The LHA Expert

My name is John Paul, and I am a full time Property professional, who has built up a sizable portfolio of high cash-flowing properties for myself using the strategies that I describe here on this website, and in my eBook and Training Days.

I have also helped many other Investors to significantly improve their bottom line on the properties I manage for them, using these strategies.

I am Managing Director of The Castledene Group, which is a property based group of companies located in the North East of England.

I started property investing in May 2004 when, probably a bit like everyone else, I saw a good opportunity and went for it. I quickly built up a portfolio of 50 properties of mostly terraced houses, with a few semis thrown in, which is ideal for Local Housing Allowance

Most of my Tenants were private Tenants, as back then it was the private Tenants who paid more rent for properties than I could get from DSS Tenants.

Also, my view, and that of many other Investors, was that DSS Tenants were seen as “not enough rent for too much trouble”.

Then on April 7^th 2008 all that changed. The LHA scheme was rolled out nationally and my properties were ideal for LHA Tenants. Where I had been getting rents of £300 – £350 for 2/3 bedroom properties, I was now able to get a minimum of £390 and up to £500 pcm under the new LHA scheme.

The only catch was that I didn’t know anything about LHA, and neither, it seemed, did the Council!! That’s not meant as a criticism of the Council – it’s a fact which they have acknowledged themselves. Even though all Councils knew it was coming, they did not have any information on it, so they erred on the side of Tenants, and therefore it was Landlords who suffered.

The first Tenant I had who qualified under the new LHA scheme, received £1050 from the Council and promptly spent it, her excuse was that she thought she was due a council tax rebate!

As you can imagine, I wasn’t best pleased and went to the Council to ask why!!

They told me that, under the new scheme, the Tenant now gets paid the rent unless it can be proved that he or she will not pay the Landlord.

At first all I had to do was to get the Tenant to go to the Council and explain that if they received their allowance direct, then they wouldn’t pay me and I would then evict them for non payment of rent. Great, nice and easy!

But after a couple of months the Local Authority put a stop to this, as they said it wasn’t enough evidence. So, I had a meeting with the Head of Benefits and basically sat with him asking as many questions as possible – where do I get my information from, what is classed as vulnerable, how quickly can I get paid direct etc. He even directed me to some great courses and reading material so I could understand the LHA system better.

I then had to put it into action, especially since, in Aug 08, I had set up Castledene Property Management and we were now looking after other peoples’ properties. It had to be right.

I saw this as a huge opportunity, and set about creating systemised policies and procedures that we could use to get all LHA payments made directly to us, and then use that as a selling point to attract other Landlords to use Castledene Property Management to handle their properties.

Within 3 years we were looking after over 1400 properties, and now have 7 branches within the Castledene Group.   We have a 97.9% rate of getting paid direct from the Local Authorities, but our aim is obviously 100% – which we will attain!

What we do works, it is as simple as that!  There are other ways of getting paid direct that I’m sure are great, however for the situation we are in, the people we deal with, and the properties we manage, this is the best and simplest way for us.

The LHA Expert is a trading style of 9inth Element Ltd.

9inth Element Ltd is a Company Registered in England.

Company No. 04691959

Registered Office: Pennyfine Road, Sunniside, Newcastle Upon Tyne. NE16 5EP