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Draft Tenant Fees Bill The government has been talking about banning tenant’s fees since the end of 2016, and they have now finally published their draft bill. We had fully expected the Bill to follow very closely the ban that was introduced in Scotland in 2012, and this is largely the case. It will however, put further requirements on letting agents and landlords, which were also expected.   What tenant fees will be banned? The only fees a landlord or letting agent will be permitted to charge to are tenant are as follows: ·          Rent ·          A refundable tenancy deposit, but capped to six weeks' rent ·          A refundable holding deposit, but capped to 1 week's rent ·          Tenant default fees defined in the tenancy agreement (lost keys, late payment of rent etc.)   The...

Interest Rates At the end of October, the Bank of England increased interest rates by 0.25% to 0.5% for the first time since July 2007. Many of today's property owners will not have experienced a rate increase during their history of property ownership, but I, like many others, remember my mortgage rate reaching 17% in 1989! So, what does this increase mean for Basingstoke's mortgage holders? Despite some alarmist headlines in the press, the impact for most mortgage holders is modest. Today, the average outstanding mortgage balance is £89,000, so the increase in interest on this amount for the average mortgage holder is around £10-£12 per month. If you extrapolate using a mortgage calculator to the average purchase price of around £300,000, the increase would be around £35 per month in interest on an outstanding balance of £300,000. So, on the face of it, manageable for most people. The big question is, is this just an adjustment, or the start of a period of rate i...