Frost's blog

From September 2021, the Government banned the sale of halogen light bulbs and from September 2023, legislation will also include the removal of fluorescent lights from shelves in a bid to tackle climate change.    

The Grenfell Tower disaster in June 2017 claimed 72 lives, and exposed the dangers of inflammable cladding on residential tower blocks, and has become known as 'The Cladding Scandal'.  This triggered calls for changes to UK building regulations and the strengthening of fire safety measures.  

Covid-19 may have left some tenants struggling to pay their rent, and this new law will ensure they have some "breathing space", giving them time to find a way to pay off their debts.  The Debt Respite Scheme came into effect from 4 May 2021.  

Like every business Frost’s have been through a tumultuous year, ensuring we have protected our staff and clients has been central in decisions we have taken and with the restrictions on social distancing providing us less office space then we would need a lot of our staff have like many elsewhere have been working from home over the last year. As we look to regain some normality, we are delighted to inform you that we have taken a temporary office in St Albans in order to allow our entire property management team to return to work.

Properties with gardens have been extremely sought after since the start of lockdown. When it comes to renting a property with a garden, landlords and tenants can get easily confused with what’s required from both parties and this can cause confusion at the end of the tenancy.  

If you are thinking of investing into property, or are already a landlord, you may be thinking of engaging the services of a Property Management Company rather than managing it yourself.  Rental properties are subject to an increasing amount of legislation and compliance, and as a landlord you have responsibilities towards your tenants that you cannot afford to ignore.

There may be a variety of reasons that you may want to end a tenancy; because you are moving back home or because you have decided to sell, but whatever the reason there is only one lawful way to end a tenancy and that is to serve notice on your tenant.

Rightmove have recently reported on more home-owners moving into rental properties so that they are in a stronger buying position when their dream home comes up for sale.

When a tenancy comes to an end, one issue more than any other causes disagreements. Surprisingly, it is not pet damage or unpaid rent that take the number one spot.  Read our article to find out which issue is the number one cause of disagreements.

We are often asked by our Landlords what are the obligations of the landlord in terms of repairs, so we thought it would be useful to give you a quick overview of Section 11 of Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 legislation and how we interpret this.

After listening to both landlord and tenant feedback, we have decided to launch a dedicated maintenance reporting tool.  Using an industry leading solution we will be able to better deal with tenant enquiries and cut down on easy maintenance fixes that don’t require a contractor visit.  Read more here.

With the first day of spring only a month away, there is no better time to focus on staging your property to rent.  If you want to add value to the property you are putting on the market to let, or are trying to find your perfect tenant more quickly, then a revamp is always a great thing to do!  Here are some simple tips for staging your property ready to let.