Buying or Renting a Home in London
David Hampshire & Sue Harris
Buying or Renting a Home in London is essential reading for anyone planning to buy or rent property in London. It contains a profusion of vital information and insider tips to guide you through the London property maze, and save you time, trouble and money. Regardless of whether you’re buying a family, holiday or retirement home, or a property purely as an investment, this guide will help ensure a smooth, problem-free transaction. Whether you want a period townhouse in Kensington, a modern apartment in Docklands or a detached home in Highgate, Buying or Renting a Home in London will help make your dreams come true. Don’t leave home without it!
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Extracts from the book…
Rental Agreements
The 1988 Housing Act caused something of a revolution in the rental market in London by deregulating new lettings in the private sector. From 15th January 1989 new lettings were either an assured tenancy, with long-term security of tenure, or an assured shorthold tenancy (see below) for a fixed period of at least six months.
These changes encouraged greater choice and competition in the rental market and made it much easier for landlords to evict unwanted tenants. Previously the law (the Rent Acts) had kept a stranglehold on rent levels and the general freedom of landlords, and was heavily weighted in favour of tenants. However, from 1989 the private rental market was turned on its head and now favoured landlords, and the privately-rented housing stock improved considerably as a consequence. The law was amended again under the Housing Act (1996) and from 28th February 1997 all new lettings have automatically been assured shorthold tenancies unless otherwise agreed. Exceptions include when the rent is over £25,000 per annum or other arrangements such as company lets, which are generally known as ‘common law’ or ‘contractual’ tenancies. You must be over 18 to hold a tenancy agreement.
If you deal directly with the landlord of a property, rather than an agent, he may try to avoid having a tenancy agreement and suggest an informal arrangement whereby you pay him weekly or monthly (possibly in cash). Don’t be tempted by this kind of arrangement, which provides neither party with security or protection under the law.
There are a number of useful books detailing the legal rights and duties of both landlords and tenants, including the Which? Guide to Renting and Letting (Which?). A Citizens’ Advice Bureau (www.citizensadvice.org.uk) can offer advice regarding the legal aspects of renting and a tenant’s rights.
London Postcodes
The most perplexing of London’s various partitions is its division into postal areas, each with a different ‘postcode’ that seldom bears any relationship to counties, boroughs or districts. Codes in ‘central’ London (an area stretching in some cases to the borders of Greater London) have codes beginning with W (for west), NW (northwest), N (north), E (east), SE (south-east) and SW (south-west) – bizarrely, there are no S or NE codes. Those in ‘outer’ London have codes relating to the nearest town where there’s a main sorting office, which is in some cases a ‘borough’ town (e.g. BR for Bromley, CR for Croydon, EN for Enfield, HA for Harrow, KT for Kingston and SM for Sutton – although there’s no M in Sutton!) and in other cases isn’t (e.g. DA for Dagenham in Bexley, IG for Ilford in Redbridge, RM for Romford in Havering, TW for Twickenham in Richmond and UB for Uxbridge in Hillingdon). Needless to say, postcode boundaries don’t always match borough boundaries, so that there are, for example, HA, TW and WD (Watford) codes as well as UB codes in Hillingdon, and DA, CR, SE and TN (Tunbridge) as well as BR codes in Bromley.
As if all this weren’t confusing enough, the numbers following the initial letter or letters of postcodes can also be misleading. These normally start at 1 (perversely, Croydon’s and Harrow’s start at 0 and omit 1!) but their distribution is to all intents and purposes arbitrary. Originally, the system was based on the initial letter of each
sub-district in the alphabet; a district beginning with the letter ‘A’ was given the number 1 and so on. Many people erroneously believe that the numbers indicate the distance from the centre of London, whereby logically the lowest numbers would be nearest the centre and the highest furthest out. This isn’t the case.
To make matters worse, between 1968 and 1971, some ‘central’ London codes gained an extra letter, e.g. part of W1 become W1H and these letters have recently changed – no doubt making life easier for the Post Office but, like the repeated telephone number changes, costing London residents and businesses millions of
pounds without improving their lives one iota.
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PRICE: £11.95
PUBLICATION: April 2006
EDITION: 1st
PAGES: 504
BINDING: paperback
SIZE: A5 (210mm x 148mm)
COLOUR PHOTOS: 20
