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Landlords have been celebrating a strong performance from tenant arrears last year, according to latest research by LSL.  

Despite fears over the impact of the recession, and six consecutive months of rent rises, 84% of landlords saw arrears remain stable or fall in the past 12 months. 

According to a recent survey from Upad.co.uk a third of social tenants could be made homeless by the upcoming changes in housing benefit legislation.

Private landlords intended responses to the changes announced by the Chancellor in June, include: capping the level of Local Housing Allowance (LHA) payable to between £250 per week for a one-bedroom property, and the highest level of £400 per week for a four-bedroom property.

The growing intolerance of landlords towards smokers is causing a growing housing crisis for smokers.

In research from Easyroommate.co.uk more than 580,000 UK smokers depend on flatsharing for their accommodation but 67% of them are living in non-smoking accommodation.

Confidence among landlords has dipped for the first time in almost two years, driven by uncertainties including housing benefits and tax changes announced in the emergency budget, according to the latest NLA Landlords’ Optimism Index.

The Index dropped from 51 to 47 points between Q1 and Q2 2010.

New rental laws mean many tenants will, from next month, automatically have formal Assured Shorthold Tenancies – this is a move that will push extra responsibilities on to landlords and agents with hefty fines if they do not comply.

Until now many tenants paying more than £25,000 a year (that is the equivalent of about £2,085 a month) fell outside the AST classification, but from October 1 the threshold increases to £100,000.

The lettings market remains buoyant, as increased tenant demand and a shortage of properties pushes rents higher.

26 per cent more chartered surveyors reported a rise in demand for property rather than a fall, which was the second consecutive quarter that lettings demand has risen at a pace above the long run average.

The average UK rent is now £676, 2.3% higher than a year ago. This rise follows the increase of 1.4% in June. Rents are now just £12 per month shy of their peak two years ago.

Landlords pushed up rents for the sixth consecutive month, raising them by 0.5% in July, according to the latest LSL Buy-to-Let Index.

Two rogue landlords who illegally evicted tenants from their homes have been taken to court by the Wandsworth Council's housing department.

Zahid Malik and Ram Mahendran were both convicted in separate court cases of unlawfully evicting tenants who had properly paid their rents and abided by all the terms of their tenancies.

The private rented sector (PRS) has grown by 1.1 million households in the past decade and is now worth £500 billion dwarfing the value of the entire UK commercial property sector.

Over 66 per cent of all households created in 2008/09 were in the PRS, and it now accounts for 14.2 per cent of all households in England.

47 per cent of possessions by landlords are due to tenants not paying their rent.

It follows recent data released by the National Landlords Association showing a fifth of private-residential landlords had tenants in rent arrears during Q2 2010.

Whilst one-third of landlords had never sought to end a tenancy, the survey found 23.3 percent of had because of anti-social behaviour by tenants.