Becoming an LL for Student Lettings

tbs624

cotleigh wrote: »

None of the above is actually relevant as to whether you can actually offer a house for summer holiday lets, though, is it?

The above "rules" relate to whether you can offset the running costs of the house against income for tax purposes.

Thanks for your response.

I think you perhaps misunderstood the post. The clue is actually in the phrase in my post "HMRC rules", as in apertaining to tax.

All things to be considered unless you are a LL of the tax dodging variety.

Mark.Gates7

dimbo61 wrote: »

You need a gas safety certificate (current )to rent out any property. you should have an electrical safety certificate/installation certificate, EPC.
The property needs modern double glazing with Fire escape windows upstairs.
If a student is going to pay you £85/90 a week they will expect a modern efficient combi gas boiler and radiators in every bedroom. Laminate flooring,Modern furniture, smoke alarms mains wired, 3 double sockets in every bedroom. alarm system, parking/ garden. Wireless broadband , LCD TV , leather sofa,s , new kitchen with washing machine, tumble dryer, dish washer, large american fridge freezer, and nice new clean bathroom/s ( 1 if 4 students and 2 if 5 or more students) with large walk in showers, white suite.
Dont forget the landlord insurance, bank fees, mortgage set up costs, legals, surveys, ETC simples really.
As for the 7 bedroom property well if its got 3 storey then its defo HMO and need licence ( costs big money)
There are plenty of cheap rental properties available at the moment because a number of LL have gone bust !!!!
Many of the big companies are pouring money into building huge tower blocks of student accommodation ALL ENSUITE in many student towns/cities

not meaning to be rude, but i think most students would kill to be able to rent something like you have described. this sounds more like something that would be rented by a group of young professionals or such like. so of that is mandatory but LCD TV, American Fridge, Tumble Dryer ect. are not generally found in student lets.

Mark.Gates7

Yes, after several hours reading over Article 4 i now understand the points raised on the HMO. I have started contact with the council for further guidance.
The Mortgage will be an issue due to strict criteria, i have not seen a mortgage lender state a minimum salary that i am not over which is good. The minimum age of 25 is about to be no longer applicable. Already having a residential mortgage may cause issues. other criteria may cause issues and at the moment this is the only thing that will put a block to plans, Planning permission may but i shall seek clarification.

cotleigh

tbs624 wrote: »

Thanks for your response.

I think you perhaps misunderstood the post. The clue is actually in the phrase in my post "HMRC rules", as in apertaining to tax.

All things to be considered unless you are a LL of the tax dodging variety.

My point is that these rules don't have any relevance to the situation, if you are already renting the property for the other nine months of the year anyway, because they are all about setting minimum periods for which a holiday home must be let during a year to "count" as a letting business.

Mark.Gates7

believe me guys, the area(s) in question would not be where the vast majority of people would look for holiday homes.

cotleigh

Dunroamin wrote: »

NOOOOOOOO!!!:eek::eek:

We thought like that when we went in for a student BTL in Bournemouth but the parents were a nightmare. They were fantastically well off by our standards but they objected when we kept part of the deposits for holes bashed in the walls and kicked in doors and expected us to keep a room vacant (with no rent paid) for one student who was locked up for dealing drugs from the house.

Coming from poor but honest, respectable working class backgrounds, my husband and I found the experience of the middle class parent at bay to be something of an eye opener.

One of them even threatened us with "sending the boys round" as "we know where you live"!:eek:

Never again.

The biggest problem I have found with the parents is when they turn up to drop their kids off, and the mums complain if the whole house isn't as clean as, say, an operating theatre. We had one woman ask us whether we had "steam cleaned the walls"! I mean, how often do you steam-clean the walls in YOUR house????

Fuzzyness

cattie wrote: »

Are you sure these are not monthly rents as I don't know any university students who can afford £300-£400 per week per room. Even in London, student lets don't command anywhere near that sort of rent. Unless it's in Belgravia of course.

they do round where i am (3 miles from Warwick uni). Rooms in shared houses go for 300 - 350 a month.

Annabee

cotleigh wrote: »

...........

We focus on larger houses (6 beds +) because there are less of these around, and students usually like living in a big house with lots of their friends. The town where we are doing this (Canterbury) doesn't have much going on in terms of purpose-built private student accommodation. .......

The HMO modifications are not that onerous, especially if you are "doing up" a house anyway. £4K for the whole fire alarm/emergency lights stuff, fire doors throughout, maybe some overboarding with fire-resistant plasterboard to walls on the stairway, enough bathrooms, that's it really.

Canterbury is a lovely town for students isn't it? I wonder if you are my daughter's new landlord for 2012/13? She has managed to find a lovely house with 2 bathrooms, and paying a lot less than what she has been paying to Kent Uni for on-campus accommodation (extortionate IMO, though it was a nice room).

Do you use a letting agency, though? We discovered those in Canterbury really rip off the students (£50 + VAT EACH for check-in, check-out, multiply by 5 and that's a nice little earner. We rent ourselves and have never been charged this fee.) Also insisting that the students take out insurance via the agency (I though they weren't allowed to do this?). And then half rent over the summer, although they aren't even allowed to store their stuff. After that payment quarterly in advance. Although maybe these last 2 may be standard with student lettings, I wouldn't know?

As daughter is in a group of 5, does this mean the house should really be HMO? I wasn't very keen on becoming guarantor and the whole 'jointly and severally liable' thing, but what can you do? Letting agents are sharks, and maybe more so with student lettings.

Bufger

dimbo61 wrote: »

You need a gas safety certificate (current )to rent out any property. you should have an electrical safety certificate/installation certificate, EPC.
The property needs modern double glazing with Fire escape windows upstairs.
If a student is going to pay you £85/90 a week they will expect a modern efficient combi gas boiler and radiators in every bedroom. Laminate flooring,Modern furniture, smoke alarms mains wired, 3 double sockets in every bedroom. alarm system, parking/ garden. Wireless broadband , LCD TV , leather sofa,s , new kitchen with washing machine, tumble dryer, dish washer, large american fridge freezer, and nice new clean bathroom/s ( 1 if 4 students and 2 if 5 or more students) with large walk in showers, white suite.
Dont forget the landlord insurance, bank fees, mortgage set up costs, legals, surveys, ETC simples really.
As for the 7 bedroom property well if its got 3 storey then its defo HMO and need licence ( costs big money)
There are plenty of cheap rental properties available at the moment because a number of LL have gone bust !!!!
Many of the big companies are pouring money into building huge tower blocks of student accommodation ALL ENSUITE in many student towns/cities

I'm not sure if you've ever been a LL or student but thats completely untrue. In the West Midlands (Birmingham, Coventry, Rugby, Leamington etc) the average rate for student housing near the university is £80 per week. for that you'll get a bed, wadrobe, side table, ceiling rose, bathroom with shower to share with 1 or 2 other rooms, any old reclaimed sofa, some kind of table and a kitchen with cooker etc.

You wont get an LCD TV, you wont get laminate flooring (unless the LL wants to do that, its their choice i guess) and you certainly wont get a private garage as you'll be in the city centre.

Students pay over the odds for a single room. Generally they dont mind because they're rarely in it!

- Graduate experienced with student housing.

Bufger

Fuzzyness wrote: »

they do round where i am (3 miles from Warwick uni). Rooms in shared houses go for 300 - 350 a month.

OP was originally saying per week.

£300-£350 per month is average

I'm 5 minutes from Warwick Uni