Landlords Guide
1) Instructing Us
Spare Property? Check
Need Tenants? Check
Well you’ve come to the right place. This short guide is here to guide you through our process from marketing through the tenants moving in and the management there in. We’ve designed this guide to put your mind at ease, explain fully why our service is 2nd to none and to explain why certain requirements need to be met.
Firstly we would come and visit your property, giving you a market appraisal of the current market rental value, talk you through the process and offer advice on works that could be carried out to increase the market value or appeal to different tenant markets. This is a no obligation viewing, but obviously we would love you to instruct us to manage the tenant finding and management – but we leave that up to you to decide.
Should you decide to instruct us an EPC would have to be carried out on the property. This is basically a government requirement report that measure the energy efficiency of a property and something by law that tenants have to be shown. We can arrange this for you for an additional cost.
We would then take photos of the property and video walk throughs, as we believe a well representated property with plenty of photos and video walk throughs has a much better conversion rate from viewings to let.
We then advertise your property on a number of popular internet property portals, our website, social media & through our mailing list.
2) Arranging Viewings
Once advertised we then take the calls / emails from prospective tenants that could be interested in your property. We run them through the process, ask them to view the website and then arrange a suitable viewing time for them (within your constraints if necessary). We then send them all the info on the property by email, confirming the viewing and we meet them at the property to carry out the viewing. When viewing we give additional information regarding the local area i.e. schools, leisure facilities etc and highlight the main features of the property.
3) Tenancy Application
After the viewing if the tenant is interested in moving in we then take their bank details, employment details and previous address history in order to run the comprehensive credit checks. Before doing this we give you a call to check you are ok to proceed, on your instruction we then start the checks – these are usually back within a couple of days. To ensure tenant commitment we also take a refundable on completion of credit check deposit to cut down on time wasters as once we start the tenancy application the property is taken off the market.
4) Tenancy Agreement
When we receive confirmation of the tenant check completion we will then contact the tenant and if successful will arrange a moving date that is suitable to both yours and there needs within reason. Prior to the tenant taking possession a gas check will have to be carried out and furniture checks will have to have been met, we can ensure this is carried out for an additional fee. It is also advisable for a schedule of condition to be carried out at property by our inventory clerk to document the condition of the property before tenancy to ensure no discrepancies when tenant moves out. We pride ourselves in these reports and ensuring they are an accurate portrayal of the property for which both the landlord and tenant signs up to.
We would prepare the tenancy agreement which is an Assured Shorthold Tenacy Agreement which is linked in with the goverment deposit protection scheme to avoid any loop holes in requirements between parties. This is a widely used standard tenancy agreement by most agencies, These can be set for 6 or 12 months typically.
We then invite the tenant(s) into the office or sometimes at the property to agree and sign up to the documents. If you require us to carry out a schedule of condition or manage the property we would agree to meet up with the tenant(s) at the property to sign up to documents but also to run through the report or if in the case of management to show them appliances i.e. boiler and how they work etc.
At this stage the tenants are required to pay the first months rent up front & security deposit (which is paid into government deposit protection scheme). Then the keys are handed over once the tenant has signed, paid and is happy with everything.
5) After Moving In
We then write to the various utility companies on your behalf to notify them of changes to tenancy and give them details of the new tenants and the latest meter readings – the accounts will then get transferred to the lead tenant.
If you choose to use us for the tenant & property management we will then continue to ensure the tenants are happy and your property is well looked after.
