renting the property

safed

Hi,
Please guide re renting the property for buy to let mortgage. The property is a flat (in south London)and we want to buy a house now. We had put it on the market in 2008 and was approx 250k mark. But was not sold and then our circumstances changed.
We still have about 100000 on our mortgage .
I would like to know what is the costs of letting the house through estate agents approx and extras for repairs etc while tenats occupancy. Also do estate agents take responsibility for voids etc or we ahve to bear that as well.

Any suggestions appreciated.
Thanks in advance

BitterAndTwisted

If you don't have a buy-to-let mortgage you will have to seek permission from your lender. Some charge a fee and some insist you convert to a BTL mortgage which attracts a higher interest rate. You will also need to get landlords insurance.

Have you looked into what the average rent is in your area? Becoming a professional landlord is not for the faint-hearted, it has to be looked at purely as a business transaction and a lot of amateur landlords find it difficult to do that when the property was their own home. Once there are tenants in the property it becomes the tenant's home, not yours any longer, and there's no guarantee that they will look after the property in the same way you would. If there's a gas-supply to the property you are legally obliged to supply an annual gas-safety certificate.

And no, agents take no responsibility for void periods and they often charge about 10-15% in fees from the rent they're collecting depending on what kind of contract you sign with them. Whatever they say and whatever they do, please don't forget that in law the final responsibility always falls on the landlord: the agents are mere intermediaries. Anyone who becomes a landlord and doesn't join a landlords association is just asking for trouble somewhere down along the line.

A good place to start might be logging onto the LandlordZone website where a huge amount of information can be had. Professional landlords can be found on there to give advice as well.