16/06/2009 by Stuart White.

A recent article, in which a landlord was given a 12 month prison sentence for not complying with Multiple Home Occupancy (MHO) rules and an earlier £20,000 fine caused me to wonder how the fine (£200) for non compliance of epc is expected to work. Another a local landlord in Hemel Hempstead who knew if he was caught could face a fine of £20,000 - was fined £7,000 and £1,000 costs.

How then is a £200 fine meant to be a deterrent?

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10/06/2009 by Stuart White.

I’ve decided that having been asked by a number of clients and prospective estate agents to offer the Home Information Pack (HIP).

I’ll be offering an electronic version for a simple set price that’s likely to be around £300 with no VAT to pay.

More details when the service starts later this month. 

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10/06/2009 by Stuart White.

There’s a very interesting article on the BBC website today. I guess somewhat predictable but gives some numbers and a general litmus test of what’s been happening with city centre Buy to Let investment properties….

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8092407.stm

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08/06/2009 by Stuart White.

I’m going to the show tomorrow in Birmingham, still not really sure how it’s going to help my business. I expect there’ll be the usual companies plying their courses but I’m not exactly interested in doing more courses at this moment in time. I’m hoping for a silver bullet, to increase sales. I’ve pretty much covered all the bases with my website and I’m getting good traffic.

Anybody have any views on this event?

At least I’ll get some CPD hours for my second year.

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05/06/2009 by Stuart White.

I haven’t had any bad debt so far. Most of my customers value the fact that they can pay within 14 days so I’m going to continue offering this service. I have had a couple of late payments but with a polite reminder the cheques do arrive. I’ve seen some websites that want to debit a credit card before they’ll offer a quote.

That’s not the way we like to do business. The customer chooses the date and time of the survey and we provide a quick and efficient service.

 I was contacted this week on Wednesday afternoon to survey a property for a landlord who was out of the country. Within 24 hours the survey was undertaken and within hours of the survey his letting agent had a copy of the EPC and was able to Market the property.

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04/06/2009 by Stuart White.

Most know that burning wood is very energy efficient. There’s a good article in today’s Daily Telegraph that recommends brands of stove. More info. at: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/property/greenproperty/5421815/Wood-burning-stoves-fire-up-home-heating.html

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