As a letting agent we provide various Landlord Services within our property management package. For us, they are pretty standard parts of our business but for independent landlords they can be a bit tricky. In this post we give a short overview of some of our Landlord Services and offer some tips that independent landlords might find useful.
As a private landlord, you might not have referenced the tenants that you currently have in your property. But it’s important that you reference all tenants well, to be sure that they are the correct tenant for your property.
In this video, Bradley talks about referencing and all the services that a reference should check. The full reference report should include credit history, identify all addresses and all undeclared addresses and a financial summary, which reports CCJs or any outstanding debts that haven’t been settled. We also check tenants income. Tenants fill in details on an online form and then we’ll do an employment reference to go through their whole income to make sure their salary is confirmed and verified. We also pull in landlord references which is ideal, especially when you want to know about the tenant and how they’ve managed in an previous tenancy. for example, whether they’re looked after a previous property or whether they’ve paid rent arrears.
We all try our best to recruit great tenants, but occasionally a tenant will let us down and our landlord service includes removing poor tenants. In this video Bradley talks you through the two options that are currently available to landlords.
Section 21 notice of seeking possession.
Using a Section 21 notice means you, as a landlord, don’t have to give a reason for asking for the tenant to leave.
Before sending a notice, try to resolve any disputes with your tenant. For example, work with your tenant to manage rent arrears or create a rent repayment plan if they have rent arrears. You can only ask for a section 21 notice to evict your tenants if the fixed term tenancy has ended or during a tenancy with no fixed end date, known as a periodic tenancy. In England, a Section 21 notice must give your tenant at least two months notice to leave your property.
This is the first steps you as a landlord can make for a tenant to leave their home. If your Section 21 notice is valid and the tenant hasn’t left the property, you will need to proceed this through courts.
You can use a section 8 notice if your tenant has broken any terms in a tenancy. Essentially, landlords can issue a Section 8 notice at any time during a tenancy period but only if your tenant has broken the terms of the tenancy agreement. In the case of rent arrears, the notice can only be used when the tenant is in rent arrears of at least two months, or more or eight weeks if it’s a weekly tenancy. In England, a Section 8 notice must give your tenants at least two months notice to leave your property. You can apply to the courts for a possession order if your tenants do not leave by the specific day.
When putting properties onto social media it is important that you show it at its best by adding things like interior feature walls, cushions and great lighting.
In this video I’m going to go through some steps to market your property to get someone interested as quickly as possible.
Create better lighting in the room.
As you can see here, blinds are down and we are not bringing much natural light into the property, but if you open all the blinds and turn on all the lights, including in any adjoining rooms, like the ensuite bathroom you will see, immediately that will create more natural light and definition for the photos.
Decor.
Decor is really important to bring into your properties. It just makes it that little bit more interesting for viewers and maybe you might get more viewings from adding interesting features such as coloured walls, cool designs and themes. In our shared house on Legsby Avenue we have included catch of the day fish and chips pictures on the walls to bring in more of the lifestyle of the room and the area around it.
Make sure you utilise every angle when taking photos of each room. I like to do a pan to both sides and also get lower to get different angles into the property. It makes it more interesting and also makes viewers feel like they have viewed every aspect of that room.
Now here’s a good tip for you. Obviously we want to make viewings more accessible for people when they are interested in renting a property. Well some people can’t have the time to get off work or they are travelling down from the other end of the country and would like to view the property more easily. Well why don’t you invest in a 360 camera with stand which allows you to create virtual tours of your property so that the potential tenant or anyone who is looking at the property can view it like Google Street View. They can view the property and click around and look where they would like to look. It is also quite handy if they have already viewed the property and want to look back on things maybe things that they’ve felt that they have missed.
So if you are still struggling to move a property off the market why don’t you look back on some of your photos, change some of your marketing and use these simple steps and tips to help you to get that property off the market.
The landlord services covered in this video are some of the legal requirements for single-lets and HMOs. We go through some of the different compliances that are needed and also what is needed for each different type of property.
You will also need a gas safety certificate, which involves a gas safety registered engineer inspecting your gas appliances. They will check that appliances are working correctly and will inspect the following four areas.
That gas appliances;
The certification needs to be carried out yearly before any expiration date and we usually do this as part of a yearly periodic property inspection.
The next thing you would need is an EPC.
An EPC stands for an energy performance certificate. This was introduced in 2007 and is a legal requirement for any building being sold, let or constructed. Once obtained, an EPC is valid for 10 years. The average property in the UK falls within band D to E on both energy efficiency ratings but the most efficient homes which should have the most efficient fuel bills are in band A. The certificate will give you a rating on a scale from A to G.
So in a single-let compliance check, all you need is an EICR, a gas safety certificate and an EPC, but in a HMO, it’s a lot more than that. You will also need these documents and a few others which I’m going to go through with you now.
The extra documentation that you need for an HMO is a PAT testing certificate. This is used to provide as a record of testing any electrical equipment in the property that is no longer brand new. It forms of a legal document that verifies all reasonable steps have been taken to check for that appliances are electrically safe. This includes kettles, coffee machines, microwave and TVs. PAT tests are carried out yearly for tenant’s safety when using this equipment.
It’s important that landlords following these legal requirements when renting out their properties.
Landlords may also find out Compliance Checklist useful.
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