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Steve Bolton | |
|---|---|
| Born | 18 December 1967 Bournemouth, Dorset, England |
| Known for | Founder of the Bolt group of companies |
Steve Bolton (born 18 December 1967) is a British entrepreneur and the founder of the Bolt group of companies.
Bolton was born in Bournemouth, Dorset, and lived in Durban, South Africa, between the ages of two and five. Bolton’s father Ronnie Bolton originates from Lancashire and is a former soccer player for AFC Bournemouth, Ipswich Town and Durban City. [1]
Bolton joined a new company, Ropes Course Developments (RCD), as a director and shareholder aged 27.[ citation needed ] RCD developed safety standards for the construction and training of ropes courses in the UK. Steve Bolton, Nick Moriarty and Melanie Moriarty set up the first national association for rope course safety, which received backing from government and industry and led to a significant growth in the sector, with RCD becoming the recognised European market leaders by 1997.[ citation needed ] RCD went on to build adventure ropes courses for Center Parcs, First Choice Holidays, Outward Bound, the Royal Air Force and many others across Europe and in South Africa.[ citation needed ]
Bolton founded Vision Development Training in 1997, providing outdoor team, management and organisational development programmes. In 2001 RCD went into liquidation. Bolton was forced to sell his family home in Dorset to avoid bankruptcy in 2002.[ citation needed ] In 2002, Bolton set up a drop shipping business and became the European licensee for Mobile Team Challenge (MTC).[ citation needed ] Bolton later sold the company to his Managing Director.
Bolton began purchasing houses in Bournemouth and turning them into let Houses in Multiple Occupation (HMOs). Bolton bought more than £6 million worth of residential property between 2004 and 2007, providing shared living homes for more than 80 tenants.[ citation needed ]
Bolton founded his first franchised business, Platinum Property Partners, in 2007, with Franchise Partners following Bolton’s business model and building portfolios of HMOs. More than 7,000 tenants now live in Platinum Franchise Partners’ properties, with more than £400m of property purchased by Partners since 2007.[ citation needed ] Bolton exited Platinum and his other property interests between 2017 and 2020.
In 2017, Bolton formed a new business with media and marketing entrepreneur and former journalist Natasha Courtenay-Smith, to launch direct-to-consumer (D2C) performance marketing agency Bolt Digital. The agency works predominantly with brands in the e-commerce sector, helping them to scale D2C strategy and sales.
Bolton and Courtenay-Smith, along with colleagues David Bell and Luke Courtenay-Smith, launched Bolt Brands in 2020 with the aim of acquiring and scaling direct-to-consumer (D2C) brands. The first acquisition was made in January 2020 with a dog supplement brand called Buddy & Lola.
In 2016 Bolton co-founded and continues to lead a grassroots not-for-profit campaign called Axe the Tenant Tax.[ citation needed ]
Bolton united the private rented sector of the United Kingdom by forming a coalition of major organisations who are opposed to new government legislation that restricts landlords’ ability to deduct mortgage finance costs as a business expense. Coalition stakeholders represent more than 100,000 landlords who provide housing to more than 1 million tenants in the UK.[ citation needed ]
Bolton and fellow landlord Chris Cooper were co-claimants in a Judicial Review against the UK government in relation to the legality of Section 24 of the Finance (No. 2) Act 2015. Their legal team was led by Cherie Blair CBE QC and their legal challenge campaign broke two legal crowdfunding records in 2016 by raising over £200,000 within the fastest recorded timeframe. [2] [3]
The ‘Axe the Tenant Tax’ campaign achieved wide-spread national media coverage[ citation needed ], and Bolton met with the housing Minister, the Chancellor of the Exchequer and MPs. Bolton believes the tax is a disaster for the UK housing market and is championing the cause for the small landlords and tenants who will suffer badly if this tax comes into force.[ citation needed ]
The High Court ruled against the movement in 2016 and the decision was made not to appeal. Bolton and Cooper have since focused their campaign efforts on lobbying the UK government and working with MPs and Tenant Tax coalition members to persuade the government to revisit the tax. [4]
For six years Bolton was a mentor for the Key Person of Influence programme, mentoring several thousand entrepreneurs and business owners during that time in a group setting. [5]
Bolton is a patron of not-for-profit organisation Peace One Day, having worked with them for more than a decade and provides pro-bono mentoring and training to aspiring social-impact entrepreneurs through the Bolton group of companies.[ citation needed ] Ratified by the United Nations, Peace One Day has led to more than 13 million people living more peacefully through its quest to achieve a global ceasefire and day of non-violence every September 21. Bolton has also provided funding to the King’s Kid Orphanage in Mitiana, Uganda, with his donations leading to new housing, classrooms, water provision and the acquisition of farming land.[ citation needed ]
Bolton is the author of the Amazon book ‘Profitable Property Secrets’. [6] Bolton has appeared on stage in his talk ‘Standing on the Shoulders of Giants’ with speakers such as Simon Woodroffe, James Caan, and Kriss Akabusi.[ citation needed ]
Bolton and his businesses have appeared on BBC[ citation needed ], Channel Four[ citation needed ], Sky News[ citation needed ], Financial Times[ citation needed ], Sunday Times[ citation needed ], The Telegraph, [7] Guardian, [8] Express[ citation needed ] and the Mail[ citation needed ].
Bolton spends his time between his three homes in Poole in Dorset, White City in London, and Ibiza. He has four children and a dog called Yogi, with his interests away from business including travel, boating, football, and fishing. He has taken three months’ holiday every year since 2004 (aside from Covid when international travel was not possible.)[ citation needed ]
Renting, also known as hiring or letting, is an agreement where a payment is made for the temporary use of a good, service or property owned by another. A gross lease is when the tenant pays a flat rental amount and the landlord pays for all property charges regularly incurred by the ownership. An example of renting is equipment rental. Renting can be an example of the sharing economy.
Imputed rent is the rental price an individual would pay for an asset they own. The concept applies to any capital good, but it is most commonly used in housing markets to measure the rent homeowners would pay for a housing unit equivalent to the one they own. Imputing housing rent is necessary to measure economic activity in national accounts. Because asset owners do not pay rent, owners' imputed rent must be measured indirectly.
A landlord is the owner of a house, apartment, condominium, land, or real estate which is rented or leased to an individual or business, who is called a tenant. When a juristic person is in this position, the term landlord is used. Other terms include lessor and owner. The term landlady may be used for the female owners. The manager of a pub in the United Kingdom, strictly speaking a licensed victualler, is referred to as the landlord/landlady. In political economy it refers to the owner of natural resources alone from which an economic rent is the income received.
Eviction is the removal of a tenant from rental property by the landlord. In some jurisdictions it may also involve the removal of persons from premises that were foreclosed by a mortgagee.
A lease is a contractual arrangement calling for the user to pay the owner for the use of an asset. Property, buildings and vehicles are common assets that are leased. Industrial or business equipment are also leased. Basically a lease agreement is a contract between two parties: the lessor and the lessee. The lessor is the legal owner of the asset, while the lessee obtains the right to use the asset in return for regular rental payments. The lessee also agrees to abide by various conditions regarding their use of the property or equipment. For example, a person leasing a car may agree to the condition that the car will only be used for personal use.
A model village is a type of mostly self-contained community, built from the late 18th century onwards by landowners and business magnates to house their workers. Although the villages are located close to the workplace, they are generally physically separated from them and often consist of relatively high-quality housing, with integrated community amenities and attractive physical environments. "Model" is used in the sense of an ideal to which other developments could aspire.
Subsidized housing is government sponsored economic assistance aimed towards alleviating housing costs and expenses for impoverished people with low to moderate incomes. In the United States, subsidized housing is often called "affordable housing". Forms of subsidies include direct housing subsidies, non-profit housing, public housing, rent supplements/vouchers, and some forms of co-operative and private sector housing. According to some sources, increasing access to housing may contribute to lower poverty rates.
Buy-to-let is a British phrase referring to the purchase of a property specifically to let out, that is to rent it out. A buy-to-let mortgage is a mortgage loan specifically designed for this purpose. Buy-to-let properties are usually residential but the term also encompasses student property investments and hotel room investments.
Housing Benefit is a means-tested social security benefit in the United Kingdom that is intended to help meet housing costs for rented accommodation. It is the second biggest item in the Department for Work and Pensions' budget after the state pension, totalling £23.8 billion in 2013–14.
The private rented sector (PRS) is a classification of United Kingdom housing tenure as described by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, a UK government department that monitors the national housing supply.
A house in multiple occupation (HMO), or a house of multiple occupancy, is a British English term which refers to residential properties where ‘common areas’ exist and are shared by more than one household.
A slumlord is a slang term for a landlord, generally an absentee landlord with more than one property, who attempts to maximize profit by minimizing spending on property maintenance, often in deteriorating neighborhoods, and to tenants that they can intimidate. Severe housing shortages allow slumlords to charge higher rents, and when they can get away with it, to break rental laws.
Home ownership in Australia is considered a key cultural icon, and part of the Australian tradition known as the Great Australian Dream of "owning a detached house on a fenced block of land." Home ownership has been seen as creating a responsible citizenry; according to a former Premier of Victoria: "The home owner feels that he has a stake in the country, and that he has something worth working for, living for, fighting for."
For United States commercial real estate, normally the landlord, rather than the tenant, is responsible for real estate taxes, maintenance, and insurance. In a "net lease," in addition to base rent, the tenant or lessee is responsible for paying, some or all of the recoverable expenses related to real-estate ownership. As the rent collected under a net lease is "net" after expenses are passed through to tenants to be paid, the rent tends to be lower than rent charged under a gross lease.
The Welfare Reform Act 2012 is an Act of Parliament in the United Kingdom which makes changes to the rules concerning a number of benefits offered within the British social security system. It was enacted by the Parliament of the United Kingdom on 8 March 2012.
The under-occupancy penalty results from a provision of the British Welfare Reform Act 2012 whereby tenants living in public housing with rooms deemed "spare" face a reduction in Housing Benefit, resulting in them being obliged to fund this reduction from their incomes or to face rent arrears and potential eviction by their landlord.
Yiannakis Theophani "John" Christodoulou is a Monaco-based British billionaire property developer, the owner of Yianis Group, a privately held company with a portfolio of residential, hotel, retail and leisure properties in the UK and Europe. His Yianis Group employs over 7,000 people in the UK alone. As of May 2021, Christodoulou's estimated net worth is £2.35 billion. Through Yianis Group, Christodoulou is reportedly one of England's biggest freeholder landlords.
Housing in the United Kingdom represents the largest non-financial asset class in the UK; its overall net value passed the £5 trillion mark in 2014. About 30% of homes are owned outright by their occupants, and a further 40% are owner-occupied on a mortgage. About 18% are social housing of some kind, and the remaining 12% are privately rented.
A Rent Repayment Order (RRO) is an order in the United Kingdom that allows a tenant or local authority to reclaim rent or housing benefit where a landlord rents out an unlicensed property such as a House in multiple occupation (HMO).
The Warner Estate is an area of housing in Walthamstow and Highams Park, Waltham Forest in East London. The area was developed by Thomas Courtenay Warner and the Warner Company.