Thinking of Managing your Own Property?

Be aware of what’s going on behind the walls of your rental property with this useful advice...

Benefit fraud, sub-letting, on-going damage, drug rings and even brothels have all been discovered hidden behind the disguise of what at first appeared to be a ‘good’ tenant. So, how would you know if something untoward was happening in your rental property?

Tenants with untoward motives for securing a rental property will often target private landlords who find the tenant themselves – therefore it is extremely important to vet all potential tenants in order to minimise the risk.

It’s important to remember that the majority of the time these types of people will target private landlords because it’s easier for them to secure a property, plus the landlord is less likely to do the regular inspections that an agent would.

Vigilant visits!

Once the tenant has moved into the property, it is vital that you carry out inspections to assess that the tenancy is running smoothly and the property is being utilised within the rules of the tenancy agreement.

Inspections throughout the tenancy are essential, without them it would be almost impossible to know what’s going on inside a property – and, if something untoward was happening, key indicators are likely to be noticed during the inspection.

Inspections are also useful in terms of assessing the condition of the property.

Some tenants don’t even contact us about repairs – and it is during the inspections that the need for these is revealed.

Smoking can be an issue too and, if a tenant has been smoking in the property, it is usually very obvious at the inspection.

At Belvoir Kingston we visit the property after initially approximately three months after the move in date and then every six months thereafter, this ensures that we allow the tenant privacy so that they do not feel as though we are intruding into their home however at the same time it allows us to check the condition of the property and how it is being kept by the tenant.

Regular inspections can also help establish a good relationship between you and the tenant and help you build trust in one another.

No entry!

If a tenant won’t commit to an inspection, there may be a reason why!

If the tenant would/could not commit to a date and time, after several attempts, we would assertively but politely suggest that we use the key to enter the property to undertake the inspection in their absence.

Run Itself!

Don’t ever leave a tenancy to run itself, regular communication will always bring to light changes or concerns within a tenancy and proactive management enables you to deal with problems as they arise.

What would you do?

Do you really want the hassle of dealing with inspections? Extending your tenancy? Do you want your tenant to be calling you about repairs and jobs?

Are you happy with your tenant calling you at any time of the day or night to report a minor repair or small query? Are you able to liaise with your tenant and trusted tradesman and keep your tenant updated constantly? Although we contact you to report a repair, once we have the go ahead from you, then we will liaise with the tenant and contractor to get the repair completed as quickly and as smoothly as possible.

What would you do if your rent wasn’t received? We would know on the exact date if your rent was not in our account, we would contact your tenant to find out the reason. We have several ways in which a tenant can pay their rent, these are: standing order, debit or credit card, call into our office, directly in to our bank and finally a member of staff collecting it direct. If we are unable to contact your tenant, we will try to make contact with them on a daily basis, we also call down to the property but we will stay within in the law as not to be seen to harass your tenant.

Are you willing to perform regular periodic visits to your property? We will do this twice a year and for many reasons, we like to check in with the tenants to see what their plans are for the future, to make sure there is no visible malicious damage being caused to your property, to check for signs that the property is not being used for illegal activities and to also spot repairs or damages that the tenant may not have noticed or reported.

Do you want your tenant knowing your contact address? When we manage the property, we do not give them your details unless they request this in writing, legally we have to do this within 14 days (but this very rarely happens)

Do you have the resources available to keep yourself updated with the constant changes in the law surrounding property and tenancies? We have ARLA, NALS and Central Office Legal Department updating us we also attend numerous courses throughout the year.

Would you be willing to do your own move outs with your tenants? We meet your tenants at the property and run through the inventory to check that the property is in similar condition to how it was given it to them. Our staff have been on many courses to deal with this, so that we can handle any confrontational situations, work out correctly how damages will be charged, overcome any objections and we will also inform utility companies of the meter readings and of the tenants forwarding address.

Who would deal with all of this whilst you were on holiday or unable to due to personal circumstances? We are open 6 days a week throughout the year to ensure that your property is managed efficiently and effectively.

At Belvoir Kingston we take the hassle and stress out of letting. With our managed service we deal with all faults and repairs and we carry out regular inspections allowing you to enjoy the benefits of your rental property without the hassle. Contact us today for more information on our services; all of our fees are totally transparent with no hidden costs. Have piece of mind that the letting specialists are taking care of your rental property and relax in the knowledge that you wont be receiving calls from tenants at all hours of the morning!.

Let. us do all the work!

Belvoir!

Be Aware of Bad Agents; Always Choose Carefully

It is important when choosing which letting agent to let your home from, that you research the company and check that they are a fully qualified traders and members of NALS. If you choose a rouge trader then like this story reveals your money may not be safe and you may end up out of pocket and homeless.

Here at Belvoir lettings all of our staff are fully NALS qualified and we are registered members of NALS. We are also associated with SAFEagent a recognised association for professional letting agents.

Follow the link below to read the full article of one rouge trader:

http://www.lettingagenttoday.co.uk/news_features/Letting-agent-is-jailed-after-fraud

Let. us do all the work!

Belvoir

Kingston upon Thames

15/01/2015

Sole or Multi-agent, which is more successful?

Last week I was talking to a friend whose flat in Kingston is up for rent. It’s a lovely flat but when she pulled out her phone to show me her advert on-line,I was surprised to find that she had instructed four local agents! Why so many? Well she was certain that more agents would mean more competition (everyone keen to earn their fee) and that more people would see her property. Right?

Will more people see her flat? No, not really. Over 90% of people find their next home online. Agents know this and so are signed up with a least one of the big two portals. By engaging four agents, her advert will be seen by the same number of people, they’ll just see it four times. And instead of attracting interest that’s actually more likely to look a little desperate and put people off.

Will agents work harder to let her flat? Again, unlikely. After the initial flurry of interest and viewings, an agent faced with the choice of devoting time and effort to a multi-agency property where they have a 1 in 4 chance of earning their fee, or a property where they are sole agent, will invariably choose the latter. Or worse, in order to get across the line first, they may take short-cuts with the tenants they introduce!

My advice? Firstly, review the adverts. Which agent had taken the best pictures and written the best description to attract tenants? Secondly, what was her 'gut feel'? Which agent did she believe would offer her the best service both initially and over the lifetime of the tenancy? Once she'd weighed up the alternatives and decided which agency came out on top, it was a simple to contact the agent and instruct them for a month on a sole agency basis.

What was not so simple was cancelling the agents she had not selected!!

January 2015

About Us

First and foremost, we’re a Lettings Agency. Once you’ve bought the property, we want to manage it for you(!), or help with just finding you a tenant. With that considered, it’s very much in OUR interests that you buy something that’s sensible and lettable – we don’t want you buying a dud, or something where the figures don’t stack up!

There’s some mutual gain here. As such we can help in a number of ways:

We’ll Give You Tip Offs!

We keep a close eye on the housing market, and run an email list of decent buys that materialise. These cover the whole market – from repossessions, to cheap DSS bedsits, to family houses in nice suburbs – there’s something for everyone. Sometimes you can even buy with a tenant in situ, which means you pick up rental income from day 1.

Some Estate Agents will also tip us off when they get a property they need to sell quickly, and landlords can pick up a good deal as a result. There’s no charge for this service – just email jason.ou@belvoirlettings.com and ask to be put on the list.

 

We’ll Act as a Sounding Board

When you’ve not bought investment property before, it can be daunting. What area? What type of property? What type of tenant? How much work needs doing? You quickly end up in a situation where you have 5 different estate agents constantly phoning you and swearing blind that their deal is the best one you’ll find!

 We’re more than happy for you to come and see us for a chat about the options. Show us what you’re looking at and we’ll tell you what we think of the deal, or suggest alternatives. Or just ping us an email with a link. You’ll get an open and honest assessment of whether the deal on the table is as good as it sounds. Again, we don’t charge for this and we don’t pressure people into purchasing anything. If you want to come for a chat, email   jason.ou@belvoirlettings.com

Some people come and see us once, go and buy something, and don’t use our lettings service, which is fine. Others come and see us on repeated occasions for advice during their search for a property. This is fine too, but we kind of hope these people will use us to let the property once they’ve bought it. When we’re giving our time freely, and on repeated occasions, it’s quite frustrating to find the purchaser has let the property through another agent who bullied them into it, because they weren’t strong enough to say no!

We’ll Formally Source Property For You

We have a number of landlords who like to invest, but don’t want to do the legwork, go and see properties, or even visit Kinggston themselves! In this scenario, we can source properties for you - we need a defined set of criteria, so we understand what you’re looking for, but thereafter you can leave us to do the legwork. We do charge a finder’s fee for this service, payable on successful completion of a purchase.

Landlord Tips For Winter

Its only the start of cold weather, but we already have forecasts that its going to be a chilly winter! Here are some tips for landlords to keep in mind and prepare themselves for the frosty time of the year;

Turn me on!
Firstly, It’s a good idea for agents or landlords to write to tenants to request that they try putting on their central heating as soon as possible to make sure it is working, otherwise at the first really cold snap everyone turns on their central heating and, when quite a few are not working, it puts a strain on contractors and consequently lengthens response time.

Cheap Day return
As we enter the colder months it’s important to remind tenants that if they are planning to be away from a property for a few days they should keep the central heating on a low setting to maintain a temperature of between 12-15 degrees Celsius in the property and if possible, they should also leave the hatch to the roof space open. This can help avoid frozen or cracked pipes.

AWOL
If a tenant intends to stay away from the property for more than a few days, then we advise that they turn off the water supply, and shut down and drain the central heating boiler and associated pipe work, it’s important to take advice before attempting to carry this out.

Fencing
Is the property’s fence going to stand up to the winter wind? Check your fence panels and trellising for signs of wear and tear and repair and replace where necessary. It only takes one weak panel to potentially bring down an entire fence!

You old boiler!
Make sure the boiler is serviced on a regular basis (usually once a year. As winter approaches bleed all of the radiators and keep the boiler pressure up too.

Frozen taps
Did you know that outside taps can sometimes be the cause of problems in winter? If you can, it’s advisable to fit an isolator to their stopcock in order to give your tenant the option to turn them off during really cold weather.

Why don’t men read instructions?
It’s important for tenants to know how the boiler system in the property works and they should familiarise themselves with the operating instructions and, if they are unable to find the operating manual, they should contact us (with the make and model) and we’ll try and find a copy for them.

Life in the Gutter
Clear out the guttering to avoid water logs and leaks, fallen leaves and moss can clog guttering and lead to rain water overflowing into the infrastructure of the building. Check for leaks and cracks in the guttering too

Quick thinking Batman
Reacting and acting quickly is essential when maintenance issues arise. Don’t be tempted to ignore a problem thinking that it’ll clear itself up come spring. Winter maintenance issues tend to escalate as the season progresses and the cost to fix them is likely to rise 
too!

No batteries required?
Batteries running out in a remote control digital thermostat can cause the heating to fail and Batteries should be checked regularly and replaced (using the instruction manual) when necessary.

Lofty ideas
Good insulation is key to keeping a property as snug as possible. Ensure the loft is adequately insulated to help avoid losing heat through the roof – and make sure the pipes are lagged too, especially those that run through the loft space and are vulnerable to sharp drops in temperat

Extractor advice
Check that bathroom extractor fans are working and that they are cleaned on a regular basis as this is important in order to help prevent any moisture build up in the bathroom when tenants are having a hot shower or bath.

Call 999?
Have you got a plan in case of an emergency? It’s wise to prepare in advance, perhaps investing in a portable heater and electric urn in case a tenant is without essential services to the property. Supplying bottled water can be useful for tenants with no running water due to frozen pipes too.

Condensation – a big drip?
Although they won’t completely prevent mildew and condensation, adequate heating and ventilation in the winter months will assist in keeping the problem down.

Empty homes
If your property is currently vacant, it is essential that you or your agent visit it regularly to inspect for winter maintenance issues. Check for leaking windows and damp walls, plus (if you haven’t switched off the water) try the taps to make sure the water is flowing. Frozen pipes left unnoticed in an empty home can result in extensive damage and expensive bills.

Rental Price For YOUR Property

When investing in property, it’s easy to get it wrong. Before I was a lettings agent, I bought a newly built 1 bedroom flat because that’s what everyone else seemed to be doing. I still have it – mainly because no one is going to take it off me for the price I paid for it!

You live and learn. But it’s important to remember that you make your money when you BUY a property, not when you sell it. If you buy at the wrong price, it’s more or less impossible to rectify that going forwards unless a rising property market saves you.

If you buy sensibly, you can also expect to sell sensibly if you ever need to. Try to avoid:

• Simply overpriced. Once you’ve established you can buy a nice 2 bedroom property in a given area for £X, don’t pay £X + £5,000 for one because you’re impatient. If you overpay at the point of purchase, you’re playing “catch up” regarding the value of the property from day 1 ....  So DON’T overpay!

• Needs work, and this isn’t reflected in the price. DON’T be put off by properties that need work, as these are often the best buys. But DO ensure this is reflected in the price. If it’s £X for a nice one, its £X minus £5,000 for one that needs a kitchen and bathroom.

• Unrealistic rental price. If you’re buying in an area where flats rent for £1550 per month, don’t expect yours to rent for £1800 per month on the basis that it’s just been painted – expect it to rent for £1450 per month if you don’t paint it!

• Lacking key features. If you’re buying in the suburbs to attract the family market, don’t buy the one house on the street that has no garden, or no parking. Families want gardens!

Tenancy Agreements

I recently had a landlord who wanted to write his own tenancy agreement. Apparently he'd done it that way for years! Clearly this is a landlord's prerogative - it's their house at the end of the day, and many landlords operate without an agent using either a tenancy agreement they've written themselves, or no tenancy agreement at all. However it made me wonder why he'd chosen to use a lettings agent at all - it's a bit like me engaging an accountant because I don't have the expertise in a particular area that they do, and then not taking the advice I'm given and deciding I know best.

Unsurprisingly, the tenancy agreement he gave us was pretty poor, and showed a complete lack of understanding of what's legal and what isn't! When your property is rented by a limited company, you use a contractual tenancy agreement, which gives the landlord far greater flexibility to write whatever clauses he likes as long as both parties agree. When your tenant is an individual (99% of tenancies), you use an Assured Shorthold Tenancy (AST) which is governed by legislation, leaving far less flexibility for landlords to insert random clauses. Examples include:

1. The Housing Act says what notice periods must apply by law to an AST. The landlord can't simply overwrite this by getting the tenant to sign something.
2. The responsibility for arranging the annual gas safety certificate is the Landlords, not the tenants, irrespective of what the tenancy agreement says. You can't simply amend the law by mutual agreement!
3. The tenant has a legal right to the 'peaceful enjoyment' of the property, and this right carries more weight than the landlords right to inspect the property or visit the property. From a landlords perspective, this can be frustrating, but it's legally correct.
4. The tenancy deposit must be registered in accordance with the rules! Again, you can't include a clause that bypasses this requirement. 
5. Generally, and as with all contracts, there's such a thing as an unfair clause. For example you can't insist on the tenant sweeping the patio once a week! Just because you've got your tenant to sign acceptance of an item, if you end up in court over the matter later, a judge could still find in your tenants favour on the basis that the clause in the tenancy agreement was unfair. 

Surely one reason for using a lettings agent is to ensure that the tenancy is set up correctly, and as such any later problems are minimised? If you're using an experienced ARLA lettings agent, you'll find we all have slightly different tenancy agreements, but the clauses in them all come from:

1. our professional bodies, who update us on changes to legislation and
2. our experience of managing thousands of tenancies over the years. 

We are constrained by legislation to some extent, our standard tenancy agreement has evolved over the last few months, learning from experiences and mistakes, to protect our the landlord (our client) as much as the law allows. 

Inventory

A landlord will often ask if he really needs an inventory. "It's unfurnished, yes? So there's nothing to list" is a response we often hear. However an inventory doesn't just record things that are in the property, it also records the condition in which the property has been given to the tenant, which can be really important when the tenancy comes to an end.

The reason for this is that the law now assumes the tenancy deposit belongs to the tenant. If a landlord wants to claim on a deposit, he must be able to prove that the condition of the property has changed during the course of the tenancy. If there's no record of the property condition at the start of the tenancy, its more or less impossible for a landlord to claim the condition has changed at the end. It has been this way since new deposit rules came in in 2007.

For this reason, a landlord without an inventory is on weak ground. I had a landlord with a 2 bed apartment who insisted they didn't need an inventory - the property was unfurnished and they had never had one previously. The tenants didn't trash the property, but they did cause damage to a couple of carpets that the landlord wanted replaced. The tenants however claimed the carpets were in poor condition at the start of the tenancy and as such hadn't been damaged by them. When the deposit dispute went to adjudication under the new rules, the adjudicator was unable to decide which party was correct and as such awarded the full deposit to the tenant by default. The landlord thus had to pay for his own new carpets. 

To further enhance the landlords position, good inventories these days are done with a video camera. This eliminates the potential for argument over what a written inventory actually means. "Painted door with small mark towards bottom" is ambiguous. A video showing exactly what that small mark looks like can't really be argued with! We introduced video inventories in Kingston this year. They cost the landlord a bit more, but since their introduction none of our landlords who has taken one has ever lost a deposit claim to a tenant. As such there's an argument they are money well spent.