Waiving Our Early Repayment Charge
Following nationalisation Mortgage Express is no longer able to offer new lending or further lending and we may not be able to offer you a competitive interest rate deal when your existing deal term ends. Therefore, if you decide to remortgage to another lender in order to take advantage of a more competitive interest rate or take further borrowing, we will support this process.
Importantly, we will waive any Early Repayment Charge (ERC) that may apply if you redeem your mortgage or make a capital repayment before 30 June 2009. This could give you a considerable saving if you move your mortgage to another lender or pay off some or all of it before then.
The ERC waiver will only apply to the actual amount of any capital repayment you make during the waiver period, or if you redeem your mortgage before 30 June 2009. This is a temporary concession and will not change your mortgage terms and conditions.
If you’d like to discuss your individual circumstances with us, call 0845 602 0492. (Calls may be monitored and recorded. 0845 numbers may be charged at a higher rate than local and national calls and will vary between different providers. Check with your provider.)
More licensing in Swansea
Swansea Council has extended its HMO licensing scheme to smaller properties and has also raised the cost of applying for a licence.
Since 1 January all landlords with houses in multiple occupation (HMOs) in the Uplands and Castle wards of the city have been required to apply for a licence and the cost of obtaining one has been increased to £550.
The Government introduced its mandatory licensing scheme for HMOs in April 2006. The legislation was aimed at properties of three or more storeys, occupied by five or more people in two or more households. However, the Government left scope for local authorities to extend licensing in areas where they judge that standards need to be improved and a number of councils, such as Oxford City Council, have done so.
Swansea Council estimates that there are 2,000 HMOs in the city, of which less than half were covered by the original mandatory scheme. However, there are currently thought to be 1,450 in the Castle and Uplands area.
Steve Hancock, Divisional Officer for Housing and Public Health at Swansea Council, said: “The latest changes to the licensing scheme give us more scope to raise standards in even more rented accommodation in Swansea.”
Don’t cut back on safety
Every year between 20 and 30 people die from carbon monoxide poisoning linked to gas appliances. Following the recent prosecution of a landlady for breaches of gas safety regulations in Wandsworth, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has warned landlords not to cut back on maintaining appliances.
Health and Safety Inspector Andrew Verrall-Withers said: “I hope this case sends a clear message to landlords who may be tempted to cut back on safety checks thinking that nothing will be done unless someone is harmed.
“We need landlords to make sure their gas appliances are maintained to a safe standard and an annual check must be carried out and recorded. This is a time when many buy-to-let landlords are under a lot of pressure, but they must make sure they don’t cut back on maintenance costs and put their tenants in danger.”
The landlady was fined £5,000 and left with costs of almost £4,000. Free advice on gas safety is available from the HSE Gas Safety Advice Line 0800 300 363 and on www.hse.gov.uk
Agents’ fees are ‘unfair’
The National Landlords Association has urged those letting property in London and the south east to shop around for letting agents to avoid those charging unfair ‘money for nothing’ renewal fees.
The regional anomaly has led to many landlords in the region being charged about 11% for renewing properties on a let only basis. But NLA research has found that 70% of landlords believe the charge is unfair and not a true reflection of the work that agents have actually undertaken.
The NLA believes that, particularly during the recession, the renewal fee is unjust and a needless expense for landlords.
John Socha, Vice Chairman of the NLA, said: “If letting agents don’t stop charging these ‘money for nothing’ fees, landlords should avoid using their services. It is as simple as that. Landlords get no added value from letting agents on ‘let only’ deals once a tenant has been secured. Why should they have to pick up the tab just to keep the same tenants?
“It is crucial landlords check the small print of all contracts before they sign on the dotted line. Any clauses that cause concern should be negotiated out of the contract. We would like to hear from any letting agent in the region who is willing to commit to scrapping these fees before the law is changed and they are forced to do so.”
Slippery when let
Nobody likes a tenant who wriggles out of paying the rent, but unlucky landlord Valerie Goddard found herself faced with a particularly slippery customer.
Valerie was on holiday in South Africa when she received an unexpected phone call from the tenants who had just moved into her townhouse in King’s Lynn. “They were calling to tell us that there was a snake in the hallway that they believed to be a python,” revealed Valerie.
The tenants had no trouble contacting the Council, who immediately sent a representative to remove the offending creature — which turned out to be a harmless corn snake. The previous tenants later admitted that they had kept five corn snakes, but one had escaped.
