Wednesday 17 March 2010

Investing in freehold ground rents

Most people will know what a ground rent is as a lot of us will have owned a flat and some stage and will have paid a ground rent of some description. What some people may not be aware of is that these are also a popular type of property investment amongst property investment companies.

Companies (and individuals) are purchasing freehold ground rents as they offer a reasonable return on the money invested and you can more or less guarantee that you will receive the ground rent every year.

If you are brave you can also have a go at managing the ground rents yourselves and charge the lessees a management although I would recommend that you leave this to a profession outfit that are used to dealing with block management (unless you want to deal with the day to day running of the building and all that this entails!)

I will be regularly updating this blog about this type of investment and welcome any questions that you may have. In the meantime if you are looking to sell any of these types of investments pleases visit this website at www.groundrents.net

Sitting Tenants

I am a property investor and am looking for fellow investors that have had problems with sitting tenants. As a property investor I know you have to be careful with the type of property that you decide to invest your money in. Therefore when you decide to purchase a flat or a house with a tenant you want to ensure you know the exact statue of your tenant.

Most tenancies on the market will be assured shorthold tenancies but in some cases they will be what is known as a regulated tenant. In other words you can not ask them to leave as they will be protected by law and have security of tenure which means that they have the legal right to stay in their home until they pass away or decide to move.

A lot of people end up with these types of tenancies by accident as they purchase the property without getting all of the facts about the tenancy before they complete their purchase.

Other people simply inherit these types of tenancies and think that they can get vacant possession. Also you can't simply increase the rent when you want to as the rent is set by a rent assessment panel at the local fair rent office and is increases every two years but only if you apply to them for an increase. they will not increase the rent unless you write to them as ask for an increase.

This may all seem scary but these types of investments are popular as they are normally discounted in price to reflect the fact that it is a regulated tenancy.

I will be updating this blog regularly. Please feel free to ask me any questions that you may have if you have a sitting tenant and I will do my best to get back to you as soon as possible.

in the meantime please view my website at www.sittingtenants.co.uk if you require any further information.