WTF Is Up With All These Dogshit Tenancy Enquiries I’m Receiving?

Yes, but soon you won't be able to charge any admin fees etc

Re Gordon Marks...Council Tax.

You may have misunderstood.

The tenant, has informed the local council. That his Main Residence was not that on which he should have paid rent. INstead, he informed the Council that his main residence was eleswhere.......even though I have photos ( dated) of his personal items in the property on the day he actual moved out. The Council state that there was now, no AST in place, just a rolling contract. Under Section 6 of the local tax . The owner is fully liable for the Council Tax. UNLESS I can PROVE otherwise....photos, payment of bills, apparently is Not Prove.....

Council and what is excepable prove.....
No idea what is exceptable .........I have written to the tenant at his latest address saying PAy me what you rightly owe within 14 days or I will issue a small claims court action.
I gave alsocontacted SHELTER... as this could cause other landlords to kick out any tenant refusing to sign a new AST agreement..causing an increase on tenants looking to Shelter and councils for new accommodation.
I have also hooked to see my MP ( who happens to be the Cheif Whip in the Cabinet) for his concidered opinion.......I will keep this page informed

I love reading your comments, it helps a lot, thank you. Hope you find some great tenants soon!!

@Landlord with DSS & @Catherine

A word of notice, that is bullshit.

First off, regardless of what your tenancy agreement says, if they said that then they are unfair contract terms.

Guidance OFT365 says you may only charge you actual costs to get a new tenant, including interest charges at only 4% above base rate.

http://bit.ly/356terms

Of COURSE they are NOT liable for Energy or Council Tax if they have left the property.

Honestly giving such bad advice to newbies is really foolish.

**BULLSHIT ALERT **BULLSHIT ALERT **BULLSHIT ALERT **BULLSHIT

"If they only gave you 10 days notice then you can probably withhold part/all of the deposit (so long as you are using a deposit protection service)

The tenants need to give you one months notice, so in your case they are still liable for the rent , council tax, energy bills etc until their notice period is up."

**BULLSHIT ALERT **BULLSHIT ALERT **BULLSHIT ALERT **BULLSHIT

Just have email from the press office at SHELTER.....passing my "issue" onto Shelter's
Policy makers department.....I will keep you updated...
Seasons Greetings to all.

@david

Go ahead and try it yourself.

You sign a contract to rent Someone's house. If you walk out within the 12 months period. You are liable for All costs ( rent, heating, council tax etc) until the landlord has re-rented the property AT THE SAME RENT as you agreed.

I too, also sued a tenant who walked out after only 1 month in the house.

I got the full £1500 deposit + 2 1/2 months rent as compensation and damage to carpets from their dog until I re rented the house.

Tenant had a lawyer, I didn't. They settled before court.

Outside the 12 month contract it's a rolling month notice.

To quote "the Apprentice" harsh but fair 😀

@Landlord

Oh I love stories like this !!
I took back a property and it was jaded and needed a good clean.
Being stupid..again !! I was immediately approached by a couple with 4 kids living with parents in a 2 bed flat. They had been told by a neighbour that it might be available.

Desperate !! Can't stand living in cramped conditions etc.Boo hoo Boo hoo..sob sob sob.

As I intended to sell in the nearish future I offered it to them ''as is'' at a reduced rent of 50 quid a month less than the LHA allowance (in the days when they could keep the difference).

Like yourself I put all the cards on the table and said that this was a short let and could be a route to getting another property.
i.e. I evict and then they would get more priority on the housing ladder.

After much humming and grunting the male eventually said it wasn't for them so I just said OK and ended the viewing.

As they left the female started a fight beating the guy up and calling him all the names under the sun and hitting him because he had turned down the offer. All we heard was that the property could be cleaned very quickly. Plus lots of words where I covered childrens ears.

One week later and a dose of elbow grease and the waving of a paint roller it was let at 200 a month MORE than the LHA allowance.

ONE YEAR later they still hadn't managed to secure another property !! Lucky escape for me and more rental.

Just a quick one. If anyone has a tenant on a AST(assured shorthold tenancy) and it expires with no further signed tenancy. You do still have a active tenancy agreement. You have a statutory periodic tenancy. Which means all terms and conditions remain the same. Only difference is that you do not have a date for the expiry. So tenants can give a months notice from any date and Landlords can give two months notice from any date.

Also be aware that technically a AST has an end date and the tenants can give back the keys(without notice) on that date. The law is a minefield

@Landlord @Landlord with DSS!

Just because you had ignorant tenants and got away with it does not mean you can give that as advice.

Would you evict a tenant and throw their stuff on the street?

No because you know you would get slapped, it is the same, thing.

You want to try it then good luck to you but all you need is one informed tenant and you will see.

You are grown ups and you all have war stories which is fine, just do not give it as advice.

@Nets

No not quite, as many a Landlord here will testify, the AST terminates where it ends. A Statutory Periodic Tenancy is a tenancy created by statute when you stay in a property at the end. The terms of the new tenancy are the same as the old if the new tenancy is substantially the same.

The real minefield is the deposit protection, depending on year of AST and SPT you could find yourself in hot water if you did not protect the deposit and issue prescribed information for the newly created tenancy.

For some tenancy agreements you do not have to re-protect the deposit but you must issue the latest "how to rent doc" and it is a good idea to give PI with new tenancy dates just in case (depends on age of tenancy).

Strictly speaking a tenancy agreement may specify a notice period but it is near impossible to enforce and as I said above you can only claim your actual costs.

When the tenancy becomes SPT the one month two month notice for tenants and landlords respectively applies.

Yep the law is a minefield!

Yes David,

You are also handing out advice that tenants can sign AST contracts and simply walk away with no consequences. So far it's clear you are wrong.

The contracts are there to, hopefully, protect all parties. Landlords have to give notice, tenants have to give notice. Consequences if you don't.

Yes, after 30 yrs of renting out flats and houses I have some war stories. Lots of good tenants but also some real arseholes who have zero respect for the homes that they rent.

@Landlord with DSS!

I will continue to give legal advice to Landlords and Tenants alike.

See you in Court!

@Landlord with DSS!

You are right that there are some arseholes both Tenants and Landlords, it takes all sorts.

When it comes to tenants, the way I see it there are some people who simply do not care about anything.

It is not just a lack of respect, (both of self and others), but a disdain for everything.

I still maintain the real issue is so many landlords have flooded the market with buy to let's, there is a massive oversupply, therefore, poor quality tenants who can be fussy on Decor etc. Some dss rental properties have to be in Tip top condition before they will let. Why bother ? There's easier ways to make money, ive slowly started getting out of domestic buy to let as also legislation will carry on hitting private landlords as beaurrocracy gets worse. With what's left of my domestic portfolio, whenever they come up for let, I'm always faced with poor quality candidates '

Jenny- I agree with your comments, the writing is in the wall for landlords. There is a perception in the media that "easy money" has been made by landlords sitting back and reaping the rewards of property inflation. The government sees the capital growth as an easy target - and don't be surprised to see a special tax on landlords selling buy-to-lets, over and above capital gains. Get out of that trap! The chancellor hinted that incorporated holdinds of buy to let's will also have a special form of tax ( but don't worry big business, there will be an exemption for the city and pension funds).
I digress. In Liverpool the bottom end of the market has been kept healthy with an influx EU migrants who strive for a better life.
Choosing tenants has to be about intuition too. Like food, if it smells bad and you eat it you only have yourself to blame. If something seems wrong it is wrong.
I took on a Hungarian couple with a child. The son was respectful and well mannered; could bad parents really have such a good kid? I took them on without any background checks ( except id). Best tenants ever. Intuition paid off.
I won't be taking any more DSS from now on.

@Jenny
The real problem is lack of responsibility probably fueled by a must have culture. We have a generation (s) where it is a right to have anything you wish i.e. house, car, phone, holiday, without having put the effort into creating.
If you can't afford it now then a small rectangular piece of plastic will pay for it.
I have no doubt that countless landlords will be short on their rent this Xmas as they spend thousands on plastic junk for their kids. I know that I suffered this and when I told a tenant that it wasn;t 500 rent they owed me it was a 100,000 pound house that they owed me . Yes they had two cars and a caravan !!!!
If the government policy was '' if you damaged the last house and got evicted then you do no get another'', then we might allocate social housing to those who need it , NOT DEMAND IT.

I shed no tears for those tenants who misused my properties and now find themselves unable to get another property.

Funnily enough there is no database set up to warn landlords of problem tenants. (I believe the USA has one). There are ways however that a tenant can find out whether a landlord is good, fair etc. Its all one sided.

All a landlord really wants to do is run a business where everyone respects the property and terms and conditions of the tenancy. Instead landlords are faced with having to obtain a law degree to understand the rules, regulations and crap thrown at us.

Only a housing crisis brings this home to the tenants who abuse the system and they suddenly find that the nice house that they trashed was preferable to emergency accommodation.

I am just glad that I am out of it now and my friends who are landlords feel exactly the same way and are selling up.

@Tim
There is a special tax aimed at landlords.
For small landlords the CGT rules are different to those who run a business. Whatever happened to indexation and a reduced rate depending upon how long you held a property.
For tax reasons the average small landlord is subject to taxation in the same way a building society passbook interest would be taxed. No business relief on CGT.

Its another case of allowing businesses to grow then suddenly imposing conditions on thee cash cow.

@Landlord

Oh Im really looking forward to 2017 but I shall be lost !!
Which new car shall I buy ? Which holiday shall I choose ?

My garage will be empty of kitchen units, handles, screws , plumbing and electrical bits.

My ''office'' will be bundled up and stuck in the roof (for 7 bloody years) .

No longer will I be buying dustbin bags and popping to the tip daily to dispose of rubbish left by tenants who do not seem to know when dustbin day is.

One of the upsides of being a landlord was my investment in a wood burner. I have heated my house virtually for free with scrap fences, wood that somehow accumulates in gardens and left furniture. I will have to search around council estates for dumped furniture now !!

Maybe its time for me to have the 55 inch or bigger blue ray system tv plus all the 2000 tv channels drinking another 6 pack of lager and flicking ash on the carpet.

And finally (as the old saying goes..''a painter and decorators house is always the worst decorated'' ) I will be able to concentrate on bringing my own property up to the standard that I let all my properties in. At least I will know that whatever I do will stay DONE and not have to be repaired in 6 months.

David @63

Why would Council Tax and standing charges for utilities during the lesser of the minimum notice period and the time it takes to re-let the property not be recoverable? That, of course, assumes that the landlord makes a reasonable effort to mitigate his or her loss by seeking new tenants promptly. At this time of year, I think any landlord would struggle to get new tenants in within a month, particularly if any remedial works are required.

A term within the tenancy agreement that says something like "in the event of their leaving early, the tenants shall be liable for all rent and related costs for the remainder of the contracted period" would be voided as unfair but in this case we're talking about a month's notice, so it's perfectly legitimate to deduct the costs relating to that month from the deposit.

@nige #77

I think there is a website who collects bad tenants details, can't remember exactly will look it up.

However one thing I've done is when a shitty tenant leaves I go onto rightmove, when you search for places to rent it gives the option of "requesting info" from all estate agents in a radius.

I simppply fill in the names of the tenants and what they did to deserve the shitty review then click send and hundreds of estate agents will be notified.
Not sure if the effect but the satisfaction is worth it 😎

@nige #77

Have also though about selling up but in the end we get a decent return, +11% on money invested though portfolio worth much more if sold at 6%.

As its all paid off, the options on selling are poor. What do you do with the money, stock market! Liquid but very risky but zero chance of similar returns, especially as the tax on selling is draconian meaning even less to reinvest.

So I'll have to put up with the inevitable hassle being a landlord can entail?

@Grumpy

Its a good point regarding selling up and where you stack the cash.
That depends upon your age. Most landlords do not have an exit plan and suddenly find (as in 2007/8) that their asset base has dropped considerably. It took 7-8 years to recover from that.
I sold one per year and in latter years income from other sources took up the slack so income remained fairly stable.
In the meantime our beloved law makers bestowed greater and greater demands on the private rental sector so much that the paperwork involved in 2 tenancies was as much as when I had 13. The DPS took 5 weeks to pay a lost deposit which was ordered by a judge. Why? Because the tenant on a PAYG mobile had not informed them of the multiple changes in numbers.
Do you know for example who supplies power to the tenant as this changes like the wind and in my last eviction the tenant had used a false name and when I tried to get a connection for repairs found myself paying off an unknown persons debt.(PAYG meters and false names but sorted now)

It all depends upon how old you are . After all houses are expensive items and if you pop your clogs most landlords don't realise that the taxman gets both CGT and inheritance tax on your property portfolio. That can punch a huge hole in your asset base especially as one of the CGT perks is the yearly allowance. So timing is the key to enjoying your ill gotten gains.
In hindsight I would have bought a houses rented for a year and sold it thus getting both rent for a year plus the CGT allowance meaning an income of over 20k tax free. (assuming market trends of course)

Nige,

Yes exit plans are similar. Also having the property in a company helps.

As you point out, the Gov is essential committed to getting rid of "small time landlords" , but who is going to pick up the "spare housing stock"

Big investment funds typically buy/build big apartment blocks. They don't want geographically diverse shitty student flats and the like. Far too much hassle.

Around Manchester the council do not issue HMO licenses anymore. We looked around to buy some a few years ago but they were squalid, 10 lads living in a place the "young ones" wouldn't have lived in.

They were barely making 6% gross, valuations still similar now. You then have 10 AST in a single house FFs can you imagine the Agro!

These houses are too big as single homes, so what do you do with them?

To convert into decent separate flats is barely economical (I've got the invoices to prove!)

My guess is they will remain shitty houses until the day the land value warrants ripping down whole street and rebuilding.

@Landlord et al

This thread has had a lot of comments in just a few days.

My heart is bleeding with all the sob stories, I have had to buy extra kitchen roll.

Seriously, what it shows is that Landlords are like most people, it is all about self interest.

Boo Hoo CGT

Boo Hoo I had a bad tenant

Boo Hoo my investment portfolio is not performing as hoped.

I love these war stories, especially how they are brought up over and over again, even more so when they blame the terrible DSS tenant or the guy with the PAYG.

"Oh we should have the power, we are the Lords after all, I mean I am happy to tolerate this low life scum as long as they pay the rent but between you me and the 35,000 other landlords I think there is a lot to be said for eugenics."

For fucks sake guys take some responsibility, you took on the dogshit tenants so suck it up and stop bitching like little fucking sissy boi.

At the end of the day you guys just put up the rent when the Govt. screws you, after all the massive rent increased due to market forces of supply and demand (we can get away with it so let's do it) are clearly no enough!

What I do not understand is why you do not just get the fuck out of dodge rather than bleating like a stuck lamb. Put your money in buy to let cars, invest in a different part of the world that is less regulated, invest with John Bogle.

Yes I am ready for your flaq, I know it is coming, more of the same, blah blah blah https://youtu.be/3taEuL4EHAg?t=31

Happy Christmas and a Merry New Year!

@David
Merry Xmas David because it will be for me but not those who are still on the street because they were evicted.

They are not sob stories . Like many a business we are lured into the fray like lambs with the prospects of actually making something from life and then somebody goes down the pub on a Friday with a fag packet and a pencil and changes rules .
Look at Volkswagon. Suddenly rules were introduced which are almost impossible to comply with .(and every other manufacturer by the way) . Suddenly there is chaos an instead of a simple life of building cars they are embroiled in class actions, recalls..blah blah.

Its the same with letting. It used to be a simple (ish) process where you rented a house and could maintain a relationship with tenants. What do we have now ?
A plethora of forms, legal processes, deposit accounts, all designed to take up a huge amount of time. (and forests chopped down)

Then rules suddenly favoured the rogue tenant. The good ones don't wreck houses. They get out when asked and have the sense to find somewhere else. The rogue ones have an army of advisors and charities working against the wicked landlord.

I had a good tenant and with due process evicted them.(I had to sell for financial reasons) The judge gave them 14 days to leave. A house that was in perfect condition on the case date was subsequently trashed over the next 14 days. I couldn't stop this as any visits would come under harassment laws.
Report this to the police? They laugh.

Our society has developed with the attitude that anything that is free has no real value. Basic education is 'free' and some take advantage of it and some don't. I probably didn't to be honest but that was at my cost later in life.

I identified a sentence used by tenants that typifies attitudes today. ''THE COUNCIL GAVE ME A HOUSE''
No council gives anyone a house. They rent houses. Somehow this single sentence says it all. An infrastructure of paying for construction to handing them out a gift of cash had to be in place. But just like free education if the service is free it has no value unless you appreciate it.
Unfortunately private landlords were encouraged to get caught up in this.

There are few things in life which are actually free. Its paid for somewhere. Housing however has been made a special case.
Don't pay your mobile bill and you lose the service. Don't pay you car installments and its towed. Then you get CCJs and life becomes difficult.
Smash up a landlords house and you get rehoused !! Yes I had this happen not to far back.

So yes David . Landlords have a right to whinge about feckless tenants. As for the taxation you have to swallow that but again in most cases business rules don't apply to the small landlord and recent proposals are bound to make it more difficult.

The result will be big business moves in via housing associations etc and the small landlord will diminish. And we all know what happened as conglomerates start running cartels to fix prices at high levels.

As I have said before in another post people should have a share in the property they live in because if they have something to lose they take more pride.

Maybe credit checks, CCJs, refusal to give a council property if there is unpaid rent owing etc will pull society back to an even keel.

In the meantime the ONLY control that there seems to be is to escalate rentals and deposits to the point where the troublemakers are excluded. This of course brings in another layer of bureaucracy in society keeping the unemployment figures down.

I for one will be looking forward to 2017 safe in the knowledge that my state pension will be substantially lower than my old tenants received in housing benefit. Something wrong somewhere.

@Landlord

Git maybe !!!! Boooohooooing.....no more . Cocktails, sunsets, new car and last of all do my house and garden up.
Neighbours are fed up of the crap emptied from houses and gardens. Should add a few grand to my house !!!

Send David's address. I can afford to send a kichen roll or 3 for a pound these days !!

Dear Comrade David,

Well said, we entitled snowflakes, sorry brothers, need to stick together. The scumbag capitalist Landlords need to made to suffer as all capitalists are bad and need to be made to give up their wealth to house our growing army of entitled freeloading feckless wasteoids, sorry comrades, of which you are fine example of.

Why should we allow people who buy houses to profit from their work, after all its not real work is it.

Its easy to get a job and save money to buy a house and paying off mortgage and insurance is a piece of piss. If a freeloading wastoide, sorry unfortunate disaffected comrade, happens to accidentally pour concrete down the toilet before they leave, then I say the Landlord must have deserved it.

Or if a tenant wants to cook their dinner by putting coal in the electric oven because they are too thick to realise in the UK we don’t have to do that anymore, then that is the landlords fault for the building nearly burning down.

Of course there is no truth to the propaganda that increasing government red tape pushes up rent. Landlords should suck it up and work for free anyway.

I heard rumours that Landlords are now refusing tenancy to anyone who does not have an accent that sounds like Downton Abbey. Racist I say. After all, now landlords are required to check for proof of legal residency in the UK or face fines or prison, this is easy, there are only about 100 different visas and residency permits allowed and forgeries are easy to spot.

In any case all people are entitled to their own home and just because they cannot afford it then the landlords should provide it as a charity.

With such eloquent rants as your, hopefully the majority of the deluded people who rent houses and behave like decent people will wake up and follow your example and ignore AST contracts, who cares, thats a straw man argument, and we should not have to be bound by those laws. If they want to leave, they should be free to walk out after trashing the place. After all Landlords are really simply devils in disguise.

Please pass on my regards to your care worker and I hope your mum manages to go out and buy your copy of socialist worker for you.

Vegetable rights and peace.

I am loving your blog. I have just listed a property on OpenRent after your recommendation on this site and I must say that everything you have said in this article seems to be coming true. 7 viewing requests in 24 hours and I have had to reject 5 of them after searching for their names on Facebook or just after ten seconds of speaking to them on the phone.

Me: "Will it be just you renting?"
Wannabetenant: "Ummmmm. Well, I'd probably need to share with someone."
Me:

I bet a letting agent would have let all of these people trample through my house:
"I've got you 7 viewings already! Aren't I good and worth the £600 I'm charging you to get you a tenant?!"

In fact, one of them told me that this is the best time of year to try to let a house because you have all the couples who split at Xmas after enforced time together. At the time I believed him, but after reading your blog I realised, actually why would I want someone in an unstable domestic situation who doesn't know what they're going to be doing three months from now, and who's income has probably just been cut in half?!

The amount of times I have said today "That landlord blog guy was right!" is unreal.

So thank you so much for this blog, thank you for introducing me to OpenRent, and please keep the articles coming!

I have just let the house today. It's a single man who works fulltime near the property and has been renting somewhere for the past five years so he should be a good tenant, fingers crossed. Just need to do the referencing and apply for RGI now. How is your search going?

My prospective tenant has fallen through.Luckily I have followed your advice and continued to take viewings so do have 1 or 2 as a fallback.

I had booked for an inventory clerk through OpenRent, as recommended by you, to come on the 28th of this month, but obviously now I don't have a tenant moving in a few days later. My second choice will have to give a month's notice if I contact her and she still wants it. What would you do in this situation? Keep the appointment with the inventory clerk or postpone it for closer to when a new tenant will move in?

Hi The Landlord!
My fallbacks fell through, but last night a lovely couple put a holding deposit down through OpenRent, so the referencing is just going through. You are completely correct in your assertion that the Christmas/New Year period is the absolute worst time of year to look for a tenant. Since the second week in January the quality of tenants has steadily increased. This couple are the best I have seen both on paper and in the flesh. I agree with one of your articles when you said that gut instinct is so important when meeting tenants. I am so happy, and about to become a landlord for the first time! :0)

Hi Landlord!

I came across your blog recently and have really been enjoying it. I'm 26 and just managed to buy a property in London on my own (no parents our spouse or trust fund help... so it was an expensive investment, and I only managed because I'm from the US and when Brexit happened the pound tanked against the dollar so I transfered my US savings from my first job to pounds and managed to scrape up enough). I have been renovating it the last 6 months (living on an air mattress in a house with no functioning toilet or shower for 2 weeks was fun).

I'm about to become a landlord but if finding tenants is anything like finding builders as a single woman then I feel like I am in for a tough ride. I plan to use OpenRent as they seem great, but my question for you is this - is it OK to add certain clauses like "no nails in the walls" and "no smoking in the property" to my AST? OpenRent has editable sections of their AST but they advise NOT to change anything. How could I check the legality of clauses like those? Any advice on that is much appreciated. Keep up the good work - love the humor!

Adi

@Adi

There is no problem in making additions as long as they are legal, not against any law, for example tenants are entitled to "quiet enjoyment of the property", otherwise they become unfair contract terms and can invalidate all the other terms if there is not a severability clause preventing that.

It it totally fine to say people can't smoke and you should extend it to smoking anything. Walk along any block of flats and you will see green net curtains! You also need to explicitly state the consequence of such a breach, for example, subject to survey, the complete redecoration of the property including plasterboards, ceilings and carpets.

I would consider a cooking clause set out in a similar way, where they have to mitigate any damage or smells caused by cooking by opening windows and cleaning regularly.

With regard to nails, I would actually be more concerned about blutack, it has an oil in it that comes through even if you redecorate. I would actually allow screws (not nails) subject to them being properly fitted with a rawplug, subject to a check for wiring and pipes, and on condition that such screws are professionally repaired when the tenant departs and they agree to redecorate any area they put screws in a matching colour.

The trick here is to appear reasonable, it is a bit like pet clauses, you say no pets but the contract says they have to ask and you will make a case by case decision. Again always good to say what the sanction will be if they have pets.

I would suggest a clause about their obligation to use extractor fan in bathroom, open window in bathroom (if there is one) every day for an hour after taking a shower or bath. To open windows if they are drying clothes. Again, the consequences of not doing this would be that mould would form and they would be expected to put it right, subject to survey.

Remember that tenants cannot be charged for fair wear and tear, e.g. redecorating, as decor deteriorates anyway.

To help you I would suggest you download and read this document, it is the OFT guidance for unfair contract terms, it is not law but it is practically a bible as far as Judges are concerned.

http://bit.ly/oftguide

As you are a new Landlord I would draw your attention to the Landlords obligations page on this site and the tenancy deposit pages, it is all about doing things in the right order.

That means you take a deposit a week before the tenant takes occupancy, you protect the deposit in one of the approved schemes as a custodial deposit, then you give them the paperwork to sign on the day you take them in.

You should have the certificate as an appendix to the tenancy agreement along with; the inventory showing any damage as well as any items you are providing along with their condition.

The Gas Safety certificate and the Energy performance certificate, plus the LATEST copy of the "How to rent" from Gov.uk website. Have two copies of these, have the tenant sign each one to say they had a copy of same.

Take a video of the whole place, go close up on everything. Put the video up on YouTube as a hidden video, it will show the date the video was uploaded. Have the date shown on the video too.

Although you want to maximise rent, consider providing as little as possible, we have had tenants on hear complain that a toaster did not work. A cooker can be enough, a fridge is probably OK, but a washing machine may be a step too far.

Consider taking out insurance for boiler and any appliances you provide.

I would recommend that you get any revisions seen by your solicitor, it will not cost much and could save you thousands.

Hilarious but quite on point. I’ve only been in this game for 5 years but the utter stupidity of tenant enquiries.never fails to surprise me. I’ve switched to OpenRent recently after becoming jaded working with shyster high street letting agents who dodge the tenant referencing process and fill your properties with shit tenants. My properties are fairly new builds, very nicely finished and immaculately maintained, but somehow they’ve managed to be let out to dubious people of low moral character. One was a convicted psychotic scouse female drug dealer, who was supposedly working as a BT Engineer. The last one was an Iraqi chap, who I was told had been successfully credit checked and had a stable job, only to eventually find out he was illegally claiming benefits, whilst working as an Uber driver and doing several other jobs, failed to pay the rent for months and left a rack of debt against the property. My experience is that letting agents add no value, they will lie through their teeth and will do anything to hit their commission targets to the detriment of you. They are only slightly less evil than Peter Sutcliffe.