Landlords are being forced to rein back on rent increases, facing a wave of ‘tenants behaving badly’ and risking fines if they do not check their tenants are in the country legally. Lettings specialist LSL Property Services says rent increases are being pegged back dramatically. Until recently its survey showed typical rents in London going up by as much as 8 per cent a year. Now the average rise is just 1 per cent. Ralph Tennent (pictured) is a long-term buy-to-let owner.

Shoppers are running the risk of expensive returns, high handling fees and unknown customs charges by ordering goods from the Far East. Although ordering from overseas offers the chance for customers to buy cheaper goods, some are finding that items can take weeks to arrive. EBay, the online auction site, says that the rise in British shoppers buying items from China and Hong Kong has been ‘massive’ in the last year, while the advent of Chinese online marketplace AliExpress has also contributed to Britain’s love affair with Chinese shopping. Rosalind Hardy (pictured) has had problems.

Professor Robert Shiller's measure for US stocks has got this high only three times in the past 130-odd years - in 1929, 2000 and 2007, each followed by a crash. This is Money talks to the Nobel Prize winning American economist about about how far stocks might plunge from here, what ordinary investors should do in these kind of markets, and the modern obsession with house prices.

Charles Dickens is arguably the nation’s greatest novelist - as well as the most collectable. A signed copy of A Tale Of Two Cities was last month put up for sale for a record-breaking £275,000. The book is special as it is inscribed to fellow writer George Eliot - real name Mary Ann Evans. But Brian Lake (pictured), president of the Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association, says the key appeal of Dickens is that there is a wide range of books and ephemera to suit all pockets.

Hundreds of thousands of students, like Oliver Keene (pictured), who will soon start his third year of a degree in marketing and management at Newcastle University, are returning to college and face an academic year of financial challenges. We run through the essentials for surviving them.

Many buyers will be forced into shared ownership deals, where the rest of their property is owned by housing associations or local developers, says report by Council of Mortgage Lenders. Shared ownership schemes were designed to help people with lower incomes to get on the property ladder and these deals are common in parts of the country.

There’s a new breed of retirement home out there and it could easily be mistaken for a boutique hotel. These properties range from swish private flats to comfortable country retreats. Battersea Place (lifecare residences.com), near Albert Bridge, in London, opens in October 2015 and bills itself as the capital’s first luxury retirement village. It has 109 apartments ranging from one or two bedroom, to £2.6million penthouses overlooking Battersea Park.

As many big names are shutting branches, it is opening them. The head office isn’t in the City of London, but in a retail park in Chester. That’s where its call centre is based too, not in the Philippines or South Africa. The rooms at its HQ aren’t grey and dingy, but pink and purple. People wear summer dresses, floral ties, loud pink shirts. There isn’t a pin-stripe to be seen. And to top it all, everywhere you look there are women.

My friend and I want to start selling a recipe (which is top secret) at a local food market but have no idea where to start. The recipe has come from his mother and as far as we are aware, nothing like it is currently being sold elsewhere in Britain. She is keen for us to get it out there - we really believe it will be a hit and have tested it on friends who agree.

Last September, I received £500.13 of overpaid tax back from HMRC. Then, in January, they said I owed £1,071, but the very next paragraph of the letter stated I must pay £1,606.50 by January 31. I was due to have major surgery on January 24, so I put it aside. On February 20, I received a final reminder and phoned HMRC the next day. Then I was told I owed £2,106.65 - which I paid. Last month, I received another demand of £535.50, which I paid immediately.

Tens of thousands of property owners are signing up to websites that let them make extra cash by renting out a room or their whole home to tourists for a day. This is done through new websites, such as Airbnb and HouseTrip, which act as middlemen between home-owners and travellers. But experts fear owners have no idea that renting out their homes like this can put them in peril of having their mortgage revoked and their home insurance cancelled, as well as being hit with a huge tax bill and even an investigation.

Sales spike at Christmas, Pancake Day and Easter – and now there's another stalwart in the culinary calendar: The Great British Bake Off season. The graph produced by shopping insight consultancy IRI for This is Money reveals that baking sales surged during every season of the hit show – and the increase in sales is rising every year as the Bake Off grows in popularity.

The number of borrowers taking out longer-term mortgages has soared in recent years according to data from the Council of Mortgage Lenders. While borrowers can shave £100 a month off a £200,000 mortgage by stretching from 25 to 30 years, they would pay back more than £27,000 extra. Stretching to the 40 year terms offered by major mortgage lenders would see borrowers end up paying back almost £85,000 extra.

Debt charity StepChange helped nearly 13,000 more people with loan problems in the first six months of this year compared with the same period in 2013. The charity called for stricter lending rules to help protect vulnerable customers from sliding into unaffordable levels of debt.

If you fancy yourself as the next Warren Buffett or Neil Woodford, or are just starting to build your share portfolio, don't miss a free chance to learn about picking winning shares at the Stock Market Show, which is being backed by This is Money. The free show gives investors the chance to get tips on valuing and picking shares, investing strategy and grill the bosses of small companies catching the market’s eye.

If you target the cheapest stock markets - rather than expensive ones - then you hugely increase your chances of success, says Mebane Faber. The leading investor argues that the worst places to invest in are not the cheap markets belonging to troubled economies, but the investors' darlings that have been chased to heady valuations. We caught up with him and can reveal where is 'cheap' by CAPE ratio.

Solar power company Belectric has launched a mini- bond called the Big60million, giving every member of the UK population the chance to invest in its site in Willersley, Gloucestershire. It has a minimum investment of just £60 and is offering annual returns of 7 per cent before tax, but is now the time to reach for the sun?

Online electrical retailer ao.com told This is Money it had its best ever day for vacuum cleaner sales last Friday as customers picked up a model with a power rating above 1,600 watts before they are outlawed by the EU. Sales were up 44 per cent last week on the same period last year. Tesco also saw sales rocket by 44 per cent over the past two weeks as panicked customers rushed to get their hands on popular 2,000W models.

Tax discs are bought and traded by collectors called velologists - and their numbers have been on the rise in recent years. Hundreds of pounds exchange hands for the right vintage and condition disc. Yet tax discs will be abolished from October in favour of electronic tracking and so as the final few discs are issued, the final set and more old ones may become something of a collectors’ item.

To clear the average national household debt of £13,000 at 6% interest with a monthly repayment of £100 will take around 17 years. There are, however, plenty of simple ways to make significant savings on your regular spending that could clear your debt - or boost your savings - in less than a year. This is Money's top 50 – updated – money-saving tips may appear light-hearted but are deadly serious.

Choosing the right DIY platform is crucial but a wealth of choice and changes to charges have left many investors scratching their heads. We pick some of the best. We also highlight why investing in an Isa makes sense, as it should protect your hopefully growing investments from tax forever.

Inflation has dipped again following last week's Inflation Report, which put low wage growth on the table as a reason for keeping rates down for now. Governor Mark Carney admitted there was tremendous uncertainty on slack and the Bank has now placed wage growth on the table as another key decider on when rates should rise. He reiterated: 'Increases in Bank Rate, when they come, are likely to be gradual and limited.'

Midwives in the UK get paid on average £29,248: so where does your salary fit into the national league table, and how does it compare to the average in your profession? Our table lists hundreds of Britain's jobs from company executives and doctors to van drivers, waiters and textile machine operators.