Landlords Face £3000 Fines
For Letting To Illegal Immigrants
Private rental sector landlords will be risking a fine of £3000 for breaking the law by letting rental property to illegal immigrants without doing proper background checks and comprehensive tenant referencing.
The proposal is currently undergoing a seven week consultation process and set to become […]
Landlords Face £3000 Fines
For Letting To Illegal Immigrants
Private rental sector landlords will be risking a fine of £3000 for breaking the law by letting rental property to illegal immigrants without doing proper background checks and comprehensive tenant referencing.
The proposal is currently undergoing a seven week consultation process and set to become part of the forthcoming Immigration Bill, launched by Immigration Minister, Mark Harper.
Under the proposed new legislation, illegal immigrants will not be entitled to free NHS treatment and will be prohibited from renting property in the UK.
Mr Harper said: “The consultation seeks views on the creation of a duty to require landlords to conduct immigration status checks on tenants before providing residential accommodation, with financial penalties for those landlords who let property to illegal migrants having failed to conduct the necessary checks. The landlord checking proposal is modelled on the existing civil penalty scheme for employers of illegal migrant workers.”
Continue reading »
Take That To The Bank Guest post by Bobby Gill
Ever been frustrated or felt ripped off by your bank?
Yep thought so.
Maybe this letter will make you feel better and give you some ideas next time you contact them… shortly before closing your account and banking with a Co-Operative Bank instead!
Read more […]
Take That To The Bank
Guest post by Bobby Gill
Ever been frustrated or felt ripped off by your bank?
Yep thought so.
Maybe this letter will make you feel better and give you some ideas next time you contact them… shortly before closing your account and banking with a Co-Operative Bank instead!
Read more of Bobby’s thoughts and musing here – http://bobby-gill.blogspot.co.uk
Dear Sir:
I am writing to thank you for bouncing my cheque with which I endeavoured to pay my plumber last month.
Continue reading »
Buy to let landlords who own rental properties in the North East, Yorkshire, East Anglia and London, should be aware that they will be among businesses targeted by six new HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) taskforces.
The Association of Residential Letting Agents (ARLA) report that HMRC are likely to focus on private rented sector (PRS) […]
Buy to let landlords who own rental properties in the North East, Yorkshire, East Anglia and London, should be aware that they will be among businesses targeted by six new HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) taskforces.
The Association of Residential Letting Agents (ARLA) report that HMRC are likely to focus on private rented sector (PRS) landlords providing temporary accommodation and landlords of Houses of Multiple Occupation (HMO’s) although specific details on the scope of the taskforce have yet to be announced.
It is expected that the taskforce will initially focus on private sector landlords in specific areas, but if the taskforces are successful, their remit could be easily extended to cover the whole of the UK.
In 2011/12, HMRC launched 12 taskforces with up to 30 more set to follow in 2012/13.
The taskforces are a result of the Government’s £917m spending review investment to tackle tax evasion, avoidance and fraud which aims to raise an additional £7bn each year by 2014/15
HMRC are using specialist teams and sophisticated techniques to gather information from across Government departments, and other sources including press and internet advertisements, universities and colleges, to identify individuals who are not paying sufficient tax and the chances of going undetected are increasingly remote.
It is not just unpaid income tax that HMRC are investigating, landlords providing temporary accommodation, perhaps to seasonal agricultural labourers, students or even homeless people, may find that a sizeable VAT liability is incurred.
Some landlords may not realise that VAT is chargeable on temporary accommodation as HMRC tend to treat it in the same way as hotel or guest house accommodation.
Landlords may not be registered for VAT when they should be and so could face a back-dated VAT claim.
The HMRC taskforces undertake intensive bursts of activity in specific high risk trade sectors and locations in the UK.
Exchequer Secretary, David Gauke, said: “HMRC is on target to collect more than £50 Million (GBP) as a result of the taskforces launched in 2011/12. We have made it clear that we will not tolerate tax evasion. Everyone needs to pay the taxes they owe in full. We are determined to crack down on the minority who choose to break the rules. It is not fair that at a time when most hard-working people are paying the right tax, others are trying to get out of paying what they should.”
HMRC’s Director of General Enforcement and Compliance, Mike Eland, said: “These six new taskforces will bring together specialists from across HMRC to tackle tax dodgers. If you have paid all your taxes you have nothing to worry about. But deliberately evading tax you should be paying can land you with not only a heavy fine but possibly a criminal prosecution as well”.
Intrusive measures are being employed by banks in a bid to penalise personal financial extravagance!
Applicants with families, who buy expensive birthday and Christmas presents or take luxury foreign holidays could now face being turned down for a mortgage following the introduction of intrusive new guidelines.
The new rules from Spanish bank – Santander, one […]
Intrusive measures are being employed by banks in a bid to penalise personal financial extravagance!
Applicants with families, who buy expensive birthday and Christmas presents or take luxury foreign holidays could now face being turned down for a mortgage following the introduction of intrusive new guidelines.
The new rules from Spanish bank – Santander, one of the biggest banks in the world and the UK’s second largest lender of mortgages, will penalise any applicant it deems to be financially extravagant.
Santander may be the first to introduce the intrusive guidelines, but some experts fear other banks and building societies will soon be following suit. The UK’s biggest mortgage lender, Lloyds Group, (inc Halifax and Bank of Scotland), have already imposed similar sanctions on interest-only mortgages.
Spokesman for Priced Out campaign group for affordable homes, Matt Griffith said: “This is ridiculous – no one fails to repay their home loan because they buy gifts for their grandma. Banks are constricting lending to first-time buyers while concentrating on the richer pickings of equity-rich homeowners and investors. As banks scrabble to preserve cash, it seems like we are on the verge of another mortgage crunch.”
The Spanish bank’s questions on occasional spending are far in excess of what is officially deemed fit by the Financial Services Authority, (FSA), after it concluded that only regular spending on essentials and bills needed to be taken into account following the uproar over its original proposal to analyse every aspect of household spending.
Santander’s decision will put a further squeeze on mortgage lending at a time when obtaining a mortgage is already difficult for many.
New mortgage applicants must reveal:
• Salary: 3 months of pay slips or 3 years accounts for the self employed
• Regular Spending: Based on 3 months bank statements including clothing, school fees and energy bills.
• Benefits: Tax credits, pension or maintenance payments
• Credit Record: Detailing if bills are paid on time and going back up to 6 years. Banks also use this to check for truthful submissions.
• Family: Borrowers with children or other dependants will be deemed to have a higher than average monthly expenditure
Santander also check
• One Off Spending: Checks on spending for birthdays, holidays, outings and Christmas presents.
The Spanish bank has already taken steps to slash cheap mortgage deals by telling those who want an interest-only mortgage to come up with 50% of the property’s purchase price.
The bank has issued its brokers with new forms requesting that applicant homebuyers detail all regular expenditure such as bills, school fees, transport, entertainment and clothing.
It also asks for non-regular expenditure, which it specifically sets out as subscriptions, holidays, miscellaneous goods and services, religious festivals and birthdays, to be detailed in a separate column.
Prospective property buyers are not allowed to enter a zero, as this will see their application rejected. The previous application process didn’t ask for any such details.
Santander claims it has been making checks on ‘one-off spending’ for several years. However, experts say the announcement about making more onerous checks was only made last week.
A Santander spokesman said: “The changes will enable us to collect more information upfront about borrowers’ monthly expenditure. This will also make it easier for people to provide all of this information when submitting cases to us”.
A spokesman for the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) said: “It’s up to each mortgage lender to decide what information is important from the borrower in order to make a decision on affordability.”