Give Tex a good workout!

Saddleworth pics good too. Try for Kinder. From there cross the peat to The Snake Inn. A walk not for the squeamish – as was the beer, in the 60′s, at that pub!
Dad.

The house we currently live in which will be rented out…

A few years ago, the Labour Government wanted to introduce a Landlord Licensing Scheme which was roundly criticised and chucked out when the current coalition government came into power.

However, here in Labourland Manchester, the local council has gone ahead with it for landlords letting out in certain areas – Lightbowne (in Moston) being one of them.

So, it looks like I will have to jump through the various costly hoops necessary to obtain a licence when we rent this property out. It seems that some kind of gas and electricity survey type thing needs to be done for starters (possibly £100 each + whatever work they decide we need to have done).

Then there’s the licence itself. The government website is a little vague in the pricing but it looks likely to cost either £425 or £475.

From what I can gather, no one quite understands why a licence or a register needs to cost hundreds of pounds and it is little unclear as to whether this is an annual fee or if the licence lasts for several years. Also, no one can quite understand why a fee must be paid for each property that a landlord owns (the whole thing is supposed to protect against unscrupulous landlords, I thought – not unscrupulous houses).

So, after my licence fee, the various checks (and whatever costs incurred in order to “pass” the checks), the landlord insurance, the increased interest rate on the mortgage due to it being a “but-to-let” mortgage rather than a normal mortgage and the tax I will have to pay on any profits (snigger) that I might accrue during the course of the rental period, not to mention the tax I will probably be liable for should I sell the house now it does look very much like a deckchair and a shrug might be the preferred option.

Unfortunately, our tenant is dying to get into our house. She has been pestering us for weeks to get in. It’s a private arrangement between us and her. She works for a living and will be paying us out of her wages.

She wants to rent it off us and we want to let it out to her. She’s happy, we’re happy but it seems we need a costly licence to make this happiness legal.