1st time landlord, question:

Dave101t

we are renting our house as fully furnished (as we are leaving everything- less our personal possessions). How far does fully furnished go, i.e. would you leave tinned foodstuffs in the cupboard and put clean bedsheets and duvets on, or remove these completely.

Another factor is the tenants are moving in straight from china (students), so i imagine they wont have any non-essential crap.

19lottie82

It's up to you and It will vary from landlord to landlord.

From my experience furnished should include beds, bedroom furniture and I'd there is a lounge a sofa / suite and perhaps a coffee table or sideboard.

You can provide extras such as kitchen utensils and bedding but personally I wouldn't bother as its an extra expense for you and your tennents should be able to pick what they need up from Ikea for not a lot.

Oh perhaps provide a vacuum cleaner, but again, it's up to you.

Fire_Fox

Food is never included, you would have to date check absolutely everything and write all the brands down! Sometimes kitchen pans and crockery are included, but that is an absolute nightmare for the inventory. Bedding is a bad idea, it will need chucking at the end of the tenancy for hygiene, it gets full of dust mites and bacteria and body fluids. :eek: Having said that I have seen places leave a mattress protector. Fully furnished = furniture and white goods, including vacuum and lawn mower. Bear in mind your inventory should have numerous detailed photographs, even down to the cleanliness inside the kitchen cupboards.

Are you getting the full six months up front plus a larger than normal deposit in case they do a flit back overseas?

gildius

I agree - I wouldn't leave food, bedding or utensils as the tenants will probably want to get their own anyway.

Werdnal

I too would suggest removing the food; bed linen etc is usually down to the tenants to supply, but up to you. You may want to add some mattress protectors depending on how precious you are over the beds!

Are all you furnishings up to current fire safety regs? This is a legal requirement - if you are not sure, then check and remove anything that is not current.

Also, whatever you are leaving you must make a full and thorough inventory of everything, its condition and any existing marks or damage. If you do not have a start condition, there is no way you can claim for any loss of damage at the end, as it will be your word against the tenant's as to whether damage was already there when they moved in. This will also cover any items that go missing during the tenancy, as you will have proof they were there at the start.

How many tenants are you letting to? If 3 or more unrelated people share, you may fall foul of HMO regs? Have you checked?

Have you done any checks on these tenants? Foreign students have a habit of disappearing back overseas, sometimes mid-course if things go wrong. Have you done anything to safeguard yourself should the worst happen?

Also, I assume being such a long term member here, you may have been directed to this thread in the past:

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.php?p=41160642&postcount=12

but if not, its a good read, and has been recently updated, so another quick read through will not hurt to ensure your are complying with everything!

sharnad

You wouldn't include food or bedding. I suppose if your being nice you could leave them a little welcome card and food basket if they have come all the way from china they will probably be tired the first day. Mattress protectors are a good idea. Furniture curtains etc should be left make sure you make a full inventory

Rosemary7391

Student houses usually accumulate a lot of non inventoried kitchen utensils, pots and pans etc. So it'd be okay to leave those if you're not too fussed about them getting ruined (at some point they will be!). Bedding I wouldn't use, and certainly not food.

Useful things to leave would be a list of information like days/times for putting bins out, nearest local shop/supermarket, how to work the boiler and washing machine. Cleaning materials seem to accumulate in houses as well, and encouraging them to clean is probably a good thing!

Agree that things like curtains should be left - anything remotely house specific needs to be there. When you're moving every year it'd be a real pain to get new curtains every time! Kitchen utensils and bedding are easy to move and use in a new place, so not having them is fine, but anything that isn't in that category needs to be there.