” said Hannah Gousy, of Shelter’s policy and campaigns team. “There is currently no specific legislative protections in place to stop renters who report poor conditions being evicted from their homes.

“This obviously makes their position extremely precarious, and restricts their consumer power to bargain for better conditions. Many renters feel they have no choice but to put up with dreadful conditions, as they dare not risk provoking their landlord.”

However, the Residential Landlords Association (RLA) has disputed the charity’s findings and called upon it to stop “campaigning against landlords”.

Using the charity’s own figures, it pointed out that those allegedly threatened with eviction for reporting problems to their landlords represents little more than 2% of the 9 million renters the charity mentions. Furthermore, it pointed out the figures refer to those facing eviction and not actual evictions.

The landlords’ body also accused Shelter of failing to explain how many of the tenants weren’t paying their rent on time, and how many of the evictions were the result of tenancies coming to a close. In this instance, the RLA added, many landlords may have sought possession of their properties in order to embark on refurbishments. The charity has also “fails to indicate how many tenant evictions are as a result of anti-social behaviour”.

According to the Ministry of Justice, in 2013 the total number of tenants who had their homes repossessed by the courts in both private and public housing came to 37,739 homes – a figure that equates to 0.5% of all rented homes in England.

“Shelter are once again needlessly playing to people’s fears,” said Alan Ward, chairman of the RLA. “Whilst the RLA accepts that there are landlords who should be rooted out of the sector, the fact that almost 98% of tenants have not faced the problems should be a sober reminder to Shelter that the majority of tenants face no problems whatsoever with their landlord.

“The best response to the problems that Shelter identifies is to encourage more good landlords into the sector in order to boost the supply of homes to rent and to provide tenants with genuine choices over where they live. Shelter’s continued vilification of landlords will serve only to put the good landlords off further investment in the sector and push tenants into the hands of those operating under the radar.”

Click here to see the shelter campaign: "9 million renters"

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Landlords Stay Close

Some 56% of landlords live within a 10 mile radius of their rental property, while in the North West and North East the proportion is above two thirds.

The average monthly rent increased by 3.1% year-on-year to £861 per month in February, while Scotland saw the most significant increase of 9.6% to £626.

Nick Dunning, group commercial director at Countrywide, said: “Location is key to Buy-to-let investment and as the findings show, landlords tend to purchase in areas they are knowledgeable of in terms of property prices, monthly rents and the local amenities that attract tenants to an area.

“Given 94% of UK landlords own a single rental property, many choose to take a hands on approach in regards to management, so favour being closer to their rental accommodation.”

Just 6% of landlords own more than a single property, while in London only 4% do.

The capital has the largest proportion of landlords living more than 100 miles away, with more than one in five doing so, nearly twice the national average.

Dunning added: “Towns and cities always prove particularly popular with tenants due to their range of amenities and facilities. Locations with good road and rail links are also high on the list of desirables for tenants, making these types of places reliable for buy-to-let investment.

“Growing average monthly rents across the UK shows the increasing attractiveness of regions outside London. London still remains a good place to buy property given exceptionally strong capital growth over the last 12 months but investors are venturing further afield for investment opportunities.”

The average monthly rent in the UK in February 2014 was £861, up 0.2% month-on-month and 3.1% year-on-year. Seven out of 10 regions saw a decrease in average monthly rent however, with Yorkshire and Humber seeing a 6% decrease, yet Central London and the South West saw a 4.1% rise.

Over the past year however average monthly rents have increased in eight out of 10 regions, with Scotland seeing the most significant increase up 9.6% year-on-year to £626, followed by Central London, up 8.5% to £2,630.

Rent arrears decreased in all regions apart from Scotland and the East of England in February, where they rose 2.7% and 0.1% respectively. The North East saw the greatest decrease in rent arrears, at 1.8%.

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