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Survey sheds light on the scale of the challenge that landlords say they face in coping with compliance.
Nearly one in five landlords (18.2%) say they find it ‘impossible’ to keep up with constant regulation changes a new survey reveals.
Research by property marketplace TheHouseShop.com has shed light on the scale of the challenge that landlords face and how they are dealing with the increasingly complex issue of compliance.
Parliament’s Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee has called for councils to get greater powers toward enforcement related to the private rented sector.
But the research results show landlords already overwhelmed by the sheer volume and complexity of rules and regulations in the rental market – with compliance with law and legislation listed as the most challenging aspect of managing a rental property by almost two thirds of landlords (63.4%).
Overall, almost one in five landlords (18.2%) said they find it ‘impossible’ to keep up with constant regulation changes – with a further 30% (29.9%) saying they find it ‘very difficult’ and another 30% (31.2%) finding it ‘quite difficult’.
Many landlords said they didn’t want to hand over 10-15% of their rental income to secure a full management service – also wary of the fact that the cost of using a letting agent could increase even further when the Tenant Fees Ban comes into force.
Research from ARLA Propertymark found that tenant fees make up on average one fifth of letting agents’ revenue and that two thirds of letting agents would recuperate losses from the fees ban by increasing costs for landlords – leaving landlords stuck between increasingly complex and difficult to manage compliance responsibilities and increasing costs for professional management.
“It’s a really difficult environment that landlords are operating in at the moment. The government have undertaken a range of measures to try and drive up standards in the rental industry, and while this is by no means a bad thing, it does mean that landlords have increasingly complex and wide-ranging responsibilities to deal with,” said Nick Marr, co-founder of TheHouseShop.com
