By Admin Landlord 0 Comments

New buy-to-let stamp duty: How much will you pay? Explained

Buy-to-let schemes have always looked attractive to many landlords. In fact, landlords under a buy-to-let scheme get more value for money than the banks savings and funds we know, and of course, the scheme is safer than investing in the volatile stock market. For many years, some landlord have experienced decent returns however this is now about to change.

The news come as shock. In April 2016, an 3% increase in stump duty tax for buy-to-let investors will take place. In practical terms, this means that if you buy-to-let a property costing £350,000 you will pay £18,000 instead of £7,500 today (a tangible increase of £10,500). So that you understand this better, let’s look how it words today.uk buy to let tax april 2016

Today, in the buy-to-let model there is no stamp duty on the first £125,000 but a 2% tax is applicable on purchases on £125,000 up to £250,000. Anything above £250,000, a 5% tax is applied. And of course, purchases above £250,000, higher rates will apply.

To facilitate your understanding of the changes that are happening in April 2016, we have put this together:

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In practical terms this means the following:

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So can this be the end of buy-to-let investment? It all depends of course but there is nothing that can stop landlords from increasing their rents in retaliation to the April 2016 changes.

The logic behind this change is to stop landlords to come into the market because there is an ongoing crisis in Britain where people cannot afford their first home while others have homes to spare. Also, the implication of these changes impacts the landlords’ ability to offset their mortgage interest as they need to declare on rental incomes. With all of these happening, it is expected that we may see an increase in landlords selling their second home to avoid the surcharge in April 2016.

There are of course lots of debate on this topic but the changes are taking effect in 2016. Some people are questioning the definition of second home. For example, it is arguable that when someone bought their first home, they did not buy it with the intention to buy-to-let but as life goes on they have acquired their second home.

Inevitably, many people has tried to escape the tax man. This means that some landlords are still declaring their buy-to-let property as they own home and rent it out through some estate agent. But in the last few months, the tax man is recently targeting landlords on this “dodge scheme” and have now partnered with mortgage providers and banks. Even those landlords who have already paid years of mortgage, are now on the tax man list. In other words, today you are more likely to get caught out if you try avoiding tax.

There are still lots of questions to be answered but considering that the decision is already made, there is nothing much that can be changed at this point in time. Maybe, the best way to escape the 3% increase it will be to buy a caravan, mobile home or houseboats – as these will not suffer from the higher rates.
The take away from here is that if you are considering buy-to-let as an investment opportunity, it is important to act fast before April 2016.

By Admin Electrical Services 0 Comments

Looking For An Electrician?

When it comes to finding the most effective electrician for your needs, there are a number of things that you should be looking for, including:
References
Registration
Quotations
Accreditation
Insurance
Certification
It may be the case that you don’t need an electrician to provide you with a satisfactory response for all of these aspects, but they should be able to provide you with a reasonable return. The final decision on which electrician you hire is a personal matter that you have to be comfortable with so it makes sense to take time and review these options as best as you can. If you are looking for a firm to help you find the most effective electrician in your area, call on Cenultra. We are pleased to say that we provide the highest standard of professionals who can help you to maintain the quality and condition of your home.my best electricians

References help to find the right electrician

When it comes to references, the obvious starting point is to ask people you know if they have hired any electricians in recent times. If they have, and they speak highly of them, there is a lot to be said for looking towards these electricians to care for your property.
There is also an opportunity to go online and review a wide range of electricians who provide services in your local area. Everyone loves giving an opinion and it may be that you’ll find that there is a local electrician who is highly regarded in your local area. If you are looking for a well-regarded and trustworthy electrician, get in touch with Cenultra and we’ll be more than happy to help you out.
Even though hiring an electrician is a serious matter, there is always a need to think about the financial implications of hiring a professional. If you can find a cheap electrician who can provide you with a high standard of service, great, you should look to hire this professional. However, this can be difficult to find at first, so it makes sense to look at a number of different electricians. There is a balance to be found between affordability and standard of service and most experts will recommend you receive 3 quotations from different electricians or property maintenance firms. This will give you an idea of the general cost of this service, hopefully helping you to find the best professional for your needs.
When it comes to finding the ideal electrician of all the electricians London has to offer, it shouldn’t come down to a single issue. It should come down to finding the professional that offers the best range of services and benefits across a number of elements and aspects. This is something that we firmly believe in at Cenultra and if you want to work with a firm that understands what you are looking for when it comes to finding the best electrician, we are here to help you out.

 

Find the right electrician for your needs

You should always consider the qualifications aspect when it comes to finding an electrician to carry out work for your home or property. You should be looking to find an electrician that complies with Part P building regulations. You should also be looking for a tradesperson who has passed an independent assessment and who appears on either the Electrical Safety or Electricsafe Registers.
Another aspect that is essential when it comes to choosing from the best selection of electricians London has to offer is finding ones that are insured. This is a major component of the service we provide at Cenultra and if you are looking for a firm that provides you with the confidence and peace of mind you need, we are the local property maintenance experts you can rely on. Like all forms of insurance, we hope that we never need to call on our insurance but if something does happen, you can be confident that you and your property will be taken care of.
You should also be looking for a professional who will offer you a certificate at the end any work that they carry out. This is an additional thing that will offer you confidence when it comes to caring for your home. It may also be that in the future, someone will ask about your electrical work and having a record in this manner makes it easy to keep people informed. If you are a landlord or you are looking to sell your home at some point in the future, you’ll find that this form of certification can have a big impact on engaging with others when looking after your home.

By Admin Landlord 0 Comments

How Landlords Can Find Tenants Without a Letting Agent

If you can afford it and don’t want to get involved in the day-to-day hassle of finding tenants, property maintenance and so on then a letting agent is a great choice. However, if you’re willing to put in the time and effort you could save money by finding tenants yourself.

Letting agents generally charge around 10% of the rental value for finding a tenant – so if you are charging £750 per month you could spend £600 a year on agent fees, not including extra charges for arranging paperwork such as EPCs, Gas Safety Certificates etc. Finding your own tenant also means you can vet your own candidates, so may find someone more suitable and reliable than an agent would. So how do you go about finding a tenant without an agent?Finding Tenants Without a Letting Agent

Where to market your property

There are various ways you can market your property without using a high street agent. The most basic is word of mouth – put an advert in the window of your property, ask friends and acquaintances in the area, or even talk to the neighbours of your property to see if they know of anyone looking for a place to live locally.

One step up from word of mouth is social media. Many landlords are now having great success using Facebook, Twitter and other platforms to find tenants. They key here is to choose a site that will give you the best chance of finding suitable candidates in the right area. For example, if your Friends List is mainly made up of people who live out of the area, they won’t be much help in directing you to the right market.

Whichever social media platform you use, tailor your approach accordingly. If using Facebook you can create a Page for your property with a description and high quality photographs and share it with your friends or post on local groups. If you’re choosier, you could create an album on your personal profile and share it with your friends and their friends only. If you’re using Twitter, create a catchy hashtag to include in your tweets, and regularly tweet photos of the property and local amenities. YouTube can be used to share videos of the property with your contact details displayed at the end of each video. Or if you’re looking for professionals, try LinkedIn – create a listing for your property on Gumtree, send it to your network of local contacts and ask if they know of anyone who would be interested.

A good ‘halfway house’ between going it alone and using a high street agent is an online letting agent – these will list your property on the major websites such as Zoopla and Rightmove for a fixed fee. The fee varies but is generally in the region of £50 excluding VAT for up to 3 months – a bargain compared to high street agency fees.

Creating the advert

As well as knowing where to market your property, you also need to think about how you do it. Research rental prices for similar properties and pitch your price at just below market value to reel in enquiries (remember, you’re saving agency fees so can afford to do this!). Make sure your advert is tailored to the market you’re aiming for and includes all the important information – number and size of bedrooms, gardens, parking, condition, any furnishings or white goods included, and details of local amenities, schools and public transport links. Use plenty of high quality photos. It may help to be relaxed about the kind of tenant you’re looking for – for instance, renters with pets struggle to find accommodating landlords, so if you’re happy to have a few furry tenants mention this in the advert.

What happens next?

Bear in mind that it might take a while to find the right tenant – this could be a few weeks, or longer for a larger property. Make sure you keep on marketing your property throughout this time, so the impetus isn’t lost. And once you’ve found a suitable candidate be sure to deal with all the paperwork, such as tenant checks, contracts, deposit protection and so on. This may be time-consuming but can be done at a fraction of the cost letting agents charge.

Finding your own tenants isn’t an easy option, but with some hard work and patience you could save yourself money and be able to cherry pick the tenant you feel is best for your property.

By Admin Electrical Services 0 Comments

Finding The Right Electrician

No matter what the task is, there is always a great level of temptation to do the work yourself. The DIY industry is huge and with explainer videos available online and online stores providing all of the equipment and tools you could ever need, you can see why people are looking to do more work themselves without calling on an expert.
This is perfectly fine for some jobs, but it isn’t suitable for all jobs. A great example of an area where you should always call on a professional is with respect to electrical work. At Cenultra, we can provide the best range of London electricians and no matter what electrical work you need carried out, we are here to help. There are some electrical work that is illegal to carry out by yourself but of course, there is real danger associated with a lot of electrical work. This is why it makes sense to be sensible and call on a local professional to offer you the highest standard of service and peace of mind at all times.cheap electrical electrician services

Find qualified electricians to carry out work

When it comes to hiring an electrician, you want to make sure that you hire someone who is capable of doing the job. One of the most effective ways to find someone who is capable of doing the job is to check if they are certified or qualified. Something as simple as being able to check whether an electrician is registered with an approved body like ECA, the Electrical Contractors’ Association, NICEIC, the Electric Safety Council or the JIB can help you find the right professional for your needs. When it comes to finding the most suitable local electrician for your needs, starting with a list of qualified electricians will always be a great idea.

When it comes to hiring an electrician, there are a number of elements associated with the overall cost that you pay, including:

  • The amount you pay for their time and the length of time the electrician is working for
  • Any call-out charge
  • If there is a minimum charge for work undertake
  • Set fees for specific jobs, for example an electrical inspection

The fact is that different electricians will charge different prices in all of these elements and different customers will find value for money in different things. It is impossible to say that one electrician will provide value for money for every instance or for customer because there are so many variables involved. However, there are clearly electricians that are deemed to offer better value for money than others.

The right electricians will offer value for money

There are some cheap electricians that provide tremendous value for money while there will be some electricians that charge a lot of money but don’t provide a great deal of value for money in return.

It used to be that people wouldn’t have much to go on with respect to finding the best electrician. If you could get a recommendation from a friend, family member or colleague, you could make a more informed decision on which electrician to hire but apart from that, it was mainly down to luck. This is all changed now though and while the internet has brought about many positive and negative elements; it has helped to find the professionals that can be relied upon.

If you are looking to hire an effective, reliable and good value for money electrician, it makes sense to go online and read reviews of your best local electricians. Not every review can be relied upon and if there is just one or two reviews, especially of a particularly negative or positive slant, it may not be a completely unbiased opinion. However, if there is a wealth of reviews and there is a general consensus when it comes to the nature of the reviews, you can be confident about hiring the professional.

There are many areas where calling on a national company makes sense because biggest can be best. This isn’t always the case though and you’ll find that there are times when it is best to call on local firms with experienced professionals. Local electricians are more likely to have a level of local knowledge, which means that they have worked on properties similar to yours before. If there were problems in these homes, it could save them time finding the issue in your matter.

There is also a great deal to be said for calling on firms like Cenultra, who can provide the best standard of electricians London has to offer.

By Admin Handyman Services 0 Comments

Handyman Services Can Improve Your Home

In the current climate, it is easy to see why so many people focus on maintaining or improving the value and condition of their home. No matter whether you are looking to sell your home soon or in the future, keeping your home in good condition makes sense. Of course, some people need assistance in caring for their property, so if you want to enjoy a home that you are proud of, call on the best local handyman to ensure your property is of the highest possible standard.Cheapest Handyman Services uk

Some of the most popular handyman services include:

  • Minor plumbing work such as installing fixtures or repairing leaky taps
  • Applying caulking in gaps between doors and windows
  • Repairing porches and decking
  • Cleaning gutters and carrying out repair work
  • Minor interior and exterior repairs
  • Painting
  • Installing light fittings

There is a wide range of handyman services for inside and outside of the home, which means that there is assistance on offer for everyone. It may be that you have skills, confidence or experience in certain jobs but not in others. In this regard, it is best to focus on the tasks that you are good at and can handle and then call in the experts for support. When it comes to finding the right handyman, knowing what you need assistance with is a great starting point.
While there are many things to consider when calling on a handyman, there is a great deal to be said for calling on a local handyman. It may be that you want to support your local economy and community, which means that employing a local professional will allow you to play your part in supporting your local area. However, a more obvious reason for calling on the services of a local handyman is that they are more likely to know where you are and will find it easier to arrange a time to visit you.

A local handyman may have the best experience

There is also the fact that a local handyman may have undertaken similar jobs in the local area due to certain issues with the way that homes were built, so there is a great deal to be said for calling on a local professional with plenty of experience.
If you are looking to hire the most effective handyman London has to offer, there is a great deal to be said for calling on the services of Cenultra. At Cenultra, we aim to provide a wide range of services and professionals, all of which will help you to maintain the condition of your property. There is no such thing as a big job or a small job, all jobs are important and if you need assistance in caring for your home, call on the local experts. We are pleased to say that we offer the widest range of handyman services London has ever seen so if you need reliable and effective support, get in touch and we’ll be happy to help.
When it comes to finding a cheap handyman, you may be surprised at the value for money you can obtain. Many handyman professionals offer experience and have immediate access to the best tools, which mean that they can take care of any job you need in a quick and effective manner. This helps to keep the cost of their services down without impacting on the quality of work undertaken.

At Cenultra, we aim to provide the best value for money services you can help to find. You can find a cheap handyman in London that will provide you with effective and reliable support but you need to know where to look. For the best value for money handyman services London has ever seen, get in touch and we will be more than happy to help out.
Whether you have specific jobs that you need taken care of or you are being proactive in hiring a handyman, you’ll find that there are short and long term benefits from hiring a professional. The peace of mind that comes from knowing your problems have been taken care of is important and this may help you to enjoy a more peaceful home life. Anyone that is put under pressure by their partners to carry out work around the home knows that they will never get any peace until the work is taken care of.
If you need assistance in taking care of the jobs that you promises to deal with, the full range of handyman services on offer will make sure that you have a happy home once again.