COVID-19 help for Landlords

Further to the information we provided on Wednesday, we now know a little more about what measures the Government have put in place to protect tenants and landlords.

In response to the Corona virus pandemic that continues, the Government has taken heed of the RLA (Residential Landlords Association) together with the NLA (National Landlords Association) and implemented the following:

• That buy to let lenders will offer a mortgage payment holiday for private landlords whose tenants have been impacted by the disease. This is on the understanding that these landlords also offer similar rent holidays to their tenants.  

The RLA and NLA had initially called on the Government to make more changes, however, those calls do not appear to have been implemented. These were as follows:

1. A temporary removal of the five week wait before Universal Credit claimants receive their first payment.
2. A pause to the final phase of restricting the mortgage interest relief to the basic rate of income tax.

The Labour Party had also been vocal on the matter by calling on the Government to implement the following:

• Suspend rent and mortgage payments for people affected by the disease.
• A ban on evictions of tenants whose income has been affected by the disease.

It is now clear that the Government have listened to the opposition and have stated that

1. Emergency legislation is to be introduced to prevent existing or new eviction proceedings for at least the next three months.

We understand that several landlords will be impacted by students wanting/needing to terminate their tenancy agreements early due to the suspension of courses and this could have an impact on their financial circumstances. The acceptance of the termination of these agreements are entirely at the discretion of the landlord and no measures have been put in place to prevent such acts from occurring.

If you have been impacted by the above or have any questions, please feel free to contact us.