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Watched the Savills (London National) online property auctions today via live stream, with 145 lots on offer. Guide prices were generally quite low to entice interest, with sale prices way in excess of initial guide price. Other auction of the day Clive Emson with 115 lots,...

A family of housing benefit cheats built up a buy-to-let empire worth ?1.5m. They used the benefit hand-outs to finance mortgage payments on five homes in Barnet, Ealing and Waltham Forest, and moved tenants in who had no idea that their landlords were fraudsters. The trial of...

The NLA Accreditation Scheme provides local authorities with the means for compliant landlords to self-regulate and keep up-to-date with best practice and legislation, freeing up vital resources to tackle the small number of rogue landlords that blight the sector. The scheme was...

Lloyds to cut 15,000 jobs, on top of the 27,000 roles lost since the credit crunch began, as part of its strategic review to deliver ?1.5 billion of annual savings in 2014. Apart from the job cuts the group will make the savings through improving processes and IT platforms,...

The Law of Property Act receivers claimed this also represents an increase of 4% compared to 71,483 in the previous quarter. The number of court orders to evict tenants increased 9% over the past year as due to rising rents and landlords becoming less lenient. The rise in arrears...

The e.surv Mortgage Monitor shows purchase approvals for homes under ?125,000 – typical first-time buyer property – accounted for only 23% of all purchase approvals in May, compared to 27% in April, and below the average for the last year (24%), meaning FTBs struggle....

Between April 2010 and March 2011 Citizens Advice Bureaux (CAB) across England and Wales dealt with over 700,000 housing issue from people under the age of 25. It says enquiries from under 25s about housing issues have risen 14% compared with 2009/10; enquiries about benefits are...

New research from Santander shows that first time buyers take an average of two and a half years to save a deposit. The average deposit is now 17 per cent of the overall property price. Phil Cliff, director of Santander Mortgages, commented: ?Our research has found that despite...